GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -It was the kind of day a defensive player lives for: Limiting a bitter rival to nine first downs, 234 yards of total offense and a measly four catches by wide receivers.
Heck, the Green Bay Packers’ defense outscored the Chicago Bears’ offense the last time the two teams met, a 37-3 Green Bay victory at Lambeau Field that boosted the Packers into a three-way tie for the NFC North lead.
“That,” Packers defensive end Aaron Kampman said, “was what it was supposed to look like.”
It was only a month ago, but feels much farther away. The defense has fallen into a four-game tailspin since, taking the team’s already-shaky playoff hopes down with it.
Now playing for pride instead of the playoffs, Packers defensive players are hoping for a repeat performance at Soldier Field on Monday night.
They still feel like they can be as dominant as they were against the Bears a month ago, but understand that their subpar statistics tell a much different story.
not being what we’d like them to are a reflection of our performance not being what we’d like to be,” Kampman said. “Are we capable? Yes. We all know that. We just haven’t been able to do that so far. So hopefully Monday night we’ll be able to get back to that.”
Going into the post-Brett Favre era, Packers coach Mike McCarthy hoped to win with a defense-first philosophy. And the Packers appeared to have enough veteran playmakers to do so.
But going into Monday’s game, the Packers’ defense ranks 24th overall, 26th against the run and 13th against the pass.
“Our expectations haven’t changed from the first day we kicked off at the beginning of the season, but we’ve gone through a very rough patch,” McCarthy said. “The reality is there’s no moral victories. We’re not doing the little things to get out of the foxhole that we’ve created from the win-loss column. They’ve all been close games, they’ve been tight games, but it’s really a play here in this particular situation or a play there in that particular situation.”
The defense’s struggles have called into question the future of defensive coordinator Bob Sanders, who recently received a vote of confidence from McCarthy.
Sanders said he isn’t getting discouraged.
“That’s a choice,” Sanders said. “And so I’m going to choose not to be discouraged, I’m going to choose to move forward as best I can.”
ut several key pieces.
Defensive lineman Cullen Jenkins was lost for the season with a chest injury. Cornerback Al Harris missed four games with an injured spleen. Pass rush specialist Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila never recovered from offseason knee surgery and was waived Nov. 1.
Safety Atari Bigby, who has been hurt all season and playing sporadically, finally was placed on injured reserve Thursday.
With so many players out or playing hurt, the Packers struggled to stop the run and rush the passer for most of the season. But coming off their performance against Chicago, it appeared that their secondary might still be good enough to sneak them into the playoffs.
Then came New Orleans.
The Packers gave up 323 yards passing and four touchdowns to Saints quarterback Drew Brees – including a pair of 70-yard scores – in a 51-29 loss the following Monday night.
The Packers went on to blow fourth-quarter leads at home to Carolina and Houston and on the road to Jacksonville.
Meanwhile, more injuries piled up: Middle linebacker Nick Barnett is out for the rest of the season with a hurt knee, and second-year defensive tackle Justin Harrell continued his struggle to stay on the field.
McCarthy said he sees his remaining players trying to do too much at times, neglecting their assignments in an attempt to make a big play.
chdowns. But now they might be paying for their aggressive style.
The Packers also have had communication problems on defense – a fact laid bare in the third quarter of Sunday’s loss to the Jaguars, when Harris and linebacker Brady Poppinga had a heated exchange after a blown pass coverage assignment.
And it certainly hasn’t helped that after facing the Bears’ relatively conservative offense, the Packers faced higher-octane tests: pass-happy New Orleans and the underrated, balanced offenses run by Carolina and Houston.
“Those are all things you kind of dissect,” Kampman said. “In the heat of it, you’re supposed to win every game, dominate every game. That’s the reality, and that’s our mentality. It doesn’t matter who they are or what we do, that’s the kind of mentality we want to have. We just haven’t been able to impose that as much as we’d like, and we’ll obviously be seeking to do that again on Monday night.”
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