Jim Bievers/ Packers.com
Colin Kaepernick has been a thorn in the side of the Green Bay Packers since he joined the league as a 2nd round draft pick in 2011, and you could forgive any Packer fan who panicked in the first quarter of Sunday’s game, because Kaepernick kicked things off by running with impunity. If not for a few holding penalties the early portion of this game would have looked far too much like a lot of past Packer-49er games. Fortunately, as the game rolled on it became clear that the Packers, like the rest of the league, have solved this riddle and that Kaepernick just isn’t a very good quarterback if you take away certain options.
When Kaepernick has succeeded, it has largely been in the middle of the field. His highest directional QB rating is, on a year to year basis, almost always in the “medium middle” where even in a very poor 2014 season he rated an excellent 139.9. While Kaepernick can be an effective runner in any capacity, he also excels at evading the pass rush and exploiting an empty midfield. These skills work in tandem as defensive backs must stay in the deep middle to guard against his key strength as a passer which then opens up running lanes. At least it was working until teams started putting an athletic “spy” in the middle of the field against him. For the Packers that was Clay Matthews (or occasionally Ha Ha Clinton-Dix).
It’s hard to overstate how fundamentally important it was to move Clay Matthews to inside linebacker in non-passing downs. The improvement from A.J. Hawk is staggering in terms of speed and talent, and it basically fixed the Packer read-option problem overnight. Matthews wasn’t perfect on Sunday as he missed several tackles and even let a few receivers get open, but it almost doesn’t matter. His mere presence in the huge void that is the middle of the field makes life hard on any offense, and especially Kaepernick, who was often forced to stay in the pocket where he’s frankly terrible, or try to roam outside where Julius Peppers, Nick Perry, Mike Neal, and Jay Elliott were happily waiting.
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Kaepernick is at his best throwing deep balls on the run where his receivers can help him out, or making simple throws over the middle. If you force him to make outside throws from the pocket he tends to come up short, or airmail throws out of bounds a shocking percentage of the time. Dom Capers finally understood this weakness and punished him for it. This may have been a somewhat sloppy, low-scoring affair, but on the defensive side it was a joy to watch. According to Football Outsiders the Packers entered this game with the league’s 6th best pass defense, but the league’s worst run defense.
I suspect that once they run the numbers from the week that the Packers will improve in both categories and jump into the top 5 overall. Aaron Rodgers with anything close to a top 5 defense is scary prospect for the rest of the league. Last time it happened they won the Super Bowl.
A word of caution about next week’s opponent
The Packers face the Rams next week, and while the Rams have been very up-and-down this season (including a loss to lowly Washington) they have a few things working for them. Packer right tackle Bryan Bulaga continues to miss time with a knee injury, and while Don Barclay had been serviceable until yesterday, the 49ers exposed his biggest weakness and made life miserable for Aaron Rodgers. Against Seattle Barclay simply steered an overly aggressive defense to the back of the pocket, allowing Rodgers to step up into a clean pocket behind his guards and center. Barclay has issues with pure power rushers and this tactic worked brilliantly as long as edge rushers were charging pointlessly upfield. The 49ers apparently did an excellent job studying tape and consistently had their edge rushers square off their attacks. Instead of taking Barclay to the back of the pocket, they sharply angled in towards Rodgers with straight bull rushes, collapsing everything around him. This is exactly what you should do against Barclay, and it was very successful in disrupting the Packer passing attack. It was poor play by Barclay, and the secret will now be out as this will show up on tape. You can be sure the Rams were paying attention, and if Barclay is forced to go again, he’ll have to deal with the excellent Aaron Donald and Chris Long.
The Rams also got an explosive debut out of rookie running back Todd Gurley.
The 10th overall pick in the 2015 draft, Gurley tore his ACL last November in his final college game for Georgia, but seems to have recovered nicely as he torched a pretty good Arizona defense for 146 yards on just 19 carries. He was the consensus best back in the draft by nearly every scout provided he recovered from the injury, and it looks like he has. The Packers have been up to the task of stopping good running backs thus far, but even though they’ve faced Matt Forte, Marshawn Lynch, and Jamaal Charles, Gurley may be their toughest challenge yet.
