Monday, October 21, 2013

Recap: Packers Win Easily Over The Browns

I don't often refer to a win as easy, it's not as easy as it sometimes looks out there, but building a 14-0 first quarter lead while on their way to a 31-13 win is about as comfortable as it's going to get this season for the Green Bay Packers. I'm not really going to recap the entire game, but there are a few players that came to mind.

The Good

QB Aaron Rodgers. This was probably his game of the season. The stats don't show it with 16 incompletions (56.8%), but he often was throwing it away and he looked as accurate as I've seen him all season. The protection was good, though RT Don Barclay struggled, and he did a great job of avoiding the rush when it got to him.

WR Jarrett Boykin. I was really down on him after a lousy first half against the Ravens, he wasn't that great this preseason either, so his big game was a relief (8 catches, 103 yards, 1 TD). He can be an effective receiver and he got himself ridiculously wide open on a couple of occasions.

LB Jamari Lattimore. He's been hanging around the roster for a couple years, first at outside LB than inside, and I wasn't exactly sure why. I don't know if the coaches ever expected a lot from him but he's looked great as an injury replacement over the past two weeks. He's flying all over the field.

CB Davon House. A poor first preseason game dropped him down the depth chart and he's spent the past several weeks working his way back up it. The duo of House and CB Sam Shields have been taking away big plays down the sidelines for the past few weeks now.

I'm excluding a few other players. When you win 31-13, there's a lot of good to go around.

The Bad

QB Brandon Weeden. He's really that bad. The pass defense has been a sore spot for the Packers this season and Weeden did nothing (3.5 yards per attempt, QBR 10.0) against it. It's too bad because the Browns have a good overall team and they'd have threatened the Packers if they had an average QB.

P Tim Masthay. It was not his best game (30 yard average on punts). I'm not sure how much to blame the coverage or Masthay's kickoffs, but two separate return men had big returns against them and they both led to points. KR Travis Benjamin is really good and this hadn't been a problem area, so hopefully it was just one bad game.

LB Andy Mulumba. I like LB Nate Palmer, though he didn't bring much as a pass rusher, and LB Mike Neal would have played better if his shoulder felt all right, but I saw nothing from Mulumba in what should have been a big opportunity for him. He's their 5th option so it's not like a lot should be expected but LB Clay Matthews can't get back soon enough.

The Ugly

TE Jermichael Finley. The early news was decidedly mixed; he's spent the night in the hospital but it's just precautionary. Hopefully he comes out of this just fine.

2 comments:

PackFaninFl said...

Thanks for the recap. Missed the game and I'm dreading the worst for Finley. Just read the Packers blog over at the Journal Sentinel and they listed all the players in Pack history with neck/spinal injuries. All of them (big list too) were gone the same year or the year after except for Keith Uecker (that name is a blast from the past!)

Brandon said...

Good to see you! How's it going?

Unfortunately I'm dreading the worst too.