Could injuries derail Green Bay?
Titles are not won in preseason, but they could well be lost. When Jordy Nelson tore his ACL in Pittsburgh on 23 August the common impulse was to shrug it off, fans and journalists alike suggesting that Aaron Rodgers would do just fine throwing the ball to Randall Cobb, Davante Adams, Ty Montgomery and Jeff Janis.
But then Cobb fell awkwardly onto his right shoulder in the first quarter of Saturday’s game against the Eagles. Suddenly, Lambeau Field was holding its breath.
Perhaps we all should have been fretting a little sooner. Rodgers is the kind of quarterback who can make improve any wide receiver but to presume that this team would be unaffected by the loss of Nelson – a Pro Bowler who hauled in 98 passes for 1,593 yards and 13 touchdowns last year – was always a little naïve.
If it had been reasonable enough to expect Cobb, a comparable talent, to pick up some of the slack then anything beyond that was less certain. Adams, Montgomery and Janis are highly thought of by the coaching staff in Green Bay but the fact is that they have two years’ NFL experience between them.
Happily, Cobb’s injury is not serious. Fears that he had broken his collarbone were quickly dispelled, but the scare served to highlight the precariousness of Green Bay’s predicament. Rodgers might be able to get by with a diminished receiving corps but could he make the Super Bowl with one? That has to be the target for a team that has won its division four seasons running and came so close last year.
Receiver, furthermore, is not the only position Green Bay need to worry about. Starting right tackle Bryan Bulaga also left the Philly game with an ankle complaint and cornerback Micah Hyde was withdrawn with neck spasms. Once again, their ailments have been described as minor, but the Packers, even more than the rest of the league, must be looking forward to preseason’s end.
It will be interesting to see how Mike McCarthy seeks to manage his team’s energies once we do get through to the games that matter. One strategy the head coach adopted last season was to restrict Eddie Lacy to a light workload early on, keeping the running back fresh for a playoff run. Will Green Bay be obliged to act differently now if the receiving corps is not in perfect shape to start the year?
McCarthy is not calling the plays himself any more, having handed those duties over to Tom Clements, but otherwise continuity is the key on a team that only has three starters (John Kuhn, Julius Peppers and Letroy Guion) who have ever played on another NFL team. The Packers’ two biggest moves this offseason were re-signing Cobb and Bulaga.
When you have won as many games as Green Bay over the past four years, it certainly makes sense to focus on preserving your existing strengths. But this team is far from flawless and it was a surprise not to see them do more to upgrade a shabby run defense.
As things stand, the Packers should still be good enough for a deep postseason run. But Nelson’s injury has left them thinner than before. This division will not be a pushover, and further setbacks could quickly make life a lot more complicated than it was ever supposed to be.
Will Detroit’s defense still dominate?
Ndamukong Suh shed a few tears after his final game as a Lion. It was unclear at the time whether his reaction had been provoked by the gut-wrenching nature of Detroit’s wildcard defeat to Dallas or simply the knowledge that he would not be back with his team again next year. Two months later, he signed a $114m contract with Miami. Now it was the Dolphins’ accountants’ turn to weep.
Detroit did the right thing by letting Suh walk. As good a player as he is, the salary cap numbers simply do not stack up. More regrettable, though, were the decisions to allow fellow starting defensive tackle Nick Fairley and top backup CJ Mosley to leave in the same offseason.
At a stroke, the Lions had been stripped of their greatest strength. Detroit’s defense was second only to Seattle’s last season in both points and yards surrendered. It was the best in the league against the run, giving up a mere 69.3 yards per game and, more impressively still, only 3.2 yards per attempt. This despite rarely bringing an eighth man down into the box.
Such success was founded first and foremost on an ability to dominate at the line. Suh is almost irreplaceable in this regard, but Fairley and Mosley also played prominent parts. In their stead, Detroit now have Haloti Ngata, Tyrunn Walker and fourth-round draft pick Gabe Wright. The former remains a fearsome presence at 31, but the latter two have an awful lot to prove.
Changes on the line will impact the whole defense. Linebacker DeAndre Levy has thrived over the last couple of years and earned himself a four-year, $33m contract extension this offseason, but how will his performances be affected if opposing offensive linemen are no longer being absorbed by the big bodies up front, instead breaking off to make blocks at the second level?
And what of the pass defense? Free safety Glover Quin led the league with seven interceptions last season, but how much did he owe to quarterbacks who made poor decisions as they were about to get hit? No defensive tackle pressured opposing passers more often than Suh in 2014.
Those with glasses half-full will counter that Detroit’s losses on defense are offset by improvements to the offense. Calvin Johnson is said to be back at full health after being restricted by an ankle injury last term. With Golden Tate establishing himself as a genuine threat on the opposite side, and tight end Eric Ebron getting rave reviews in camp, the passing game ought to be better. Surely Matthew Stafford will throw more than 22 touchdowns this time around?
The running game, too, may improve. Second-round draft pick Ameer Abdullah looks a whole lot more explosive than Reggie Bush did last season, giving him the potential to become a perfect foil to Joique Bell. And, who knows, maybe undrafted rookie Zach Zenner will also turn out to have been more than just a preseason sensation.
But it all feels very hypothetical. What we can say for sure is that Detroit are seeking to build on what was only their second playoff appearance in 15 years, without several of the characters who played the biggest part in getting them there.
Does Adrian Peterson’s return make Minnesota contenders?
Nobody doubts Adrian Peterson’s ability to come back strong after an absence. This is a man who tore the ACL and MCL in his left knee on 26 December 2011 and rushed for 2,000 yards the following season. He is an extraordinary athlete even by the NFL’s preposterous standards, and one of the best running backs ever to play the game.
But are people being presumptuous when they discuss him as a potential league-leading rusher in 2015? Peterson, by NFL standards, is not a young man. He turned 30 this March, an age beyond which few running backs have excelled. Attempts to chart performance by age at the position tend to show a peak around 27 followed by a steady decline. Perhaps not coincidentally, Peterson was 27 when he made his return from that knee injury.
The suggestion here is not that his production is about to fall off a cliff. A year away to recharge and refresh, even if forced on him by suspension, might have done Peterson some good. If he stays healthy, it seems reasonable to expect that he will rush for 1,200 yards – as he has every time that he has played more than 12 games. For more than that, though, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Happily, the Vikings no longer need Peterson to carry them solo. The team he returns to has improved during his time away. Minnesota went 6-9 following Peterson’s suspension last season, and four of their losses were by a margin of three points or fewer.
For the first time in a while, the Vikings have the makings of a real passing game – with Teddy Bridgewater taking the snaps. The quarterback won half of the 12 games that he started as a rookie, completing almost 65% of his passes for 2,919 yards and 14 scores. His opportunities to do damage only stand to increase as opponents stack up at the line to slow Peterson down.
Bridgewater’s top target from last season, Greg Jennings, left for Miami but Mike Wallace has arrived to replace him. Charles Johnson and Jairus Wright will also compete for touches in what remains an underwhelming receiving corps. Given that Bridgewater does not have the biggest arm in the world, and offensive line protection remains a concern on deep throws, we might also see plenty of involvement for Peterson’s fellow running backs Matt Asiata and Jerick McKinnon in the passing game.
But Minnesota were better on defense, too, in 2014. A series of trades granted the Vikings six first-round draft picks over the last three years and those spent on defensive players have so far worked out well. Interior lineman Sharrif Floyd and cornerback Xavier Rhodes, both 2013 selections, as well as linebacker Anthony Barr, a 2014 pick, have emerged as leaders of a young defense that improved despite losing former cornerstones Jared Allen and Kevin Williams.
The Vikings spent this year’s 11th overall pick on cornerback Trae Waynes, as well as a second-rounder on Eric Kendricks – who might have been the best inside linebacker in the draft class. Both players should be able to contribute from early quickly.
It all adds up to a picture in which Peterson does not need to be brilliant. If he were to struggle, or find that his body does not hold up as well to the punishment as it once did, then Minnesota will still feel confident of moving the ball both through the air and with McKinnon and Asiata on the ground. They can lean on a robust defense when needed. With even a 1,000-yard rusher, they could challenge for a wildcard berth.
If Peterson were to defy the ageing process and run with the same fury that he did in 2012 then they could well achieve something even greater. It might be time to start bracing ourselves, though, for the possibility that this might not be the case.
Can John Fox rescue Jay Cutler’s career?
Jay Cutler does not mind poking fun at himself. This is a man who embraced the Smokin’ Jay meme to the point of adding a fake cigarette to his 30th birthday costume, and who described being told that he “kinda sucks” on South Park as both “cool” and “fair”.
Up to a certain point, this attitude felt admirable. We all prefer our sporting idols to come with a sense of humour. But the problem is that Cutler never developed into the idol that he was supposed to be. And in Chicago they long ago stopped laughing.
Now entering into his 10th NFL season, Cutler looks more and more like a lost talent. He boasts the arm strength and the accuracy of an elite quarterback but wastes both with persistently poor decision-making. He led the league with 24 turnovers last season.
Worse yet, his body language makes it seem as though he does not care about winning football games. Every interception or fumble greeted with a silent shrug only helps to persuade Bears fans that he is happier on the sidelines, staying out of harm’s way.
The arrival of John Fox in Chicago feels like a final opportunity. The new Bears head coach has brought Adam Gase along with him. Together, those two men helped Peyton Manning put together three extraordinary years in Denver, and to smash the single-season records for passing touchdowns and yards in 2013.
Cutler is no Manning, but Fox has helped lesser quarterbacks make good on their potential. In 2003, he guided the Panthers to a Super Bowl with Jake Delhomme taking the snaps. Carolina had been a 1-15 team when Fox arrived two years earlier.
The Bears were better than that last season, but this roster is still a mess. Brandon Marshall is gone at wide receiver and his replacement, Kevin White, taken with the seventh overall pick in this year’s draft, looks set to miss at least a large chunk of the season after suffering a stress fracture to his left tibia. Alshon Jeffery remains a top-tier talent but both he and the man most likely to start opposite him, Eddie Royal, have been hindered by injuries of their own.
Fox has other weapons at his disposal, most obviously Matt Forte, but an offensive line that struggled last season may continue to hold them all back. The coach did do well to bring center Will Montgomery over from Denver, less for the player’s talent than because of the assistance he has been able to provide his new team-mates in assimilating a new playbook.
Meanwhile, it is left to defensive co-ordinator Vic Fangio to turnaround a defense that gave up 920 points over the last two seasons – the most in the NFL. He has installed a 3-4 defense, and plugged in a few new bodies but reviving this unit will be more than a one-year job. If nothing else it should be fascinating to see how Pernell McPhee, who had 7.5 sacks as a situational player for Baltimore last year, does in a full-time role.
After finishing 5-11 in 2014, the Bears have a lot of ground to make up in a competitive division. The most positive outcome for Chicago might be if they can walk away at the end of this season feeling like they had a productive rebuilding year.
The only way it gets better than that is if Fox and Gase can finally elevate Cutler to the level that was once expected of him. It is a task that proved beyond all of the two head coaches and four offensive coordinators that have passed through the Windy City over the past six years.
Projected final standings
1) Green Bay Packers
2) Minnesota Vikings
3) Detroit Lions
4) Chicago Bears
