Clearly as frustrated as the fans were by the two recent embarrassing losses to the Vikings and He Who Shall Not Be Named, Cullen Jenkins became the second Packers defenseman to tell the media he's not so happy with what has long been the vaunted change to the 3-4 defense under new coordinator Dom Capers.
Jenkins said he and others felt "handcuffed" by the new scheme. These comments come on the heels of safety Charles Woodson publicly wondering why the Packers D didn't blitz the Vikings more during the Oct. 5 game in Minnesota.
Here's what Jenkins had to say:
"Basically, we have good players on this defense," Jenkins said after Favre completed a two-game whitewashing of the Packers in which he was not sacked once. "We've got Pro Bowl players on this defense and they were sent to the Pro Bowl doing certain things. And they're not doing those things.
"It's tough. We have players who are good at doing stuff and we're not doing it. You want to win, and when you're not winning those things you start questioning, is it that people really want to win or they really want to accomplish another goal, just running what they want to run? I don't know. It's tough, though."
The Journal-Sentinel article points out that Jenkins wouldn't name any names, but hypothesizes that Jenkins is referring to himself, Aaron Kampman and Johnny Jolly, all of whom are playing different positions this season.
Woodson was likely happier this game, as Capers ran quite a few blitz packages, but as linebacker Desmond Bishop points out in the article, they were unsuccessful, mostly because Favre always seemed to know they were coming.
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The J-S article ends with Capers pointing out that the defense held the previous two opponents to a combined three points and says that the team is frustrated with the loss because no one was complaining then.
Problem is, that's clearly not the end of the story. I guess we'll never know if someone in the room had the cojones to point out to Capers that dominating crappy offenses does not prove your defense is solid.
Because I'm not sure how you keep a straight face when Capers justifies the defense using their work against two bottom-feeder teams as examples. It’s laughable.
