Sunday Six: A Day for the Defense

Get ready for Packers at Buccaneers with why the defense must win this game, a local lineman, Tom Brady memories, tackling a weakness and more.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers defense thinks it’s really good. It should be really good. On Sunday, a huge showdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it needs to be better than really good. It needs to be great.

It could be a challenging day for Green Bay’s reconfigured offense. The Packers’ unreliable passing game will be without its biggest early-season contributor (Sammy Watkins) and most explosive receiver (Christian Watson). The Packers beat the Bears last week behind a massive day by Aaron Jones. There’s no way Buccaneers coach and defensive guru Todd Bowles is going to let that happen. Bowles has had Jones’ number, anyway.

The Buccaneers’ defense is great. It gave up a combined 13 points in road victories over Dallas and New Orleans – no slouches offensively. Now, at home, they’ll be looking for a repeat performance against Aaron Rodgers and Co.

The Packers’ defense needs to step up to win this game. The Buccaneers have a lot of challenges on offense. Mike Evans, the only receiver in NFL history with eight consecutive 1,000-yard seasons, is out with a suspension. Chris Godwin, with 1,000-yard seasons in 2019 and 2021, is out with a hamstring injury. Julio Jones, the NFL’s active leader in receiving yards, might not play because of a knee injury. Left tackle Donovan Smith is not expected to play because of an elbow injury and his backup is on injured reserve.

With Tom Brady, the Buccaneers have one of the greatest players in NFL history. Packers cornerback Rasul Douglas was part of the Philadelphia team that beat the Brady-led Patriots in the Super Bowl to cap the 2017 season.

“He ****ing killed us,” Douglas said. “Everything he threw was wide open. Literally.”

Brady threw for 505 yards that day but Brandon Graham’s strip/sack in the final moments won the game.

“One play could change the whole game all the time,” Douglas said. “Like last week. If Justin Fields converts that fourth down and he sticks the ball out and gets a touchdown, it’s a seven-point game with 8 minutes left. That’s a whole different game. We just watched Baltimore and Miami [and the Dolphins’] come back. We just watched [the Browns’] Nick Chubb score a touchdown with 2 minutes left and lose up 14. One play can literally change anything.”

The Packers’ defense needs to make a few of those plays on Sunday. Green Bay will never have a better chance to win at Tampa Bay. It’s perhaps silly to think about playoff seedings on Sept. 25 but, with a win, it will draw even in the standings and have the tiebreaker edge.

“When I was a little younger, I was probably a little star-struck. Like, ‘I’m on the field with Tom Brady,’” outside linebacker Preston Smith recalled. “It’s cool at first. Now, it’s business. Tom beat us the last couple times we played Tampa, and we’ve got to make sure we go out there and execute and we don’t allow him to have any victory against us again.”

Here are five more of the best things we heard this week.

Local Lineman: Luke Goedeke

The Buccaneers are starting a rookie at left guard. His name? Luke Goedeke. His hometown? Whitelaw, which is located about 45 miles south of Green Bay. His path to the NFL? Unique.

Saying he had “negative-2” recruiting stars, Goedeke began his career at Division III Wisconsin-Stevens Point. As a freshman starter, he caught 12 passes in 2017. He always had Division I dreams, so he sent his film to Wisconsin and Central Michigan. CMU offered him a scholarship.

“Funny story,” he said before the draft. “I got to Central and they’re like, ‘All right, you’ll get your shot at tight end.’ I go to the equipment room and, of course, they tell me the only cleats they have are these offensive line cleats. So, I was out in fall camp the first week, week-and-a-half running routes in these offensive line cleats, just slipping and sliding all over the place.”

A conversation with the tight ends coach convinced him his best shot to get on the field was to move to offensive line. He consumed about 6,500 calories per day and worked himself into a two-year starter at right tackle.

“I’d try and gorge myself and eat until I couldn’t eat anymore, feel like I’m going to puke and stuff,” he said. “But just knew I had to gain weight to play the position and I’m all about the position, so I’m just going to grind in the weight room and eat my ass off at the end of the day.”

He had a predraft visit with the Packers but the Buccaneers drafted him in the second round of this year’s draft. He’s started both games to open the season.

“Good player,” defensive tackle Kenny Clark said. “He’s a rookie so he’s learning. Big guy in there. He’s strong, stout. That’s the story about all their offensive linemen. Firm-setting kind of guys, like to play inside and out. Definitely, he’s got some game in him. I think he’s a good player. He’s strong in the run game, also.”

Joe Barry’s Memories of Tom Brady Go Way Back

Somehow, Packers defensive coordinator Joe Barry needs to make the legendary Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady a bit uneasy.

As it turns out, they go way back.

Brady was a sixth-round pick by the New England Patriots in 2000 after an excellent career at Michigan. Barry was a defensive quality control coach for the San Francisco 49ers after stints at USC, Northern Arizona and UNLV. Their first game in the NFL? The Hall of Fame Game. The Patriots won 20-0, with Brady completing 3-of-4 passes for 28 yards in the fourth quarter.

“The guy truly is unbelievable,” Barry said. “It’s weird thinking back. I actually thought about this the other day … to how long ago that was for me as a coach and I’m like, ‘This dude’s still playing.’ It’s crazy. He’s phenomenal, he really is. Doesn’t matter where he’s playing or who he’s playing with, he’s just one of those guys that he’s, like you said, you’re not going to fool him. . But, obviously, one of the all-time greats.”

Tackling a Weakness

It’s early in the season but one of Green Bay’s strengths last season has turned into a weakness. Last season, according to SportsRadar, the Packers missed 87 tackles. That’s 5.12 per game, second-best in the league. Their missed-tackle rate of 8.7 percent was eighth-best.

Against Minnesota and Chicago, the Packers missed 16 tackles. That 8.0 average is fourth-most and their missed-tackle percentage of 12.8 percent is the third-worst.

Bad tackling is an obvious byproduct of the coaching give-and-take. A coach can be physical in training camp and play his starters in the preseason games so they’re better prepared for the regular season. Coach Matt LaFleur, obviously, took the other route. With a focus on a healthy roster for the games that matter, there was no live tackling at practice and the starers didn’t play in the preseason.

“A lot of guys hadn’t tackled for eight months and they’ve only had two live opportunities to do it,” Barry said, those first two opportunities being the first two games. “You can practice throwing, catching, hitting the sled, getting off blocks, but the only way to practice full-speed live tackling is to do it.

“You’ve got to be creative coming up with drills that they’re not full-speed live drills but you try to make something as full speed and as live as possible, even though you’re tackling a sled or a bag, some kind of apparatus. And then you’ve got to teach it and preach it. Teach angles, teach leverage. Those are things that we constantly talk about because you get one chance during the week to tackle live and that’s on gameday.”

Pat’s Punting

For years, Packers special teams coordinators have wanted their punters to kick with hang time and precision to make life as easy as possible for the coverage unit. That’s not how Rich Bisaccia operates. In fact, Bisaccia said, veteran Pat O’Donnell is calling the shots on gamedays.

“I think if you look at Pat kind of like a golfer, he’s got a lot of different clubs in his bag,” Bisaccia explained. “There’s been different punts at different places we’ve been on the field in the two games that we’ve played. That’s kind of what I mean about calling his pitches. If he wants to go left, right, down the middle, hit a big ball, hit a flop, whatever those things are, we work all those situations on the field during the week of practice, on Wednesday and usually on Friday.

“And then he has a chance to look at the script at the end of the week, and we’ll meet Saturday morning and go through those scripts and see what we want to do where we are on the field, and then the wind is always going to play a factor in the punt he decides to do, so there’s a lot involved in it. What’s the front, what’s the protection, are they overload, are they even, are they doubled on one side or doubled on the other, those things. So, that’s kind of what I mean about him calling his pitches.”

The production of O’Donnell and the punt team has been one of Green Bay’s early strengths.

Twin Inside Linebackers

The Buccaneers have had dominant defenses over the last few years thanks in large part to the play of their dynamic inside linebackers.

Lavonte David, a two-time Pro Bowler, is in his 12th NFL season. He’s recorded 27 sacks, 26 forced fumbles and 12 interceptions during a stalwart career. Devin White was the fifth pick of the 2019 draft and a first-time Pro Bowler last year. In 2020, when the Bucs won at Green Bay in the NFC Championship Game, he had 140 tackles, nine sacks and 15 tackles for losses in the regular season and 15 tackles in the title game.

“You’ve got two alphas right there and, collectively, those two guys are probably as good as it gets in this league,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said.

LaFleur is hoping for the same sort of impact from his pairing. Coming off an All-Pro season, the Packers re-signed De’Vondre Campbell. Then, they drafted Quay Walker. Potentially, they’ll be the team’s tandem for the next five seasons.

“I think they’re growing each and every day,” LaFleur said. “Quay’s getting more and more comfortable. He’s got a lot to experience in front of him. There’s nothing better than going out there and playing in those games. If you look back, it seems to me that over the last two games he’s gotten better within the flow of the game. The longer the game goes, the better he’s gotten.”