GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — For all the Green Bay Packers' complaints about a mistake by replacement officials that cost them a
game Monday night, they probably wouldn't have been in position to lose on a last-second play if their offensive line had
done a better job protecting Aaron Rodgers in the first half.
Going into Sunday's home game against New Orleans , the Packers will have to do a better job keeping Rodgers upright after
he was sacked eight times by the Seahawks.
Left guard T.J. Lang was happy with the way the line rebounded in the second half of Monday's game, but offered no excuses
for the first half.
"It could have been very easy to put our
heads down and kind of go into the tank a little bit, but we responded
in a positive
way and had a pretty solid second half," Lang said. "There's no
excuse for your quarterback getting hit that many times. It's
obviously embarrassing as a group when your quarterback's getting
sacked eight times in one half. It's something that we take
a lot of pride in. We certainly need to have a better game this
week, keeping Aaron upright."
When right tackle Bryan Bulaga watched film of himself this week, he saw perhaps the most head-scratching performance of his
career.
"Don't really know what I did in the first half," Bulaga said. "I wasn't really playing my game. I settled down in the second
half. So, ready to move on."
Offensive line coach James Campen was even more blunt.
"I think you would be a fool not to
recognize (the protection issues) and they're something that obviously
can't be tolerated
in bunches like that," Campen said. "Certainly moving forward, the
first thing you have to do is recognize what happened,
analyze what happened and why and get it corrected. Moving forward
and moving on to New Orleans, we're making those corrections
and adjustments."
Earlier this week, Packers coach Mike McCarthy acknowledged that the protection breakdowns made it tough to call plays Monday.
"The good thing is that there are things we can correct," McCarthy said. "Eight sacks in one half, very disruptive. Clearly,
in my time calling plays, sacks are a disruptive thing to you as a play caller, what it does to your rhythm and your next
play."
Rodgers took part of the blame.
"We had some protection breakdowns and some
situations where I didn't get rid of the football," Rodgers said.
"There's a fine
line between trying to make a play outside the pocket and throwing
it out of bounds. So we'll do a better job of that moving
forward."
And while Rodgers did seem to hold onto the ball too long at times, McCarthy said the MVP has earned some leeway to do so
because of his ability to extend plays with his elusiveness.
"The other side of Aaron is when he steps up and comes out of the pocket and makes plays, you sit there and clap for him,"
McCarthy said. "When he doesn't ... there's a fine line between the ability to transition from in the pocket to the out of
the pocket, the way we train the quarterback. So, most of our issues in the area of sacks were in the protection unit."
Rodgers has been sacked a league-high 16 times in three games, one reason why the Packers have scored only four offensive
touchdowns to date.
And while it has been surprising to see the Packers struggle after being so dangerous on offense in recent years, McCarthy
said there's no point in dwelling on what happened last season.
"If you think you're going to roll the ball
out there and do the same thing you did last year just because you did
it last
year, I don't agree with that mindset," McCarthy said. "There are
some things we did a little differently in camp. Camp didn't
go as smoothly as we probably would have liked. We're not in
rhythm probably like we should be. We're starting to get the
run game established. We still need to improve there. But our
biggest issue on offense is negative plays."
McCarthy specifically noted the Packers'
inability to run the ball in the first half of the season-opening loss
to San Francisco,
and inability to throw it effectively in the first half Monday
night.
"Especially when the defense we ran against
(Week 1) was daring us to run and the defense in Week 3 was daring you
to throw,
those are execution issues that I'm confident we'll get better
at," McCarthy said. "We're not happy where we are. We're not
happy where we are as far as the 2012 offense, but against New
Orleans we'll have an opportunity to take a step."