GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Two games into the era of Dom Capers running a 4-3 defense with the Green Bay Packers has had mixed results. Perhaps that was somewhat expected by Capers and head coach Mike McCarthy considering that the team opted to keep it hidden during training camp and not use it in preseason.
But if anyone wants to classify the early days of this new defensive experiment as going through growing pains, McCarthy would care to disagree.
"No, not at all," McCarthy responded. "I don't think there's been any . . . I'm fine with it. Our issue Week 1 was tackling. And obviously (in Week 2), from the second quarter on I thought we played very well."
The Packers allowed 36 points to the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks in their season-opening loss and then 24 points to the New York Jets in a comeback victory Sunday at Lambeau Field. Too much stock can't be put into rankings after just eight quarters of football, but those numbers have Green Bay 28th in the NFL in points allowed. Small sample size or not, no defense wants to be that near the bottom at any point in the season.
Capers didn't attribute the slow start defensively to trying a new scheme, saying that the Packers are "still running a lot of different things," meaning more than just the 4-3.
Capers has often called his defenses based on what personnel the offense has on the field, but McCarthy made a somewhat surprising statement about his thoughts on playing like that.
"I'm not a big fan of matching offensive personnel, frankly," McCarthy said. "Dom and I talk about this all the time."
McCarthy then began to change his thought process.
"I'm not saying what we do is wrong," he said. "Ideally you want to match personnel, but when the offense is in a muddle-huddle type mode as the Jets are and they're doing their substitution and just the way the substitution patterns are formatted from the offense; I mean, if you're going to match, it's all about getting the players the call at the right time.
"We want to stay aggressive in our approach. We don't want to be getting calls in at the last second and things like that. Matching, there's a place for matching and there's a place to play by down and distance, and that's how football has always been played."
Capers believes he did more of what McCarthy wanted this week against New York, especially in comparison to in Seattle when Green Bay had frequent substitution problems and even allowed a touchdown with just 10 players on the field.
"I just went ahead and made a call," Capers said of his style against the Jets. "It might not have been the perfect call, but I thought for that situation it was important to get the guys lined up where they were facing the offense and ready to go."
Something started to click for the defense, too. After giving up three touchdowns on New York's first three offensive possessions, the Packers allowed just three points for the rest of the game.
"I felt from the second quarter on they were in control of the game," McCarthy said of his defense.
Late in the second quarter Sunday, Green Bay had just cut the Jets' lead down to 21-9 after a 55-yard Mason Crosby field goal. McCarthy decided it was a good time to go for a surprise onside kick. However, New York sure didn't seem surprised by it, recovering quite easily despite a kick from Crosby that special teams coordinator Shawn Slocum said was "well done."
Greg Salas grabbed the ball at the Jets 40-yard line and was even able to return it eight yards. Something about the way it happened seemed odd to McCarthy.
"Well, you know, I felt like they were in our huddle, frankly," McCarthy said. "Just the way they lined up to it is disturbing to me. It's something we've never shown, it's a formation we've never been in. We did it earlier, and I kind of pushed the envelope there."
The result wasn't what McCarthy wanted, but he didn't regret his decision to give it a shot.
"I was trying to steal a series back, frankly, that we lost at the beginning of the game (from the Aaron Rodgers fumbled snap exchange) and the fact that they had the ball coming out in the second half," McCarthy said. "Like a lot of times when you make those kind of decisions, a lot of those variables are looked at before the game, so you're able to react to it.
"The timing of it, I thought the risk was definitely worth it. And frankly, if we tackle, they have the ball on the 35-, 37-yard line, so I thought it was a good call."
Micah Hyde was injured Sunday on an eight-yard punt return in the second quarter, and though he tried to stay in the game was eventually ruled out. Well, the knee injury suffered by the Packers starting safety shouldn't be too bad.
"I think Micah is going to be fine," McCarthy said.
Hyde was in the locker room Monday and felt as if he avoided anything significant.
"It's good," Hyde said. "I just took a little shot on the kneecap. Nothing serious, nothing major. Just a little soreness."
The news was not so good for backup outside linebacker Andy Mulumba, who injured his knee while covering a punt in the fourth quarter.
"Unfortunately for Andy Mulumba, he suffered a significant injury," McCarthy said. "They're waiting on some other results. It didn't look good during the game and it doesn't sound very good."
There's one additional injury that the Packers are dealing with, but this one to Casey Hayward has little clarity about it. Though Green Bay's plan going into the game was to use Davon House in nickel packages rather than Hayward (which was a change from Week 1), it wasn't as if Capers planned to keep the third-year cornerback off the field altogether like he ended up doing. When it was Jarrett Bush in on the dime package instead of Hayward, it was likely that something was wrong, and that is what seems to be the case.
"I don't know what the medical status of Casey was at that point in time," Capers said when explaining Bush's defensive snaps. "We'll have to find out there. Really, Bush was healthy and ready to go, and I don't know that Casey might have tightened up just a little bit. With his hamstring issues in the past, you're always cautious of that."
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