Seeking a better tackling exhibition
Packers defense was sloppy against Texans
GREEN BAY – The Green Bay Packers rookie had 10 tackles. As debuts go, it was hard to be upset. Ty Summers, standing shirtless at his locker, had every reason to smile, to pound his chest, to at least feel good about his night last week against the Houston Texans.
It was suggested Summers might be a little pleased with becoming a one-man tackling machine.
“I look at it, yeah, it seems like a good night,” he said, “but when I know that I should’ve had probably about four more, that’s frustrating.”
After the crowd dispersed, Summers rattled off all the details still swirling in his mind.
There was Texans quarterback Joe Webb’s third-down scramble, when he gave Summers “a little stutter” in the open field, enough to get past the marker. “I stopped my feet,” Summers said, “missed the tackle.” There was Summers’ stuck-in-mud moment against fullback Cullen Gillaspia, who swung past like Summers was standing still to get 6 yards instead of no gain on secondand-4. “It was thrown behind him,” Summers said. “I was taking an angle to cut him off, so then I cut back and slipped.” Summers later stopped his feet early when met by a blocker in the gap, lunging for the ball carrier. “Maybe should’ve taken an extra step,” he said. “I hit him big, but I had nothing underneath me, so I slid off.” Lastly, on a thirdand-short, Summers failed to get proper leverage. “They drove me back for a half yard,” Summer said. “Got the first down.”
So, yes, a team-high 10 tackles should make a rookie feel good. The next-closest linebacker had three.
If Summers was frustrated, imagine how everyone else on the Packers’ defense felt about their night.
The Packers, across the board, did not tackle well in their preseason opener. After the game, coach Matt LaFleur was bothered. Two days later, LaFleur said he counted 24 missed tackles, costing his team 164 yards.
So he reiterated the point Tuesday, a day before the Packers left for their second preseason matchup at the Baltimore Ravens.
“The expectation is you always bring the guys to the ground,” LaFleur said. “The standard is never going to change, and it’s never an excuse, but I do think you get some younger guys in there that maybe aren’t quite accustomed to this level of play yet. It might take a minute for them to figure it out, but certainly that’s never an excuse.”
What is LaFleur going to say, that missed tackles are acceptable? Reality, though, is that tackling early in the season is often shoddy, not just with the Packers but across the NFL.
There’s a big difference in the quality of defensive play — particularly tackling — in August and December.
“You have to expect that guys are going to miss quite a few tackles those first couple games,” veteran cornerback Tramon Williams said.
It’s seemingly been that way every year under the present collective bargaining agreement. The CBA, which went into effect in 2011, prohibits live contact during offseason workouts. In recent years, most teams have extended that principle into training camp.
This is what the players wanted. They negotiated for it. Coaches would love to practice live tackling before games begin. General managers would love to evaluate it. “It’s frustrating,” Brian Gutekunst said.
Players have no interest in subjecting their bodies to that punishment in August, much less May and June.
“It should stay the way it is,” safety Adrian Amos said. “Because if you think about how much you beat your body up for those 20 weeks of football before you get to the playoffs. So beating on your body for so long, the only way you can practice tackling in the offseason is just working on fitting up, angles.”
Basically, everything except tackling.
Learning to tackle again
It isn’t easy, tackling for the first time after eight months of doing everything except tackling. But the standard is the standard, and it isn’t changing. It’s the players’ responsibility to limit the adjustment time needed before they’re tackling in midseason form.
To do this, the Packers break tackling into its fundamental parts, practicing everything except taking runners to the ground. In a “thud” period, when defenders give ball carriers a blow, briefly wrap up and quickly let go, the Packers work on taking proper angles. “We’ve got a thing where you try not to let them cross your face,” Williams said. Defenders can work on footwork, pad level, swarming.
“Everything but the finish aspect,” linebacker Blake Martinez said. “Whether it’s fully wrapping, fully bringing to the ground, finishing that last kind of oomph of momentum. Whether it’s bringing them to the ground, getting them out of bounds, pulling them down — those little moves that you don’t really think about or do fundamentally. It’s just kind of off of feel.”
It’s perhaps most difficult, Williams said, to simulate the proper mindset needed to tackle in a practice environment. There is game speed, and there is practice speed. Coaches would prefer the two be similar. In truth, they are not.
So while exhibition games can be a useless exercise in many ways — no intricacies in scheme, nothing but base, vanilla offense and defense, often against the bottom of a 90-man roster — it has become the only setting where defenders can practice tackling before Week 1.
“Tackling, really, is a mindset more than anything,” Williams explained. “Technically, you have to practice your angles, but tackling is just really a mindset.
“I can go into some games, and I’m like, ‘Man, today I’m going out there, I’m hitting these boys today.’ Like, that’s my mindset. I’m there. Then some days I might come out there and be like, ‘Eh, I don’t really feel it today. My shoulder ain’t there.’
“It can be the back that you’re playing against. It can be like, AP (Adrian Peterson) coming here today. You be like, ‘Uhh. Hey, fellas on up front, the front seven, I need y’all to do y’all’s job today, because I don’t need him getting on me. So it’s just more situations you have to be smart at times. I don’t think no one is scared to tackle, but you definitely have to be smart in this league of knowing who to hit.”
The Packers won’t be facing Adrian Peterson in Baltimore. Still, it’ll be a stiff test. A week ago, LaFleur referred to Webb as “a nightmare” matchup. What does that make Ravens starter Lamar Jackson?
“A bigger nightmare,” LaFleur said. Jackson, with his 4.3 speed, will challenge every aspect of tackling, from proper angles to takedowns. For a defense still getting accustomed to tackling a moving target, it’ll give Gutekunst plenty to evaluate.
“I think a lot of times past history and just progression,” Gutekunst said. “Obviously in our first game, we didn’t particularly tackle very well on defense. So let’s see how we get to Game 2, to Game 3, to Game 4, and with individuals, specifically.
“It’s the first game, and first time going to the ground. But if those issues stay the same in Game 2, 3 and 4, then maybe it’s more of a problem.”