GREEN BAY – The Packers' coordinators met with the media Thursday. Here's a sampling of their key comments.
Special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia
On Arizona's special teams:
One thing that comes to mind with Jeff Rodgers, he's been there a long time. He's had 10 fake punts in the last seven years, so we're prepared for all those. There's a lot of film out there on Jeff, the things that he's done in Arizona. Had athletic punters over his time, had a big fake with the punter last year. That's the first thing for us that we're trying to contain. DJ Dallas has done a tremendous job in kickoff returns for them. He came from Seattle where he was really returning both kickoffs and punts a year ago. I think he's second in the league right now. He's averaging almost 35 yards a kickoff return. The challenge starts there. They're a physical rush group up front on their rush team.
On whether Bo Melton will get matched up with his brother:
Ah, we may see that, I don't know. Could happen. It's the Melton Bowl, right? We loved his brother coming out (in the draft), as everybody did, but we really love, me in particular, selfishly speaking, I love the Melton we got. He's a special, special person, not only as a player and what he does on the field. I don't know if you saw last week, we tried not to use him much. He was playing a lot of offense, and we had the one shot where we were kind of backed up and we needed him to go out there, and he kind of got a triple(-team), and he went right by the triple out there, made a big stop, caused part of the fair catch. We've been on him all week about playing against his brother, and I've been reading off stats about his brother, giving Bo a lot of crap. Having Bo be able to go against his brother, it oughta be fun.
Defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley
On rookie S Evan Williams' fourth-down stop last week:
He's a very intelligent player, he's a very intelligent person. He's starting to learn how to study the game more and he's starting to understand how serious you need to take it because when those opportunities come you have to be ready for it, and that's a huge moment not only to recognize the play but to stay poised, not foul, stay square, because we did get a very similar route earlier and he played it really well. That's a big play in a huge situation, and the cool part is it wasn't too big for him. I mean, that's fourth-and-5 against, in my opinion, one of the best quarterbacks in this league and he was able to get a huge stop.
On moving fellow rookie S Javon Bullard to the slot:
You watch how physical he is around the ball and you just want to try to find ways to get him more involved play after play. You kind of get the best of both worlds now. You're almost playing with three safeties. He can do it all, though. I think he can cover. I know he's physical in the run game. He's a really good blitzer. We've seen that last week.
On CB Keisean Nixon's versatile work:
I think Keisean's had a really good year, and it's been kind of quiet that lot of people haven't brought him up. But look at what he's been able to do. His coverage has been tight, he's been able to blitz, he's been aggressive against the run. What you start to see when you watch his film is he's starting to play man really well, which is huge to play on the outside or on the inside. And he brings the physicality from the corner position when you have to crack-replace and do all those things at the nickel. It was just a matter of can he learn both and can he do both within the same course of a game, which is very hard to do. I thought he covered really well against the Rams. Like really well. He was keeping his leverage, he was right on guys' hips. Especially at the end of the game, he was tight. I think there's a confidence with him right now.
Offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich
On what's preventing the offense from being more consistent:
Penalties. I think that's the biggest thing. For example, that last game, fourth quarter, we had I think it was like a 15-play drive, 12-play drive, something like that when we were driving down, you get across the 50-yard line to like the 40 and then bang, we have a penalty that puts us behind the sticks. I think we had a drop too. So I would say penalties and drops are two big things that we really got to clean up in order for us to be the best offense we can be, for sure.
On working rookie Jordan Morgan back in when he's healthy:
Jordan, I think his potential is extremely high. He's going to be a very good player. So it would be foolish of us not to try and push that along as quickly as possible, and the only way to really do that is to get him out there playing. I would anticipate as soon as he's ready to go we will get him out there in whatever role we can get him out there.
The fundamentals of moving from tackle to guard, just playing with those fundamentals, using your hands better in pass protection, things like that that he's gotten better with as camp's unfolded and then the season. Still got to keep working in the run game. I think that's going to be a big thing for him to take the next step. So we've just got to keep him moving along, keep him improving, but I'm excited about him.
On WR Romeo Doubs' return:
Just glad to have him back. I'm not going to get into what happened with any of that stuff. I'll let Matt be the voice on that. But we're happy he's here. We're a better team with him. We've just got to make sure we're all moving in the same direction.
This whole week, he's been a professional, there's been no warning signs or anything like that. He's gone out, he's had a good two days of practice so far, I expect him to have a really good practice tomorrow and we're just going to move forward from there.
