Inbox: It’s coming

A Kurt Benkert sighting! Great for him to close it out!

I am generally not a Twitter aficionado, but Benkert’s postgame tweet was absolutely an all-timer.

For the love of God, PLEASE don’t leave the live blog early anymore. It messes with the team’s mojo which messes with my sanity!

I got bombarded with this. Wow. I do appreciate how much y’all care, but I’m not trying to tempt fate, honest, and I really do have to start my postgame work as soon as I reasonably can. I don’t leave unless I’m truly confident the game is over, and I’m conservative in that respect by nature. I haven’t been wrong yet and don’t plan to be.

Mike, the Packers clearly made key offensive adjustments at halftime, leading to a dominant Q3. What are your thoughts/comments?

When this offense runs the ball well it’s really tough to defend. I say it all the time. You could see the line of scrimmage moving backward in the second half. It’s just a matter of time before Aaron Jones and/or AJ Dillon is going to break a big one. It’s coming.

Was I the only one who saw the belt after that first sack and said, “Well, here we go again…” I know 12 has spoken on it as not playing a conscious role in his performance, but you’d think that eventually defenses would just know to leave his belt well enough alone. Outstanding performance through both phases of football though! (Mom always said if you can’t say anything nice…)

They’ll never learn about the belt. Quinn did it both games this year.

How long before opponents decide ol’ p.s. (practice squad) Rasul Douglas is for real and stop throwing near him?

They have to throw it somewhere. But you can’t say enough about what Stokes and Douglas are doing as a duo out there. Combined stats for Allen Robinson and Darnell Mooney: 11 targets, three catches, 33 yards.

Insiders, do you guys cringe like I do whenever special teams comes on the field? I find myself holding my breath and praying to St. Vincent. My husband doesn’t even watch the play, he just watches me for his own personal entertainment.

It’s not good right now (thanks, Captain Obvoius). The coverage units had actually been the strength of the special teams through the first three months but the breakdowns last night were awful. It’s hard not to wonder if so much time and energy has been spent fixing the field-goal operation that other stuff hasn’t received requisite attention (I wrote that before seeing your submission, Rachel from Minneapolis). It’s aggravating to watch. We all know that’s a four-touchdown blowout win if the special teams simply do no harm.

Tom from Highland Village, TX

Hi Mike, I can recall seven very bad plays on special teams. These type of plays should be less than one per week over the season. If a gunner had not stepped out of bounds we may have been in a nail biter. How can a perennial contender have such consistently poor special teams? Can you think of another team with a similar history? Besides firing another coordinator, what would you suggest to fix special teams this season as well as any long-term corrections?

I wish I had any answers, but I’m not going to insult this faithful readership by trying to make something up just to sound good. I don’t know of any other perennial contender that deals with this on an annual basis, and I can’t recall a single-game performance that bad in all my years covering this league. Long term is an offseason discussion. In the near term, they have to figure out what’s not getting through or what’s not understood and/or what other teams are doing to beat them, because there’s no place to hide now. Opponents are going to exploit this advantage any chance they get.