The Packer Pundit

PACK LOSE PRE-SEASON OPENER TO CHARGERS 17-3
McCarthy / Team's Debut Less Than 'Stellar'
By Packer Pundit / Patrick Stuckey

Well the Packers played a Complete game on Saturday. That is... a Complete Failure of a game. They stunk up San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium on BOTH sides of the ball and don't even get me started about the (less than)Special Teams. What's even more disturbing about this loss, is the fact we played our First team Offense/Defense almost the entire first half only to be down 14-0.

Brett Favre has to be second guessing his Non-Retirement Decision as the O-Line allowed the Charger front 7 to pressure and sack him almost (what seemed) at will. In fact, the Bolts had 5 sacks the entire game. I believe the Journal Sentinel put it best in this article.

Pack GM Triple T tried putting a 'Happy Face' on the whole sitchy by pointing out the Chargers (Wade Phillips) play a 3-4 D and the Pack didn't have time to prepare. Personally, I tried that same excuse in 3rd grade and it didn't fly there either.

"They're seeing things they hadn't seen," Thompson said, referring to the players on offense. "Two or three of them (pressures) were linebackers coming from the inside. We just weren't out there enough to get anything established."

At least Coach M&M was more realistic and took the blame for the teams ill preparedness and shody play.

“We leave here with a sense of reality of how we started our preseason,” McCarthy said. “This isn’t about me. I know people make your debut, but it’s about where we are as a football team. And we didn’t play the way we’re capable of playing, and it starts with me, I didn’t get them prepared. We made a lot of mistakes, a lot of things that went wrong were self-inflicted.”

As to the Packer's new 'Zone Blocking'. The team had a total of 44 yards and the bad news is... (yeah... it gets worse) 21 of those yards came on 3 Aaron Rodgers scrambles. Najah Davenport had 6 carries for a whopping 12 yards and Samkon Gado struggled to keep up his 2.0 yards per carry average but did managed to get 6 yards on 3 carries.

Speaking of Rodgers. They say he's having a great training camp and quite frankly, he and Greg Jennings were the only two bright spots of the whole evening. Aaron was 9 for 9 at one point of the game including a beautifully timed and well arched 40+ yard bomb to Jennings along the Charger sideline. Greg did a masterful job shielding his defender and making the catch (in stride). Rodgers was sacked 3 times and was intercepted by Charger rookie Antonio Cromartie, who used every inch of his 6'2" frame to out jump and out hustle the Packer receiver. (I don't recall who the WR was but it wasn't much of an effort on his part).

Rodgers had this to say about his performance, “They put some pressure on me, but I might have been running for my life last year. This year the game has slowed down for me so I was able to move around with some ease.”

The game will be replayed on the NFL Network 12 noon EST Monday. Also, the Training Camp special filmed 2 weeks ago in Green Bay will also be replayed before the game at 11 am.

GAME RECAP LINKS
Packers lose preseason opener to Chargers 17-3 (GB Press Gazette)
Rough surfing (Journal Sentinel)
First team takes beating (Journal Sentinel)

GAME STATS
Fox Sports

GAME NOTES
Injury list: Safety Marviel Underwood was on crutches after suffering what appeared to be a major injury to his right knee in the first quarter when he was blocked trying to take on a screen pass. However, McCarthy said he didn't have definitive word on whether the injury might be season-ending. Defensive tackle Kenderick Allen also left in the first half with an injury to muscles in his side. Other injured players were running back Samkon Gado (groin), defensive tackle Ryan Pickett (finger) and tight end David Martin (hand).