GREEN BAY, Wis. — With rosters nearly twice the size of the 46-man outfits seen on the sidelines of regular-season games, there is an inherent sloppiness to preseason football that gnaws at the attention spans of viewers. Nearly half of the players on the field each week will receive a pink slip by early September, and their involvement in these exhibitions can lead to massive swings in the quality of play.
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On Thursday, the Green Bay Packers hosted the Pittsburgh Steelers in a sloppy shootout that embodied the essence of the preseason. There were two pick-6s, three fumbles, 85 combined points and plenty of topics to discuss. Here are a few observations after a viewing of the tape:
1. Changes to the kickoff rule have ushered in a feeling-out process for special-teams units around the league as coordinators experiment with new strategies. Kicker Mason Crosby handled the majority of kickoff responsibilities Thursday and toyed with several styles of kicks. He opened the game with a pooch down the right sideline, and fullback Roosevelt Nix fielded it at the 10-yard line. By kicking away from the Steelers’ primary returner, Crosby directed the ball toward a player whose speed and explosiveness were nonexistent. Nix covered only 11 yards before linebacker Oren Burks flew in for the tackle at the 21-yard line. Crosby also kicked several balls a few yards short of the end zone — each one was caught around the 3-yard line — and forced returners to gain back a sizable portion of the 25 yards. Such a strategy places a premium on quality tackling by the coverage units, and so far the Packers have been fairly sound in that department. Special-teams coordinator Ron Zook also gave rookie punter JK Scott an opportunity to practice kickoffs in the second half. Scott pulled his first attempt out of bounds to give the Steelers terrific field position.
2. The Packers used their first-string offensive line on the opening two possessions against the Steelers, even as quarterback Aaron Rodgers departed after one drive. From left to right, the line consisted of David Bakhtiari (LT), Lucas Patrick (LG), Corey Linsley (C), Justin McCray (RG) and Kyle Murphy (RT). Though Rodgers led the unit to a touchdown on the opening possession, there was a common theme of pressure up the middle that was mildly concerning. Linsley struggled to match the power of defensive tackle Daniel McCullers, a mountain of a man at 6 feet 7 and 352 pounds. McCullers walked Linsley back on a play that forced Rodgers to duck and scramble for five yards. Then, on a touchdown pass to tight end Jimmy Graham, pressure through Linsley forced Rodgers to slide left and create a throwing lane off his back foot. Linebacker Vince Williams also stampeded through the middle on the next possession by splitting the gap between Linsley and McCray. The pressure made backup quarterback Brett Hundley sling a short pass into the flat for four yards. Strength isn’t typically a problem for Linsley, so perhaps this was just a fluke. It’s worth monitoring against the Oakland Raiders this week.
3. Defensive coordinator Mike Pettine kept his starters on the field for the Steelers’ second possession. The drive began with the Steelers at their own 27, and barely a minute ticked off the clock before running back James Conner was celebrating in the end zone. The former third-round pick ripped off gains of 8 yards, 24 yards and 26 yards on three consecutive plays to gash Pettine’s defense through the middle. The most glaring errors belonged to safeties Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and Kentrell Brice, both of whom missed badly on tackle attempts a few yards beyond the line of scrimmage. But it’s also worth exploring what happened up front. On the 24-yard run, nose tackle Kenny Clark drew a double team from the Steelers’ offensive line while defensive tackle Dean Lowry faced a one-on-one situation. Lowry couldn’t shed his block and wound up grabbing Conner’s facemask as the tailback sprinted through the hole. The two players behind Lowry, inside linebackers Blake Martinez and Oren Burks, were caught in the wash and had no chance of making a tackle. One play later, on what proved to be a 26-yard touchdown run by Conner, left tackle Alejandro Villanueva blasted defensive end Muhammad Wilkerson off the line and advanced to the second level for a second block on Martinez. It was an incredible play by Villanueva, and Conner broke a horrendous tackle attempt by Clinton-Dix en route to a score.
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4. One possession later, with his starters still on the field, Pettine finally offered a glimpse into the exotic nature of his playbook. The Steelers faced third-and-6 from the Green Bay 34 when Pettine dialed up a fascinating blitz with his nickel personnel: Slot corner Jaire Alexander blitzed; outside linebacker Reggie Gilbert twisted from his edge rusher position to the interior of the line; the other outside linebacker, Clay Matthews, dropped into coverage; and the two inside linebackers, Martinez and Burks, showed double-A-gap pressure from which Martinez rushed the passer and Burks dropped. All told, the blitz forced an incomplete pass. One play later, on fourth down, Muhammad Wilkerson lined up as an edge rusher in a 3-point stance with Matthews starting from a 2-point stance over the interior of the line. Matthews wound up spying the quarterback on the play, which ended with a completion to the flat for -1 yards. The Steelers turned the ball over on downs.
5. The disparity in pass protection between running backs Jamaal Williams and Ty Montgomery remains profound, even as Montgomery approaches the two-year anniversary of his position change. Midway through the first quarter, Montgomery had an opportunity to meet linebacker Vince Williams for a thumping collision when the Steelers blitzed Williams on first and 10. Instead, Montgomery rushed forward and nearly missed Williams entirely, registering only a glancing blow that did little to impede the blitz. Williams got pressure on Hundley and forced an incompletion, but Montgomery was bailed out by a pass interference penalty downfield. He had another pass-pro opportunity later in the drive, this time against outside linebacker Bud Dupree, and handled the situation much better. The problem, though, is Montgomery tends to throw a shoulder into the defender rather than squaring up for the block as running backs coach Ben Sirmans instructs. Williams, meanwhile, had two significant opportunities in pass protection and nailed both of them. First he stoned linebacker Jon Bostic on what ended as a 10-yard touchdown scramble for Hundley. And then, later in the second quarter, Williams sprinted across the formation from left to right and shoved Cameron Sutton to the ground on a corner blitz, opening up a rollout lane for Hundley.
6. The Packers took a long look at Quinten Rollins on Thursday by giving him multiple series at safety, a position he picked up earlier in camp. Rollins, a former second-round pick, is a cornerback by trade but played exclusively in the slot during organized team activities (OTAs) and the first few weeks of camp. It was clear his days as a perimeter corner were over after inconsistent play the first three years of his career. Now, though, the Packers are giving him a chance to make the 53-man roster at safety as Rollins works his way back from a torn Achilles’ tendon last season. Rollins paired with Josh Jones on the back end of the second-string defense and looked fairly comfortable in 22 snaps. While Jones played more of the box/robber role closer to the line of scrimmage, Rollins played the deep middle in single-high looks. It’s the same position Brice plays with the starting defense as Clinton-Dix lurks closer to the line of scrimmage. The path to a roster spot is still murky for Rollins, but it’s not unreasonable to think he could provide more depth and positional versatility than the likes of Jermaine Whitehead and Marwin Evans, who were at the bottom of the safety depth chart last season. Whitehead didn’t play Thursday due to a back injury.
7. Backup center Dillon Day is a difficult player to project as final cuts approach. The Packers signed Day off the Denver Broncos’ practice squad late last season and were pleased enough with what they saw to keep him around through the spring and summer. In some respects, Day could have a fairly straightforward path to the roster as the only legitimate center behind starter Linsley, a point Rodgers noted earlier this year. On the other hand, the Packers squeaked through the 2017 season with Linsley as their only center on the 53-man roster and relied instead on cross-trained guards Patrick and McCray in a pinch. It’s worth mentioning that Patrick and McCray appear to be taking far fewer reps at center than they did in last year’s camp, so perhaps the Packers are content to enter the season with Day as part of their squad. The only problem is that Day’s performances have been very uneven, with good reps offset by turnstile blocking against more powerful defenders. Day also offers very little positional versatility. He takes reps at guard during practice and late in the first two exhibition games, but the results aren’t pretty. It will be interesting to see what general manager Brian Gutekunst does with him.
8. It’s stunning how quickly things have changed for wide receiver J’Mon Moore, the Packers’ fourth-round pick earlier this year. Moore jumped to the forefront of the rookie receiving class during OTAs and the first few days of camp by flashing the type of athleticism and route running that intrigued the Packers during the pre-draft process. There were even times when Moore took reps with Rodgers and the starting offense. Since then, dropped passes have become a major problem for Moore, who dropped two in the exhibition opener and dropped another Thursday night against the Steelers on a beautiful deep ball from quarterback Tim Boyle. Things got even worse for Moore on special teams. His missed block on a kickoff, allowing wide receiver Marcus Tucker to make an easy tackle on return man Marquez Valdes-Scantling, another of the Packers’ rookie wideouts. And then Moore was flagged for an illegal block above the waist on another kickoff late in the third quarter. His lone positive was an 18-yard reception on a slant from Boyle, but a penalty on offensive tackle Jason Spriggs wiped away the gain. Officially, Moore finished with zero catches. His status as a fourth-round pick might be his best claim to a roster spot.
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9. On a night when outside linebacker Gilbert cemented his spot as the team’s third-best pass rusher — trailing only Matthews and Nick Perry, the unquestioned starters — things looked bleak for Vince Biegel yet again. A fourth-round pick in last year’s draft, Biegel simply doesn’t have the size to compete with offensive tackles on a snap-in, snap-out basis and spends way too much time on the ground, tossed aside by bigger, stronger players. And as Biegel showed Thursday against the Steelers, he also lacks the speed to offset his absence of strength. Biegel was spying quarterback Joshua Dobbs on third and 7 in the third quarter when he allowed a nine-yard scramble because he couldn’t match Dobbs’ pace in a race toward the first-down marker. When Dobbs took off again in the fourth quarter, this time on third and 8, Biegel missed a tackle as Dobbs gained nine yards to move the chains a second time. He showed terrible awareness on a zone-read play by collapsing on the running back while Dobbs pulled the ball out and took off running to Biegel’s side of the field. And even Biegel’s best play of the night — a sack of Dobbs for -1 yards — was set up by pressure from outside linebacker Kendall Donnerson on the opposite side of the formation. Donnerson beat a wham block from tight end Bucky Hodges that forced Dobbs to scramble into Biegel’s waiting arms. Right place, right time. It would be surprising if the Packers gave up on Biegel after just one season, but there is little to suggest he can contribute as more than a special teamer.
10. For all of the booming punts Scott has hit in practice at Ray Nitschke Field, his three performances at Lambeau Field have left something to be desired. During Family Night, when the Packers practice inside the stadium, Scott hit two punts under the lights and produced mixed results, one good and one bad. During the first exhibition game last week, against the Tennessee Titans, it was more of the same, one good punt and one bad punt. Against the Steelers, though, Scott had the opportunity to punt five times — a much larger sample size — and the results were disappointing with one good punt and four that were something else. Here’s a look at the results, keeping in mind all hang times are unofficial:
• Punt one from the GB 32-yard line: 29 yards, 4.72 seconds, out of bounds at the PIT 39-yard line
• Punt two from the GB 40-yard line: 46 yards, 4.82 seconds, fair caught at the PIT 14-yard line
• Punt three from the PIT 49-yard line: 49 yards, 4.38 seconds, touchback
• Punt four from the GB 20-yard line: 44 yards, 4.38 seconds, fair caught at the PIT 36-yard line
• Punt five from the GB 31-yard line: 35 yards, 4.6 seconds, out of bounds at the PIT 34-yard line
(Top photo: Stacy Revere/Getty Images)