Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend

[Green Habit]

I think it has a lot to do with how defenses were reacting to all the passing. GB won a Super Bowl largely on the strength of their nickel package and being able to play "small" and other teams (the Eagles, the Falcons) tried to emulate that. To counter that teams like the Texans, 49ers and Seahawks have started to trend back towards their personnel being as big as possible. Last playoffs we saw the same team that had had so much success playing a base nickel D (the Packers) get absolutely manhandled trying to line up against a 49ers team with everyone on the field being 250+ lbs at times. I think that's one reason TEs are so in vogue--teams want to have a ton of size on offense and still have everyone be able to catch the ball on any down.

The Broncos are looking to go to a base nickel D as well, given all the DBs they've collected. I do have a worry that the lack of a halfway decent MLB is going to get them in trouble against a team that has a bruising running game.

[Orpheus]

It's generally not a bad strategy. But when you're up against stuff like this:



DO NOT WANT

[Green Habit]

Did Goodwin really manhandle Raji all by himself on that play? If so, that's a massive Packer fail in more ways than one.

[Orpheus]

Did Goodwin really manhandle Raji all by himself on that play? If so, that's a massive Packer fail in more ways than one.

Pretty much everyone in the Packers front seven except for Matthews got completely embarrassed in that game. The Colts obviously must have missed it considering the contract they gave Erik Walden, as he was especially terrible. The Niners just manhandled them.