I'm just trying to have a conversation fraij.... however being called "delusional", "idiot", etc. is pretty quickly making me realize that there are really only three Packer fans on this board with some sense.
I'm just trying to have a conversation fraij.... however being called "delusional", "idiot", etc. is pretty quickly making me realize that there are really only three Packer fans on this board with some sense.
And I was simply trying to state a fact that ya'll snag up any Packers players you can. You havent even disproved it. You brought on this Brett Favre argument, something you get on me for doing so much.
BTW im appalled im not on your list of Packer fans w/ sense.
And I was simply trying to state a fact that ya'll snag up any Packers players you can. You havent even disproved it. You brought on this Brett Favre argument, something you get on me for doing so much.
BTW im appalled im not on your list of Packer fans w/ sense.
From the moment the Cincinnati Bengals break the huddle, Charles Woodson is certain he knows what's coming.
Second-and-18. Ball on the minus-33. Empty shotgun, trips right, with tight end Daniel Coats aligned between receivers Laveranues Coles and Andre Caldwell.
Woodson knows the percentages -- that in this down and distance, in this area of the field, from this formation, Bengals offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski tends to lean on a route combination that sends the middle slot on a 5-yard out beneath the flanker, who works the outside cornerback upfield on a go.
So, Woodson jogs over to inside linebacker Nick Barnett, puts a hand over his face mask and makes sure Barnett will cover Caldwell up the seam. Tramon Williams has Coles on the edge, leaving Woodson playing 7 yards off against Coats.
It's a mismatch in more ways than one between the Green Bay Packers' Pro Bowl cornerback and a slow-footed, 264-pound tight end. Because if there is an example for every young player about the value of putting in extra work to diagnose an opponent's tendencies -- a necessity in the modern NFL, where game tapes can be computer-sorted by any variable and replayed at any hour on players' laptops and DVD players -- it's Woodson.
He's shading inside Coats' route even before Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer cocks his arm, and by the time Palmer releases the ball, Woodson has taken his first step toward Lambeau Field's southwest end zone with what becomes a 37-yard interception return for a touchdown.
It all looks so effortless, it's easy to forget the hours Woodson has spent getting inside not only the Bengals' offense, but Bratkowski's head. And a couple of days after this game, in which he picks Palmer twice, Woodson and his teammates will be back in the meeting rooms and their living rooms, trying to do the same to Sunday's opponent, the St. Louis Rams.
"Really, it's recognition," Woodson said this past week. "It is film study, but it's recognition. If I didn't recognize, or if I couldn't relate what I see on film to the game, it wouldn't matter. You've got to be able to recognize what you see on film and then go out there and make the plays."
Considering the wealth of information at every NFL player's fingertips, making that connection never has been more vital.
The process
Players and coaches still use the phrase "studying film," even though the days of reels and projectors passed more than two decades ago.
The league has progressed from celluloid to video to digital, and for the first time this season, video departments are exchanging game "tapes" over a dedicated computer network linking all 32 teams to a central processing server. Where weather and airline schedules sometimes could keep an opponent tape from arriving for more than 24 hours after a game, it's now transmitted on Sundays and ready for breakdown by 7 a.m. Monday.
While other coaches self-scout the intercut -- a splicing of the high-sideline and end-zone camera shots of their own game compiled by the Packers' four-man video department on Sunday night -- the quality-control assistants log the opponent tape play by play. Once they're finished, video staffers run filters that make the entire game searchable by down, distance, area of the field, personnel, formations and whatever else coaches want.
"Absolutely anything you can possibly think of," said Bob Eckberg, the Packers' video director, "we can filter out and we can get it."
Those filters populate the cut-ups Packers coaches then examine to formulate their game plan and decide what players most need to see.
By Tuesday, the video department has made DVDs for players and added the opponent's latest game to the three or four others already on an internal server that connects more than 50 computers within the building. Every assistant coach has a laptop specifically for video on the XOS system, the searchable database that descended from the Packers' original Avid Sports non-linear editing system.
At various points during the week, different coaches present players the plan for different segments -- e.g. the running game, goal line/short yardage, early-down passing and third-down passing, which in turn can be broken down into several subcategories based on yardage. Those emphases form the basis for the work players do all week in the meeting rooms and on the practice field, and by Friday, coaches are peeking ahead at the following week's opponent.
"Football's a situational game," Packers offensive coordinator Joe Philbin said. "I think in the old days, you used to get one tape and you used to watch Play 1 through Play 75. The technology's so far advanced now you can watch all their third-and-4 plays together, all their plays against a certain personnel group, certain formations. Each coach kind of has their own unique way of doing it and the way they feel comfortable watching a team."
On their own
Players are the same way, particularly in the scout work they do on their own.
Left guard Daryn Colledge starts by checking to see if an upcoming opponent is playing on TV, because the broadcast version sometimes offers different angles, and usually watches the same game three times.
Matt Flynn lets his dog hang out as he sorts through a defense's tendencies and its pressure packages on one of the laptops the Packers give to their quarterbacks.
Running back Brandon Jackson prefers a quiet room with his portable DVD player, where he starts by studying an opponent's linebackers, progresses to how defensive linemen react to particular runs and then to defensive backs' tackling styles.
Williams watches his DVD as soon as he gets home after practice and watches some more before bed, getting a feel for routes and calculating the percentages a team runs a play from a given formation.
Safety Nick Collins carries his laptop wherever he goes -- couch, bedroom, even the garage -- to help him figure out on which plays he can and can't take chances.
"You try to add that to your mojo," Collins said. "You just want to know what your opponent's trying to do to you in all situations."
Most players say they start with a broad look and progress to specific situational and player analysis, spending 15 to 20 hours in a given week between meetings, informal group study at the facility and independent viewing at home.
It can be a daunting process for younger players, many of whom admit they didn't really understand the limited film they watched in college.
"You can watch a huge volume and you don't know what you're looking for when you're young," Rams quarterback Marc Bulger said. "The coaches can point it out for you. But now I can watch on my own, and now I know exactly what to look for. When you're looking for ghosts -- if you keep looking at film and you're looking for something not there, you can waste an hour and a half, whereas now I can go in and knock out a half-hour, 45 minutes and get all the information I need on a third down, or the next night, 45 minutes, get all I need for red zone."
Reciprocal value
There is a give and take between players and coaches, who don't always see the same things as the guys on the field.
Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo can recall learning from linebacker Shawn Barber's study habits when the two were in Philadelphia. Packers cornerbacks coach Joe Whitt Jr. speaks in amazement about Woodson's study habits as well as his unique method -- sorting tape by area of the field, rather than by concept, which allows him to pick up on play-calling tendencies and know where teams like to take shots.
Woodson credits his old secondary coach at the University of Michigan, former NFL cornerback Vance Bedford, with teaching him the basics of film study. But it wasn't until several years into his stint with the Oakland Raiders that Woodson began to understand the staunch habits teams form.
Collins has credited Woodson with helping him refine his method, which helped Collins to a breakout 2008 season with seven interceptions.
"The only thing that I tried to tell (Collins) was, if you see something, just go get it," Woodson said. "If you see it on film, you're going to see it in the game. If you see a play out there that you recognize from film, make the play."
No matter how much some players study, of course, they won't make the play. After all, everyone's studying everyone else, every NFL player has talent and every team presents some "unscouted" looks they haven't shown.
There also can be a danger to overstudying, picking up on intricacies that don't really mean anything, and most players cut off their studying no later than Saturday morning. But there's no question learning how to analyze an opponent on film -- tape, digital video, whatever -- can prove just as important to a player's development as anything he does on the practice field.
"Even through my rookie and second year, I was kind of refining my routine on how I like to do it," linebacker A.J. Hawk said. "I'd try things, and people would just tell me, 'Well, this is what I do, this is what I think you should do.' I tried it and got nothing out of it.
"It's just like studying for a test -- everyone's different."
From the moment the Cincinnati Bengals break the huddle, Charles Woodson is certain he knows what's coming.
Second-and-18. Ball on the minus-33. Empty shotgun, trips right, with tight end Daniel Coats aligned between receivers Laveranues Coles and Andre Caldwell.
Woodson knows the percentages -- that in this down and distance, in this area of the field, from this formation, Bengals offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski tends to lean on a route combination that sends the middle slot on a 5-yard out beneath the flanker, who works the outside cornerback upfield on a go.
So, Woodson jogs over to inside linebacker Nick Barnett, puts a hand over his face mask and makes sure Barnett will cover Caldwell up the seam. Tramon Williams has Coles on the edge, leaving Woodson playing 7 yards off against Coats.
It's a mismatch in more ways than one between the Green Bay Packers' Pro Bowl cornerback and a slow-footed, 264-pound tight end. Because if there is an example for every young player about the value of putting in extra work to diagnose an opponent's tendencies -- a necessity in the modern NFL, where game tapes can be computer-sorted by any variable and replayed at any hour on players' laptops and DVD players -- it's Woodson.
He's shading inside Coats' route even before Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer cocks his arm, and by the time Palmer releases the ball, Woodson has taken his first step toward Lambeau Field's southwest end zone with what becomes a 37-yard interception return for a touchdown.
It all looks so effortless, it's easy to forget the hours Woodson has spent getting inside not only the Bengals' offense, but Bratkowski's head. And a couple of days after this game, in which he picks Palmer twice, Woodson and his teammates will be back in the meeting rooms and their living rooms, trying to do the same to Sunday's opponent, the St. Louis Rams.
"Really, it's recognition," Woodson said this past week. "It is film study, but it's recognition. If I didn't recognize, or if I couldn't relate what I see on film to the game, it wouldn't matter. You've got to be able to recognize what you see on film and then go out there and make the plays."
Considering the wealth of information at every NFL player's fingertips, making that connection never has been more vital.
The process
Players and coaches still use the phrase "studying film," even though the days of reels and projectors passed more than two decades ago.
The league has progressed from celluloid to video to digital, and for the first time this season, video departments are exchanging game "tapes" over a dedicated computer network linking all 32 teams to a central processing server. Where weather and airline schedules sometimes could keep an opponent tape from arriving for more than 24 hours after a game, it's now transmitted on Sundays and ready for breakdown by 7 a.m. Monday.
While other coaches self-scout the intercut -- a splicing of the high-sideline and end-zone camera shots of their own game compiled by the Packers' four-man video department on Sunday night -- the quality-control assistants log the opponent tape play by play. Once they're finished, video staffers run filters that make the entire game searchable by down, distance, area of the field, personnel, formations and whatever else coaches want.
"Absolutely anything you can possibly think of," said Bob Eckberg, the Packers' video director, "we can filter out and we can get it."
Those filters populate the cut-ups Packers coaches then examine to formulate their game plan and decide what players most need to see.
By Tuesday, the video department has made DVDs for players and added the opponent's latest game to the three or four others already on an internal server that connects more than 50 computers within the building. Every assistant coach has a laptop specifically for video on the XOS system, the searchable database that descended from the Packers' original Avid Sports non-linear editing system.
At various points during the week, different coaches present players the plan for different segments -- e.g. the running game, goal line/short yardage, early-down passing and third-down passing, which in turn can be broken down into several subcategories based on yardage. Those emphases form the basis for the work players do all week in the meeting rooms and on the practice field, and by Friday, coaches are peeking ahead at the following week's opponent.
"Football's a situational game," Packers offensive coordinator Joe Philbin said. "I think in the old days, you used to get one tape and you used to watch Play 1 through Play 75. The technology's so far advanced now you can watch all their third-and-4 plays together, all their plays against a certain personnel group, certain formations. Each coach kind of has their own unique way of doing it and the way they feel comfortable watching a team."
On their own
Players are the same way, particularly in the scout work they do on their own.
Left guard Daryn Colledge starts by checking to see if an upcoming opponent is playing on TV, because the broadcast version sometimes offers different angles, and usually watches the same game three times.
Matt Flynn lets his dog hang out as he sorts through a defense's tendencies and its pressure packages on one of the laptops the Packers give to their quarterbacks.
Running back Brandon Jackson prefers a quiet room with his portable DVD player, where he starts by studying an opponent's linebackers, progresses to how defensive linemen react to particular runs and then to defensive backs' tackling styles.
Williams watches his DVD as soon as he gets home after practice and watches some more before bed, getting a feel for routes and calculating the percentages a team runs a play from a given formation.
Safety Nick Collins carries his laptop wherever he goes -- couch, bedroom, even the garage -- to help him figure out on which plays he can and can't take chances.
"You try to add that to your mojo," Collins said. "You just want to know what your opponent's trying to do to you in all situations."
Most players say they start with a broad look and progress to specific situational and player analysis, spending 15 to 20 hours in a given week between meetings, informal group study at the facility and independent viewing at home.
It can be a daunting process for younger players, many of whom admit they didn't really understand the limited film they watched in college.
"You can watch a huge volume and you don't know what you're looking for when you're young," Rams quarterback Marc Bulger said. "The coaches can point it out for you. But now I can watch on my own, and now I know exactly what to look for. When you're looking for ghosts -- if you keep looking at film and you're looking for something not there, you can waste an hour and a half, whereas now I can go in and knock out a half-hour, 45 minutes and get all the information I need on a third down, or the next night, 45 minutes, get all I need for red zone."
Reciprocal value
There is a give and take between players and coaches, who don't always see the same things as the guys on the field.
Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo can recall learning from linebacker Shawn Barber's study habits when the two were in Philadelphia. Packers cornerbacks coach Joe Whitt Jr. speaks in amazement about Woodson's study habits as well as his unique method -- sorting tape by area of the field, rather than by concept, which allows him to pick up on play-calling tendencies and know where teams like to take shots.
Woodson credits his old secondary coach at the University of Michigan, former NFL cornerback Vance Bedford, with teaching him the basics of film study. But it wasn't until several years into his stint with the Oakland Raiders that Woodson began to understand the staunch habits teams form.
Collins has credited Woodson with helping him refine his method, which helped Collins to a breakout 2008 season with seven interceptions.
"The only thing that I tried to tell (Collins) was, if you see something, just go get it," Woodson said. "If you see it on film, you're going to see it in the game. If you see a play out there that you recognize from film, make the play."
No matter how much some players study, of course, they won't make the play. After all, everyone's studying everyone else, every NFL player has talent and every team presents some "unscouted" looks they haven't shown.
There also can be a danger to overstudying, picking up on intricacies that don't really mean anything, and most players cut off their studying no later than Saturday morning. But there's no question learning how to analyze an opponent on film -- tape, digital video, whatever -- can prove just as important to a player's development as anything he does on the practice field.
"Even through my rookie and second year, I was kind of refining my routine on how I like to do it," linebacker A.J. Hawk said. "I'd try things, and people would just tell me, 'Well, this is what I do, this is what I think you should do.' I tried it and got nothing out of it.
"It's just like studying for a test -- everyone's different."
