It's time for this week's edition of Packers Mailbag . . .
Q. Should The special teams coaches be worried about their jobs? -- Louie, Menomonie
Q. What can the Packers do to fix the special teams problems? -- Dennis, Beloit
Q. what is the problem with special teams? blocking, players or coaches or all of the above? -- Brody
Q. What is up with special teams? why so many blunders? Is this coaching, players or both? Will this be their undoing in the playoffs? -- JB, Eau Claire
Q. With all the problems on Special Teams this season do you think Shawn Slocum's job is in jeopardy if things don't get better the last two games and in the playoffs? Would they possibly replace him at the end of the season with Ron Zook? -- Kathy, Stevens Point
A: When the topic with the most questions leading into Week 16 of the regular season is about problems on special teams, it's a fairly obvious sign that it is indeed a problem.
Though the Packers gave up a 75-yard punt return touchdown in Buffalo, punt coverage hasn't been a season-long issue. Even with that return by the Bills, Green Bay has still only given up 177 punt return yards this season. Only four teams have given up fewer punt return yards than that, so what happened in Buffalo was not indicative of the season as a whole for the Packers.
However, the blocked kicks situation has gone beyond being just an area of concern. When Mason Crosby's field-goal attempt was blocked this past Sunday, it was the sixth time this season that a Green Bay kick was blocked. That's now two field-goal attempts blocked, two extra-point attempts blocked and two punts blocked. A lot of that started when the Packers decided to remove Josh Sitton and T.J. Lang from the protection units after both of the starting offensive guards suffered injuries Week 8 in New Orleans. Lang was hurt on an extra-point attempt.
Special teams coordinator Shawn Slocum noted "continuity and personnel" for the main reasons in the protection breakdowns, and that's because of the absence of Sitton and Lang. Mike McCarthy said it's a "risk assessment" for him in making that decision, adding that those kicking plays are "a challenging football play for anybody on the interior of a protection unit." If Sitton and Lang get healthier soon, they could be re-inserted on special teams to see if that solves the problem.
As for Kathy's question about Slocum's job security, keep in mind that Green Bay hasn't been bad in every special teams area. But certainly if McCarthy believes enough of the blame falls on the coaching when it comes to the blocked kicks, the team could consider making a change this offseason. Having a former high-level head coach in Ron Zook behind Slocum would make that a fairly easy transition if McCarthy decided he had to make a change.
Q. why did the Packers go away from the run game? with Lacy and Starks, it was working. -- Mike, Duluth
Q. With Rodgers having an off day, why didn't they stick with Lacy more when he was running so well? Starks was hardly used and he had some good runs too. Why didn't they use Lacy more on the screen pass when nothing else was working? -- Mike, Cloquet
A: McCarthy was asked this question twice Monday and mostly did not agree with the general assessment that the Packers didn't run the ball enough. Though there were 45 passing plays and 22 running plays, and it was the passing game that didn't work (Aaron Rodgers with several career lows) while the running game worked very well (6.6 yards per carry), McCarthy didn't see much of a problem with the play-calling.
"I thought we had good balance running it and throwing it," McCarthy said. "I thought reviewing the game, there's probably one or two calls that I wish I had back. But I thought we put our guys in position to make plays, particularly against the defensive call that was called throughout the game, particularly in the personnel groups."
McCarthy later added: "I'm very comfortable with the way the game was called. We don't just line up sometimes and just do this or do that. I think we have a very flexible game plan each and every week. Aaron's decisions at the line of scrimmage, I think this is probably his highest grade as far as the adjustments. . . . I thought we created some very good scenarios, and Aaron deserves a lot of credit for that. Whether a two-yard pass is considered a run or a pass, I continue to answer that question the same way. I think it's important to run the football, I think when we wanted to run it we ran it very well. Particularly when we had them in a run-pass mode, we ran it extremely well. I'm trying to think back through the calls. I think maybe there's about nine minutes left, when the game got to a two-score game, I was concerned about the time. That's why I went to more exclusive Randall (Cobb) in the backfield, out of the backfield and so forth. With that, those are a lot of run-pass option type things."
So, that's McCarthy's take on it. Whether he changed anyone's opinion on the topic would be a fun poll to see the results.
Q. Why are the coaches reluctant to criticize Rodgers after a bad game? They praise him for good games, he had an uncharacteristically bad game. -- Carl, Menomonie
Q. What is behind Rodgers having such a bad game? Why so many drops by the receivers? Do you see them all rebounding and having a big day in TB Sunday? -- Marv, Elmwood
A: It's fair to say that offensive coordinator Tom Clements was particularly cautious about criticizing Rodgers. While it goes along with Clements' personality in most interactions with the media, it did seem like he was perhaps a bit overly protective in his comments after Rodgers didn't play well. I can't imagine Rodgers would have been upset if Clements would have answered the questions with more specifics, but here's a sample of what we got Monday . . .
Why the disconnect in the passing game? "Don't have an answer."
How do you address it this week? "You look at the film, make corrections, move on and get ready for the next game."
What were you thinking as you saw a rare instance of Rodgers struggling? "I'm not going to get into what I was thinking during the course of the game. If you want to ask Aaron what he was thinking, that was fine. We looked at the film, we're going to make corrections and move on to Tampa."
Why wasn't Rodgers himself in this game? "He was himself. He was Aaron Rodgers."
Why didn't he play like Rodgers normally does? "You can make an assessment. I'm not going to talk about individual players."
There you have it. I guess?
Q. Is Aaron Rodgers still the leading candidate to win the MVP? Has he slipped back into the pack?Does he need to have really good games the last two weeks to win it? -- Mark, Hallie
Q. Is Aaron Rodgers MVP quest in Jepordy after Sunday?? -- Steve, Eau Claire
Q. Will Aaron Rodgers win the MVP? Does he need to bounce back big time to do so? -- Caitlin, River Falls
A: Despite that performance, Rodgers is still the leader to win the NFL's Most Valuable Player award. The most recent odds from Bovada released Wednesday look like this:
Q. Why hasn't Datone Jones made much of an impact again this season? Is he still hurt? -- Steve, Cadott
A: Datone Jones is not injured. For the season, he has played 273 snaps, which ranks him 18th out of 24 on the Packers defense in playing time. Over the past two games Jones has been on the field more, though, playing 54 of a possible 139 snaps (38.8 percent).
The grading system at ProFootballFocus has really liked what Jones has provided in the pass-rush department, giving him a 7.8 rating in that area. That's the fourth-best pass-rush rating on the team. However, against the run, Jones has a minus-7.0 rating, which is second-worst on the team. It doesn't take those numbers to come to the conclusion of what the eye test reveals, which is Jones can't be more involved defensively until he has a more well-rounded game.
Dom Capers responded Monday with "I hope so" when asked if Jones can give the defense more in the coming weeks and into any potential playoff run. "I hope that Datone can really hit his stride," Capers added. "We'll see here the next couple of weeks because we certainly need him. We need him to play his best football starting this week in Tampa."
Q. will special teams and poor tackling on defense be the Packers downfall in the playoffs if the offense struggles? -- Gene, Chippewa Falls
A: If the Packers offense struggles, it will be difficult for them to win in the playoffs. Even though Green Bay's defense played very well Week 3 in Detroit, it was still a loss because the Packers only scored seven points. It was a similar story in Buffalo, with Green Bay's defense again playing well enough to win but ending up with a loss because of the Packers offense not getting it done. Whereas against Atlanta, it didn't matter that Green Bay's defense gave up 37 points because the offense was on fire and put 43 on the board. It's just been that type of team.
The special teams concerns were addressed above, but poor tackling could definitely be the downfall of this defense in the playoffs. The Packers missed 11 tackles in Buffalo and now have 116 missed tackles this season. That's an average of more than eight missed tackles per game. If that average stays about consistent in the postseason and those eight misses come in critical situations, it could be costly.
Q. Why won't they make a change from DuJuan Harris to Janis on Kickoff return? -- Bob, Eau Claire
A: DuJuan Harris has returned 22 of Green Bay's 26 opportunities this season, and he's averaging 20.7 yards per return. Slocum has mostly been happy with Harris' decisions of when to run the ball out of the end zone. The issue most often in Slocum's mind when the return yards aren't good enough has been the blocking in front of Harris. That was the case Sunday in Buffalo, with Slocum saying "(Harris) did a good job. We missed a block and the guy made the tackle."
With an average starting field position of 21.85 (or, in other words, almost at the 22-yard line), the Packers rank 16th in the NFL. The worst in the league is Houston at 19.47 and the best is Kansas City at 24.80, to help give an idea of the range of what it would take for Green Bay to move up or back in the rankings.
There's obviously a trust factor that the Packers have with Harris that they don't yet have with Jeff Janis. Remember, Green Bay released the much more explosive Jeremy Ross in 2013 because the team couldn't trust him to not fumble. Then Ross gets picked up by Detroit and makes a couple big returns. Janis has the big-play potential, but can he be counted on to not cough the ball up as a rookie? You can bet that's a big factor as the coaching staff weighs the pros and cons of using Harris instead of a player like Janis.
** That's all for this week. Enjoy Packers-Buccaneers on Sunday afternoon. Because of the holidays next week, we'll be posting Mailbag on Tuesday. So get your questions in early after this weekend's game. **
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