The Packers defense in its first season under defensive coordinator Mike Pettine saw its share of highs and lows, but there was one area that the team, according to Pettine’s staff, finished decidedly too low: takeaways.
Speaking to the media Tuesday, Pettine emphasized the importance of creating turnovers, saying he and the coaches planned to reinforce the message throughout the spring in order to improve the unit’s turnover rate.
“We didn’t do a good enough job coaching it last year,” Pettine said. “Our awareness of the football and attacking just has to go up, and I think we’ve done a good job emphasizing it this spring. That falls back to ‘you get what you emphasize,’ and I think the players have done a good job responding to that request.”
Last season, the Packers finished ranked 19th in takeaways with a turnover differential of zero. The league’s top team, the Seattle Seahawks, finished plus-15. Division rival Chicago Bears finished third with plus-12 and a lead-leading 36 defensive takeaways. Because Aaron Rodgers protected the ball so well, however, the Packers’ takeaway differential is misleading. The defense alone produced just 15 takeaways, 29th-worst ranking in the league.
For Pettine and his staff, emphasizing means deliberately practicing creating turnovers. At Tuesdays practice, the team practiced what Pettine called a takeaway “circuit” in which the players work on taking away the football in multiple variations.
“I think the biggest thing for us is attacking the football and having that mentality,” Pettine said. ‘We’ve been using the phrase ‘ball awareness,’ and I think we’ve been doing a much better job this spring of, as the runners are coming through, of being aware of where the football is, and taking swipes at it, punching at it. And we always talk to our guys, too, about tackling at the level of the football. When you wrap you have a chance to knock it out. The circuit (practice) part is big into it.“
