Green Bay's Derrick Martin (bottom) makes the tackle on Bears PR Devin Hester with help from teammate Korey Hall in the first quarter of Sunday night's game.
Heading into the season opener, Head Coach Mike McCarthy pointed to the turnover battle and special teams as two areas the Packers needed to gain an edge in to defeat the Chicago Bears.
The turnovers turned out to be a landslide at 4-0, with the Packers intercepting Chicago quarterback Jay Cutler four times. On special teams, it wasn't quite as dramatic an advantage, but Green Bay did hold its own against a team that had
given the Packers nightmares on special teams in recent years.
"We won the battle of the hidden yardage or field position, which is extremely important, and I thought we did an excellent job of covering Danieal Manning and Devin Hester," special teams coordinator Shawn Slocum said. "Those guys are so explosive."
Indeed, the Packers kept Manning and Hester - both of whom had posted long returns against the Packers over the last few seasons - under wraps most of the night. Manning had three kickoff returns for a 26.7-yard average, with a long of just 27.
Hester had a 26-yard return of a free kick following a safety, plus two punt returns for just 15 yards (7.5 avg.), with a long of 10.
Any special-teams unit will take numbers like that against those two returners. Ultimately, the Bears' average starting field position after a punt or kickoff was only the 29-yard line, a respectable number considering two of the Packers' kicks were a free kick from their own 20 and a squib kick late in the game.
"Devin is unique in that he can change the tempo of his speed as he's running the ball," Slocum said. "When he finds a seam, he has a tremendous gear he hits to accelerate. You could see that on some of the plays he made on offense as well. Danieal Manning runs the ball violently, and at the same time he runs very explosive and fast."
Slocum added that it was the playing speed of the coverage units and their ability to spread the field, taking away running lanes, that prevented any big plays. It was also a team effort, as the six tackles on Manning and Hester were recorded by five different players - John Kuhn (2), Derrick Martin, Desmond Bishop, A.J. Hawk and Spencer Havner. Bishop, carving out a place as a special-teams leader, received a game ball for his work on the coverage and return units in the game.
The special teams also accomplished what they wanted to with the squib kick late. With just 1:11 remaining and the Packers leading by six points, Slocum said the intent was to not give Manning and Hester the opportunity for a long return.
Receiver Earl Bennett picked it up at the 20 and returned it 18 yards to the 38, with Tramon Williams making the tackle. That left the Bears 62 yards to go in a little over a minute with no timeouts, a good scenario for the defense. Had the Bears needed only a field goal to tie or win, field position at the 38 is not what the Packers would have been looking for and may have opted for a different strategy.
"They had to score a touchdown to beat us, and we decided we didn't want (numbers) 23 or 38 with the ball in their hands," Slocum said. "So we squibbed the ball as deep as we could, getting it on the ground to disrupt the timing of the catch."
As for the Packers' own returns, Jordy Nelson filled in admirably for an injured Will Blackmon. He returned the opening kickoff 46 yards to the Green Bay 49, and later in the first quarter he ran back a Brad Maynard punt 14 yards to the Green Bay 41.
Both of those were longer than any returns the Bears recorded on the night, and even though the offense didn't score off of either one, they helped keep the field-position battle in Green Bay's favor most of the night.
"I thought Jordy did very well," Slocum said. "He has got a good knack for returning the ball. I think he has good vision, sees the field, and takes advantage of the weakness in the coverage."
Maynard didn't give Nelson much chance to return anything after the 14-yard punt return early. The veteran hit everything high and toward the sideline the rest of the game, finishing with an impressive 46.0-yard net average on four punts.
{sportsad300}The Packers' Jeremy Kapinos couldn't match that, but he couldn't be expected to. The young punter did hit plenty of good ones, though, including a career-long 58-yarder that bounced nicely inside the 10-yard line, but no teammates were close enough to down it. It was one of his two touchbacks. He also hit a 41-yarder high enough that Hester had to fair-catch it.
"I thought it was solid for the first game and who we were facing," Slocum said. "He gave us enough hang time on the punts for us to cover them well."
In finishing with a 44.7-yard gross average and 35.5 net on six punts, Kapinos did put one inside the 20, and he should have had another one in the fourth quarter when his 39-yard boot was downed at the Chicago 6 by long snapper Brett Goode.
But a holding penalty on Clay Matthews forced a re-kick, and the ensuing punt was downed at the 27, meaning the penalty gave the Bears 21 yards of field position.
So it was by no means a perfect night on special teams. In addition to the costly penalty, Mason Crosby also missed an early field goal, and Nelson dangerously caught a punt in heavy traffic inside his own 10-yard line that fortunately didn't turn out worse.
But all the positives, highlighted by Brett Swain's alert tackle of Garrett Wolfe when the Bears tried a fake punt in the fourth quarter, added up to a winning performance on special teams against Chicago, something that hasn't been claimed in Green Bay in quite some time.
"At some point we're happy with what we've done," Slocum said. "But yet we've got quite a bit of room for improvement."
