M
Mark Eckel
Guest
BY ROB REISCHEL
Mike Pettine blames his father, Mike Pettine Sr., and his mother Joyce.
Pettine, Green Bay’s new defensive coordinator, has been told that his standard facial expression is that of a man who appears consistently annoyed. Just wait until he starts watching film of the 2017 Packers’ defense.
“I’ve been told my natural resting gaze is not a pleasant one, but there’s not much I can do about that,” Pettine said. “I blame my parents for that.”
The key now is for that perpetually perturbed look to vanish in 2018. That, of course, will be far easier said than done.
Green Bay’s list of defensive woes read like a copy of ‘Gone With the Wind’ last season and cost defensive coordinator Dom Capers his job. Pettine, a highly-successful defensive coordinator for five seasons and a flop as Cleveland’s head coach for two years, was given the remarkably tall task of fixing the Packers’ defense.
Good luck.
“The cupboard certainly isn’t bare,” Pettine said while meeting with reporters this week. “There are some quality football players here.”
Pettine, a high school football coach in Pennsylvania from 1995-2001, broke into the NFL as a coaching assistant with Baltimore in 2002. He worked his way up the ranks, was named the New York Jets’ defensive coordinator in 2009 and held that job for four years, then coordinated the defense in Buffalo in 2013.
During each of those seasons, Pettine’s defenses were exemplary, especially against the pass. Consider the numbers:
2009 (with the Jets)
• Total defense — No. 1, 252.3 yards per game
• Passing defense — No. 1, 153.7 yards per game
• Opponent passer rating — No. 1, 58.8
• Rushing defense — No. 8, 98.6 yards per game
• Rushing yards per attempt — No. 4, 3.76 per attempt
2010 (with the Jets)
• Total defense — No. 3, 291.5 yards per game
• Passing defense — No. 6, 200.6 yards per game
• Opponent passer rating — No. 6, 77.1
• Rushing defense — No. 3, 90.9 yards per game
• Rushing yards per attempt — No. 3, 3.56 per attempt
2011 (with the Jets)
• Total defense — No. 5, 312.1 yards per game
• Passing defense — No. 5, 201.1 yards per game
• Opponent passer rating — No. 3, 69.6
• Rushing defense — No. 13, 111.1 yards per game
• Rushing yards per attempt — No. 6, 3.94 per attempt
2012 (with the Jets)
• Total defense — No. 8, 323.4 yards per game
• Passing defense — No. 2, 189.8 yards per game
• Opponent passer rating — No. 7, 78.2
• Rushing defense — No. 26, 133.6 yards per game
• Rushing yards per attempt — No. 21, 4.32 per attempt
2013 (with Buffalo)
• Total defense — No. 10, 333.4 yards per game
• Passing defense — No. 4, 204.4 yards per game
• Opponent passer rating — No. 3, 74.9
• Rushing defense — No. 28, 128.9 yards per game
• Rushing yards per attempt — No. 23, 4.38 per attempt
The Jets were never overflowing with Pro Bowl players under Pettine either. Cornerback Darrelle Revis was the Jets’ only defensive Pro Bowl player in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Then in 2012, cornerback Antonio Cromartie and safety Laron Landry both were named to the Pro Bowl.
In 2013, Buffalo’s only defensive Pro Bowl player was free safety Jairus Byrd.
The Packers didn’t have a single defensive Pro Bowl player in 2017 until Mike Daniels was named as a replacement. And their rankings in the aforementioned categories were downright abysmal. Consider:
• Total defense — No. 22, 348.9 yards per game
• Passing defense — No. 23, 236.8 yards per game
• Opponent passer rating — No. 31, 102.0 (worst mark in franchise history)
• Rushing defense — No. 17, 112.1 yards per game
• Rushing yards per attempt — No. 9, 3.86 per attempt
But Pettine has proved in his other stops that he can do more with less. And that’s exactly what might need to happen in 2018.
“Mike, No. 1, has a system of defense that’s been extremely successful,” Packers coach Mike McCarthy said of Pettine. “I had five clear components and characteristics that I was looking for in the new defensive coordinator. … I’m not gong to get into specifics to that, but I thought Mike really knocked it out of the park. I knew early in the process that he was the right man for the job.”
Pettine’s defenses have traditionally been sensational against the pass. During his five years as a coordinator, the average rank of Pettine’s defenses was 3.6 in total pass defense and 4.0 in opponent passer rating.
“The thing that I respect over the years with him, they don’t give up a lot of completions, they hold vertical control, there’s always tight coverage and he does a very nice job implementing that,” said Joe Whitt, who was promoted to passing game coordinator. “It’s a clean package, it’s a good package, but it’s a difficult package for quarterbacks to navigate through.”
Even during Pettine’s first year as Cleveland’s head coach, the undermanned Browns were No. 8 in passing defense (224.5) and No. 1 in opponent passer rating (74.1). Things bottomed out the following season when the Browns were No. 22 in pass defense (250.8) and 30th in opponent passer rating (101.8).
Overall, though, throwing the ball against a Pettine-led defense has been quite the chore.
“I think you still have to be sound against the run, but you lose a heck of a lot faster when you’re giving up chunks in the passing game than you are necessarily in the run game,” said Pettine, who took the 2016 season off, then worked as a consultant for Seattle in 2017. “It’s critical to win on early downs but the pass part of it is huge. You have to find a way to affect the quarterback. If you’re not sacking him, you’re hitting him, you’re getting knockdowns, you’re getting hurries and you’re in his head a little bit. And you’re changing it up.”
Pettine and McCarthy didn’t know each well at the start of the interview process. The two men missed each other by two years at the University of Pittsburgh in the early 1990s, and aside from spending some time together at the owner’s meetings a few years back, had little to no relationship.
But as the interview process went on, Pettine and McCarthy had the same viewpoint and ways of thinking on most major defensive issues.
“When we got together it was the shared philosophy and the mentality, the approach to football, kind of integrating old-school techniques, old-school foundation, but also using cutting edge and thinking outside the box,” Pettine said. “That’s where I think we were really in tune.”
McCarthy agreed.
“When we started going, I felt that we really connected,” McCarthy said. “I think it’s important in the game of football, particularly in coaching, you look for people that kind of view the game the way that you do. His background in analytics, the ability to teach and being in tune with today’s athlete, there’s a number of things.”
Pettine’s base defense is an aggressive 3-4. But Pettine said too much is made of the ‘3-4’ label as his teams are only in base approximately 15 snaps a game.
Instead, the defense revolves around the play of the two outside linebackers, which are called ‘Sam’ and ‘Rush.’ Those two players stand up in a conventional 3-4 scheme, but the ‘Rush’ ‘backer can also line up at defensive end in a traditional 4-3 defense.
Players like Calvin Pace and Bryan Thomas flip-flopped in those spots with the Jets. Mario Williams was terrific as the ‘Rush’ linebacker in Buffalo (13.0 sacks in 2013), while steady Manny Lawson played ‘Sam.’
It remains to be seen what roles Pettine eventually assigns Clay Matthews, Nick Perry and Green Bay’s other outside linebackers.
“You have to be able to adjust. … That’s part of the process now, evaluating the talent we have,” Pettine said. “I’ve always been a big believer in you have your system, and you have an idea of what you want and make every effort to build the roster that way, but in the meantime you can’t win with players you don’t have. So you have to assess who’s on campus and how can we best build the defense to take advantage of their skill sets.”
Pettine’s defenses have also been called extremely complex. Considering Green Bay’s players struggled with the complexity of Capers’ schemes the last several years, that could be a red flag.
But Pettine said he’s scaled things back through the years, and would do so again in Green Bay — at least early on.
“When I first got in the league it was easy to put in 50 or 60 defenses up for a game. Now, you’re 20-25,” Pettine said. “Why? Because a lot of time you’re dealing with young players that haven’t been veteran guys in a system that know it and also you’re dealing with the new CBA where you have limited time to get with them, especially in the off-season for them to learn that foundation. I think as a coach you have to adjust. But no, you look at us you’re going to see we’re going to be multiple and we’re going to be aggressive.”
Pettine knows he’s inheriting one of the tougher jobs in the National Football League.
Green Bay has not had a top-10 defense since 2010, the last time it won the Super Bowl. And the Packers are coming off back-to-back seasons of historically miserable play in the secondary.
But Pettine insists he’s back where he belongs — coordinating defenses instead of coaching an entire football team. If he can now bring some of his defensive magic to Green Bay that he had with the Jets and Bills, perhaps the Packers can become relevant again in the race for NFL supremacy.
“I always made the comparison, it was going from being the teacher to now you’re the principal,” Pettine said of moving from a coordinator to a head coach. “The administrative part might be, as a coordinator, 90 percent football, 10 percent administrative stuff. That essentially flipped and I didn’t like it.
“I missed the camaraderie of the room, the interaction with the staff, the interaction with the players. The chess-game part of it – the designing a game plan tailored to your opponent. That’s the furthest thing from my mind. I’m here to coordinate an outstanding defense and win a Super Bowl.”
Something like that might certainly alter Pettine’s usual facial expression.
The post Face it, Pettine has a tough task trying to fix the defense appeared first on Bob McGinn Football.
Continue reading...
Mike Pettine blames his father, Mike Pettine Sr., and his mother Joyce.
Pettine, Green Bay’s new defensive coordinator, has been told that his standard facial expression is that of a man who appears consistently annoyed. Just wait until he starts watching film of the 2017 Packers’ defense.
“I’ve been told my natural resting gaze is not a pleasant one, but there’s not much I can do about that,” Pettine said. “I blame my parents for that.”
The key now is for that perpetually perturbed look to vanish in 2018. That, of course, will be far easier said than done.
Green Bay’s list of defensive woes read like a copy of ‘Gone With the Wind’ last season and cost defensive coordinator Dom Capers his job. Pettine, a highly-successful defensive coordinator for five seasons and a flop as Cleveland’s head coach for two years, was given the remarkably tall task of fixing the Packers’ defense.
Good luck.
“The cupboard certainly isn’t bare,” Pettine said while meeting with reporters this week. “There are some quality football players here.”
Pettine, a high school football coach in Pennsylvania from 1995-2001, broke into the NFL as a coaching assistant with Baltimore in 2002. He worked his way up the ranks, was named the New York Jets’ defensive coordinator in 2009 and held that job for four years, then coordinated the defense in Buffalo in 2013.
During each of those seasons, Pettine’s defenses were exemplary, especially against the pass. Consider the numbers:
2009 (with the Jets)
• Total defense — No. 1, 252.3 yards per game
• Passing defense — No. 1, 153.7 yards per game
• Opponent passer rating — No. 1, 58.8
• Rushing defense — No. 8, 98.6 yards per game
• Rushing yards per attempt — No. 4, 3.76 per attempt
2010 (with the Jets)
• Total defense — No. 3, 291.5 yards per game
• Passing defense — No. 6, 200.6 yards per game
• Opponent passer rating — No. 6, 77.1
• Rushing defense — No. 3, 90.9 yards per game
• Rushing yards per attempt — No. 3, 3.56 per attempt
2011 (with the Jets)
• Total defense — No. 5, 312.1 yards per game
• Passing defense — No. 5, 201.1 yards per game
• Opponent passer rating — No. 3, 69.6
• Rushing defense — No. 13, 111.1 yards per game
• Rushing yards per attempt — No. 6, 3.94 per attempt
2012 (with the Jets)
• Total defense — No. 8, 323.4 yards per game
• Passing defense — No. 2, 189.8 yards per game
• Opponent passer rating — No. 7, 78.2
• Rushing defense — No. 26, 133.6 yards per game
• Rushing yards per attempt — No. 21, 4.32 per attempt
2013 (with Buffalo)
• Total defense — No. 10, 333.4 yards per game
• Passing defense — No. 4, 204.4 yards per game
• Opponent passer rating — No. 3, 74.9
• Rushing defense — No. 28, 128.9 yards per game
• Rushing yards per attempt — No. 23, 4.38 per attempt
The Jets were never overflowing with Pro Bowl players under Pettine either. Cornerback Darrelle Revis was the Jets’ only defensive Pro Bowl player in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Then in 2012, cornerback Antonio Cromartie and safety Laron Landry both were named to the Pro Bowl.
In 2013, Buffalo’s only defensive Pro Bowl player was free safety Jairus Byrd.
The Packers didn’t have a single defensive Pro Bowl player in 2017 until Mike Daniels was named as a replacement. And their rankings in the aforementioned categories were downright abysmal. Consider:
• Total defense — No. 22, 348.9 yards per game
• Passing defense — No. 23, 236.8 yards per game
• Opponent passer rating — No. 31, 102.0 (worst mark in franchise history)
• Rushing defense — No. 17, 112.1 yards per game
• Rushing yards per attempt — No. 9, 3.86 per attempt
But Pettine has proved in his other stops that he can do more with less. And that’s exactly what might need to happen in 2018.
“Mike, No. 1, has a system of defense that’s been extremely successful,” Packers coach Mike McCarthy said of Pettine. “I had five clear components and characteristics that I was looking for in the new defensive coordinator. … I’m not gong to get into specifics to that, but I thought Mike really knocked it out of the park. I knew early in the process that he was the right man for the job.”
Pettine’s defenses have traditionally been sensational against the pass. During his five years as a coordinator, the average rank of Pettine’s defenses was 3.6 in total pass defense and 4.0 in opponent passer rating.
“The thing that I respect over the years with him, they don’t give up a lot of completions, they hold vertical control, there’s always tight coverage and he does a very nice job implementing that,” said Joe Whitt, who was promoted to passing game coordinator. “It’s a clean package, it’s a good package, but it’s a difficult package for quarterbacks to navigate through.”
Even during Pettine’s first year as Cleveland’s head coach, the undermanned Browns were No. 8 in passing defense (224.5) and No. 1 in opponent passer rating (74.1). Things bottomed out the following season when the Browns were No. 22 in pass defense (250.8) and 30th in opponent passer rating (101.8).
Overall, though, throwing the ball against a Pettine-led defense has been quite the chore.
“I think you still have to be sound against the run, but you lose a heck of a lot faster when you’re giving up chunks in the passing game than you are necessarily in the run game,” said Pettine, who took the 2016 season off, then worked as a consultant for Seattle in 2017. “It’s critical to win on early downs but the pass part of it is huge. You have to find a way to affect the quarterback. If you’re not sacking him, you’re hitting him, you’re getting knockdowns, you’re getting hurries and you’re in his head a little bit. And you’re changing it up.”
Pettine and McCarthy didn’t know each well at the start of the interview process. The two men missed each other by two years at the University of Pittsburgh in the early 1990s, and aside from spending some time together at the owner’s meetings a few years back, had little to no relationship.
But as the interview process went on, Pettine and McCarthy had the same viewpoint and ways of thinking on most major defensive issues.
“When we got together it was the shared philosophy and the mentality, the approach to football, kind of integrating old-school techniques, old-school foundation, but also using cutting edge and thinking outside the box,” Pettine said. “That’s where I think we were really in tune.”
McCarthy agreed.
“When we started going, I felt that we really connected,” McCarthy said. “I think it’s important in the game of football, particularly in coaching, you look for people that kind of view the game the way that you do. His background in analytics, the ability to teach and being in tune with today’s athlete, there’s a number of things.”
Pettine’s base defense is an aggressive 3-4. But Pettine said too much is made of the ‘3-4’ label as his teams are only in base approximately 15 snaps a game.
Instead, the defense revolves around the play of the two outside linebackers, which are called ‘Sam’ and ‘Rush.’ Those two players stand up in a conventional 3-4 scheme, but the ‘Rush’ ‘backer can also line up at defensive end in a traditional 4-3 defense.
Players like Calvin Pace and Bryan Thomas flip-flopped in those spots with the Jets. Mario Williams was terrific as the ‘Rush’ linebacker in Buffalo (13.0 sacks in 2013), while steady Manny Lawson played ‘Sam.’
It remains to be seen what roles Pettine eventually assigns Clay Matthews, Nick Perry and Green Bay’s other outside linebackers.
“You have to be able to adjust. … That’s part of the process now, evaluating the talent we have,” Pettine said. “I’ve always been a big believer in you have your system, and you have an idea of what you want and make every effort to build the roster that way, but in the meantime you can’t win with players you don’t have. So you have to assess who’s on campus and how can we best build the defense to take advantage of their skill sets.”
Pettine’s defenses have also been called extremely complex. Considering Green Bay’s players struggled with the complexity of Capers’ schemes the last several years, that could be a red flag.
But Pettine said he’s scaled things back through the years, and would do so again in Green Bay — at least early on.
“When I first got in the league it was easy to put in 50 or 60 defenses up for a game. Now, you’re 20-25,” Pettine said. “Why? Because a lot of time you’re dealing with young players that haven’t been veteran guys in a system that know it and also you’re dealing with the new CBA where you have limited time to get with them, especially in the off-season for them to learn that foundation. I think as a coach you have to adjust. But no, you look at us you’re going to see we’re going to be multiple and we’re going to be aggressive.”
Pettine knows he’s inheriting one of the tougher jobs in the National Football League.
Green Bay has not had a top-10 defense since 2010, the last time it won the Super Bowl. And the Packers are coming off back-to-back seasons of historically miserable play in the secondary.
But Pettine insists he’s back where he belongs — coordinating defenses instead of coaching an entire football team. If he can now bring some of his defensive magic to Green Bay that he had with the Jets and Bills, perhaps the Packers can become relevant again in the race for NFL supremacy.
“I always made the comparison, it was going from being the teacher to now you’re the principal,” Pettine said of moving from a coordinator to a head coach. “The administrative part might be, as a coordinator, 90 percent football, 10 percent administrative stuff. That essentially flipped and I didn’t like it.
“I missed the camaraderie of the room, the interaction with the staff, the interaction with the players. The chess-game part of it – the designing a game plan tailored to your opponent. That’s the furthest thing from my mind. I’m here to coordinate an outstanding defense and win a Super Bowl.”
Something like that might certainly alter Pettine’s usual facial expression.
The post Face it, Pettine has a tough task trying to fix the defense appeared first on Bob McGinn Football.
Continue reading...
