Martin could be a difference-maker
GREEN BAY - Even a week ago there was a good argument the Green Bay Packers needed more help in their defensive front seven than at receiver as Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline nears.
There’s now reason to think that’s no longer the case.
With inside linebacker Kamal Martin’s promising NFL debut last Sunday against Houston, plus the gradually ascending play of defensive lineman Kingsley Keke and the presumed improving health of outside linebacker Rashan Gary (ankle), there are reasons to think coordinator Mike Pettine’s defense will, unlike last year, be noticeably better in the second half of the season than in the first half.
That’s not to say the Packers suddenly are on their way to becoming a top-five defense in the NFL. It’s also not to say they no longer need help in their front seven.
But what the Packers’ defense has needed more than anything dating to last year is help stopping the run so something like the two blowout losses to the San Francisco 49ers last season, or even to the Tampa Bay Bucs this year, doesn’t happen again.
The easiest position for general manager Brian Gutekunst to find affordable help probably is defensive tackle. In fact, in the offseason I thought he’d sign a veteran run plugger at a manageable price to play 15 to 20 snaps a game. One of the possible candidates was 340-plus-pound Dontari Poe, who ended up signing with Dallas for a $750,000 bonus and $2 million salary.
When the Cowboys cut Poe this week, you had to wonder if Gutekunst might bring him in. But then I asked a scout who works in the Cowboys’ NFC East Division about Poe and got this response in a text:
“No he can’t (help anyone). He plays way too high. Gets knocked around way too much.”
But an upgrade at inside linebacker could make a difference, too, and though it’s only one game, Martin’s debut suggests he’s that.
His performance against Houston looked much like his play in camp before surgery for a meniscus tear shut him down until last week. He was one of the surprises of camp and had won a starting job alongside Christian Kirksey before getting hurt.
Playing inside linebacker in Pettine’s scheme is tough because the outside linebackers have so little defined responsibility in stopping the run. Pettine’s general approach is to emphasize disruption over gap integrity up front. That puts a lot on the inside linebackers to clean up when that creates big holes.
Last year Blake Martinez was a solid player but had limited range. He’s now a $10 million tackling stat machine with the New York Giants, but really, was he much better than Krys Barnes, the undrafted rookie who has been a pleasant surprise this year?
Martin is better than both. The fifthround pick will surely make his share of rookie mistakes the more he’s on the field. And it’s not like he has the pure speed and quickness of a guy like Baltimore first-rounder Patrick Queen. But Martin has an inside linebacker’s physique
The Packers’ defense has been pretty good through Week 7, ranking No. 15 in points allowed and No. 28 in defensive passer ratings. (6-3, 240), and in camp and his first game he has displayed the burst to get quickly to the hole and drop a running back that the Packers haven’t had at inside linebacker for years. He doesn’t have to be a Pro Bowl player to upgrade what’s been a Packers’ weak spot going back a decade or more.
Really, it’s a decent bet he’ll be a better player than Kirksey, who’s out with a pec injury, by season’s end.
Pettine should be confident enough in his inside linebackers to beef up his run defense by playing more true nickel with Martin and Kirksey or Barnes on the field together. As game and gritty as Raven Greene is playing linebacker, he’s had to do it too much as a 197-pound safety.
“Certainly opens it up for us to be able to get more of those (inside linebackers) on the field,” Pettine said this week.
In the meantime, Keke is making the kind of gradual improvement the Packers haven’t been getting enough of from young defensive players in recent years. The 2019 fifth-round pick is more dynamic shedding blockers than Dean Lowry and surpassed Lowry in snaps last week (30 to 29) for the first time this season.
Gary, too, is a player to watch as the season goes on. He was off to a promising start before injuring his ankle in
Week 3 at New Orleans and still has been a limited participant in practice this week in a slow recovery. He has the talent to make a difference, though it’s hard not to wonder whether he’ll start flashing ability again, or if next spring he and the Packers will be talking about 2021 becoming his breakout year after the ankle injury slowed him all season.
The Packers still have their issues on defense — Preston Smith has underachieved after a big 2019, and Za’Darius Smith is shockingly spotty defending the run. The play of Adrian Amos and 2019 first-round pick Darnell Savage at safety has been nondescript. And if injury deprives them of their best player, cornerback Jaire Alexander, they’re in big trouble.
But it looks like Pettine has more to work with this year than last. In his first season as Packers defensive coordinator (2018) he impressed with his ability to adjust his scheme to undermanned personnel. Then his defense’s improvements last year with a big free-agent haul were overshadowed by run-stopping issues and two meltdowns against the 49ers.
It’s worth noting where his defense ranks now, in Week 7, in a few key stat categories: No. 15 in points allowed, No. 28 in defensive passer ratings and No. 22 in Pro Football Outsiders DVOA (an analytics-based measure of defensive efficiency).
If his defense really is positioned to get better, it will creep up in those categories in the coming weeks. But what ultimately matters is how it plays against good teams.
Gutekunst is looking for a defense that, as he put it, can win a game when needed. Pettine’s defense failed by that measure at Tampa Bay a couple of weeks ago. But it will get its chances in the next three months.