Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Joe Barry made a bold statement about why he doesn’t feel it’s in the team’s best interest to change things up after two bad losses.
The situation for Barry and the Packers’ defense has taken a dramatic turn this week following their 34-20 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 15. Head coach Matt LaFleur had a meeting with defensive players on Monday to find solutions for a quick fix to patch the final three regular season games.
Joe Barry wants to keep the Packers defense the same
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Barry said during his press conference Thursday he knows he’s on the hot seat for the rest of the season. However, according to Ryan Wood with USA Today, Barry said he didn’t want to change up the defense too much because that would be the “worst” thing the Packers could do:
“In my opinion, the worst thing to do is, ‘Oh my God, we’re going to throw everything out and go with this.’ Because there have been periods where we’ve played very well with the stuff we’re doing. Last week was a bad day.”
https://twitter.com/ByRyanWood/status/1737954323345142177
Barry was happy with the game plan against the Buccaneers. He defended the use of zone defense against the Buccaneers because the Packers had to cover Mike Evans. Evidently, putting a linebacker on Evans was preferable to a speedier defensive back
Joe Barry on why #Packers stayed in zone: "I would be totally lying to you if it wasn't the Mike Evans factor. When you go against a guy like that, there's so much attention he draws with what you deploy against him, and then the coverage principles that you play."
— Ryan Wood (@ByRyanWood) December 21, 2023
Barry also said he was worried about the Packers run defense, which had surrendered over 200 yards to the New York Giants six days earlier.
Joe Barry: "The first two things that we talked about going into that game was, 'We can't let 13 destroy the game, and we've got to play the run.' I thought we did those two things well. Unfortunately, we did nothing else well."
— Ryan Wood (@ByRyanWood) December 21, 2023
Again, Barry was worried about setting his defense to play the run, which is in contrast to what Matt LaFleur said Sunday afternoon he wanted Barry to do. LaFleur said he wanted Barry to guess if a play would be a run or pass.
But Barry doesn’t want to do that.
All that came from the meeting this week is that Barry is going to try to fix the communication part of the Packers’ defense. Don’t expect much to change for the rest of the season.
Fortunately, the Packers should get by Bryce Young and a terrible Carolina Panthers offense in Week 16. But that won’t fool anyone in thinking the the Packers problem is fixed, because no matter what, there will be no changes to Barry’s defense.
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