Archive for the ‘Green Bay Packers’ Category

In a league that’s lacking significantly in quality offensive linemen, San Francisco 49ers left tackle Joe Staley stands out. He has a combination of flexibility, length, and quickness that most don’t have at the position. This triumvirate is a big reason why he’s been so successful since being selected No. 28 overall by the 49ers in the 2007 draft. But in Week 1 of 2012, Staley played one of the worst games of his career. He gave up multiple sacks, pressures, and played with sloppy technique against the Packers’ outside linebacker Clay Matthews.

Now 18 weeks have passed and Staley meets Matthews again, and he knows what he did wrong the first time around (h/t Eric Branch):

“After watching the game, there were a lot of technique issues,” Staley said. “When you’re going against a player of that caliber, you have to be on your technique on every single play, every single snap.”

Those technique issues led to 2.5 sacks and many pressures given up, which can be boiled down to three mistakes: over-extension, slow hands, and poor hand placement. There’s also the talent that Matthews possesses. He has the ability to dip his shoulder and turn the corner with relative ease, it seems, and he possesses a couple of the quickest steps off the line of scrimmage. He’s also quite good with his hands,quickly engaging and disengaging from blockers, and he has a couple of moves in his arsenal. In short, it was the absolute worst day for Joe Staley to be sloppy with his fundamentals.

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