It fell a little short of blatant finger pointing, but it was finger pointing nonetheless. In a day filled with shortcomings by the Green Bay Packers’ defense, inside linebacker Jake Ryan pointed to a teammate not doing his job on the Atlanta Falcons’ game-winning score.
That was an 11-yard pass from Matt Ryan to receiver Mohamed Sanu with 31 seconds left. Sanu ran past Ryan through the middle of the field and caught the pass in the back of the end zone.
When asked, Ryan said Sanu wasn’t his responsibility.
“We’ll check it out on film,” Ryan said. “I mean, we’ll see what happened, and if there was an error on me, or if it was someone else. You never know. The film doesn’t lie, but we’ll check it out and see what happened.”
That seems to suggest that safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix should have giving help over the top. However, he gave up the middle of the field to double Julio Jones on the outside.
That strategy helped the Packers contain Jones, who had just three catches, all game. The Falcons were clearly wise to it by this point, however, and it appears they took advantage.
In the end, it was just another disappointing play on a day when the Packers’ defense did nothing to help win a football game. It was also possibly another disappointing play in what is shaping up as a disappointing season for Clinton-Dix.
cmon jake. just say you got beat stop blame shifting man. everybody gets beat in this league from time to time
HHCD is also to blame in the first falcons td I believe. I feel like he should have rotated over to help on the deep post once he recognized no one on the other side of the field was running a deal corner route
He could be right, and i gave it some thought before i posted about it earlier.
But the bottom line is, the games on the line, there was no one else for him to cover. He’s tore you up the whole drive, you don’t assume someone else has him if you don’t know. I don’t like defensive backs playing the blame game, Tramon Williams isn’t here anymore.
O.K It was not a correct matchup to have Ryan on a wide receiver, however Ryan has to carry the receiver into the back of the end zone. Probably does not have the hops to knock down the ball down but you have to try to knock the ball away or impact his vision. What else was he going to do he was already around 5 yards into the end zone. If your going to try and impact a shorter route you are already in no mans land. Shorter route is already in the end zone.
Also, i don’t think he out and out said it wasn’t his responsibility like the title states. But make no mistake, he sure as hell insinuated it. Plus, saying some shit like that in the locker room after the game is bush league. That’s when you need leaders in the locker room.
Really only 2 possibilities here:
1) It was Ryan’s repsonsibility to cover a WR… who had been kicking butt already… which would mean the Packers D coaches are criminally insane… (possible)
or,
2) Clinton-Dix screwed up again. The nerve of this guy who felt he was cheated by not going to the pro bowl. He would be a back up on most teams or not even on the team. He was not a first round quality talent even without all the character issues.
Woah.
Thanks for pointing out that there was two possibilities when regarding the actions of two separate people. That actually makes sense. I am sure you felt like you must have applied massive brain power to figure that out, and I am sure you did, but it was pretty obvious in just the Title of the article to everyone else.
Thanks again so much for your “contribution”
You should double the inside wr’s and leave single coverage on the outside that close to goal..not leave a lb on a wr
Obviously I’m agreeing with Jake ryan here..who also had a MUCH better game against the run than Martinez did