This One's Tough to Take

If you would have told me half way through the second game against the Vikings that the Packers would win the division and be in the Wild Card game against the 49ers until the end, I would have called you a liar, but I would have taken it.

Well, that's exactly what happened.  And I feel sick about it.  

Against all of my expectations, not only did the Packers win the division and make the playoffs, they made a game of it against the 49ers.  The defense did okay, largely making up for their usual blown coverages and lack of pressure in the pass game by making just enough plays to bend but not break.  The offense looked okay too, if you don't count the absolutely inept first quarter.  Despite moving the ball fairly well in the final three quarters, the Packers put up only two touchdowns, and that was fatal.

Holding the 49ers to 23 points is nothing to sneeze at when you consider how much talent they have.  Certainly, Packer fans would expect that with a healthy offense, 23 points would be beatable.  But, as has now become customary, Colin Kaepernick absolutely destroyed the Packers with his legs whenever the 49ers needed a play.  Dom Capers, once again, had no answer for Kap when it mattered most.

As has now become customary, Colin Kaepernick absolutely destroyed the Packers with his legs whenever the 49ers needed a play.  Dom Capers, once again, had no answer for Kap.  

In sum, the Packers played a disappointing game, but not an awful one.  In some ways, that makes figuring out the problem more difficult.  Fans of the Bears, Lions and Vikings should be ecstatic about what happened to the Packers today.  Had the Packers been dominated, it would have been easy to decisively make changes such as the clamored for firing of Dom Capers. 

The problem is that, with as good as this team played at times, there are holes all over the place, and they were all on display today.  There are legitimate questions about whether the issues are with the players on the field or with the men coaching them up.  The easy answer is both.

The offense stalled in the red zone, like it did for much of the year.  The defense gave up big plays and missed opportunities to take the ball away.  The pass rush was non-existent.  Pass protection was spotty.  The strained depth, especially on defense, was strained to the breaking point.

The task that Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy face this off season is prioritizing and dealing with all of these holes, and that starts with a decision on the fate of Dom Capers.  I would tend to say that it's time for him to go, but I would be okay with giving him another year if he gutted his staff, specifically the secondary coaches.  Beyond that, the Packers need pass rushers, linebacker help, and defensive line help.  They need more offensive line help, though that may come with improved health over the off season (I feel like I've been saying that for 3 years).  

This off season promises to be one of significant changes for the Packers, and rightfully so.  The 49ers are really good, and they are young.  The Packers need to be prepared to deal with the 49ers and teams like them and the Seahawks if they're going to return to the Super Bowl.  Right now, they don't have the bodies or the brains on defense to deal with a team as physical as the 49ers, especially if they have a signal caller as dynamic as Kap.

Let's Talk Officials

To Packer fans, it's not secret that the NFL's officials are far from perfect.  Whether it's the infamous non-fumble that allowed the 49ers to knock the Packers out of the playoffs on January 3, 1999, or the more recent Fail Mary against the Seahawks, Packer fans are aware of the influence that a bad call can have on the outcome of a game.  That's not to say that the Packers are special in that regard.  The fact and problem is that they're not.

The officials are rightly maligned when they fail at their jobs.  The recent missed illegal formation that should have given the Chiefs the opportunity to retry a game winning field goal against the Chargers may have dramatically changed the AFC playoff field.  Football Zebras is a blog that does a fantastic job of keeping up with the happenings in NFL officiating, and this post does a good job of looking back at the 2013 season in particular, including the blown field goal call.  The post also highlights some of the better moments of the year.

While I'm first in line to blast officials for their many screw ups, the more I learn about the NFL officiating process from places like Football Zebras and NFL broadcasts, the more convinced I am that NFL officials are set up to fail.  The problems with officiating are less about bad individual officials and more about systemic problems that the NFL continues to fail to address.

Let's start with the obvious.  NFL officials are part time employees.  Many are retired or have regular jobs during the week such as working as attorneys.  Until the NFL has full time officials, they're not going to have crews that are dedicated to being the best officials they can be all week.  Though the NFL is largely unique in that teams play one game a week, it is the only major American professional sports league that employs part time officials.  That's a problem.

I mentioned that some NFL officials are practicing attorneys (Ed Hochuli and Clete Blakeman, according to their Wikipedia pages).  That may be somewhat of a good thing because you need to have a law degree to decipher some of the NFL's rules.  The NFL's rules are overcomplicated, be it the "tuck" rule or the "process of the catch" rule, technical and seldom-applied rules lead to inconsistent application.  Hits on quarterbacks and and receivers are additional problem areas that officials and defenders alike seem to have difficult times with, and rightly so.

But wait, replay helps, right?  Not so much.  Replay takes too long and it's being applied by the same people who made the original call, so that doesn't do a lot to aid consistency of rule application.  Additionally, most of the problem areas are not reviewable.  There's no reason why replay cannot be done more on the fly at a central location at the league office, similar to what the replay officials do on turnovers and scoring plays at the stadium.  If play needs to be stopped, it can be stopped, but expanded and centralized replay is overdue in the NFL.

We've heard over and over from the NFL, during Bounty-Gate, and the lockouts of both the players and officials that the NFL is so concerned with the "integrity of the game."  Integrity of the game  starts with letting the players decide the outcome of games, not the officials.  That means getting calls right, whether it's the opening kickoff of week one or the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl.