Rashan Gary Going Off - Packers vs 49ers
Rashan is having an absolutely monster game. 2 sacks, a critical stop on 4th down, and is in Jimmy G's face essentially every drop back.
Here's one of his from the first half:
https://www.nfl.com/videos/rashan-gary-channels-inner-clay-matthews-for-aerial-third-down-sack
January 22nd, 2022 at 10:48 PM ^
Love seeing him succeed! Truly. Just wish he was the destructive force that he could have been in college. He was very good at Michigan, but nowhere close to being great or dominating a game.
January 22nd, 2022 at 10:55 PM ^
January 22nd, 2022 at 10:59 PM ^
He was only 2nd team All Big Ten for a reason. He wasnt even the best performing DE on the defensive line in 2018. He never had a game like this in college. Saying he did is revisionist history.
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:52 PM ^
Wow,
So you're telling me the guy who is an LB in the NFL only made DE 2nd-Team All-Big?
Sounds like a real loser!
January 23rd, 2022 at 12:57 AM ^
Nice strawman. I never said he wasnt good, but there's a reason Chase was voted an All American in 2018, and why Ojabo and Hutchinson were also All Americans...and why Paye probably would have been if he had played more than four games in 2020...they were better college players.
January 23rd, 2022 at 10:26 AM ^
He's received much better coaching at GB, enabling him to really increase his speed on the D-line.
January 22nd, 2022 at 10:59 PM ^
And yet someone like Hutch or the Bosa Brothers get double teamed and still dominate a game. Zero revisionist history. Gary flat out did not produce compared to his crazy talent and measurables.
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:44 PM ^
You're talking about the #2, #3, (Bosa's) and maybe even next #1 (Hutch) pick in the NFL draft
Literally of course they played better because, get this, they ARE better, and "dominated" more than he did, because they ARE more dominant. About 1,000+ of CFB/NFL analysts/coaches would agree.
Gary played everywhere along the D-Line at UM, and with Green Bay he's clearly playing a hybrid (which makes sense given his hybrid measureables)
Brown had Peppers doing the exact same thing, he was a weird LB/S even DL. How many picks did Peppers have?
They both played out of position/scheme optimal for them, and played *into* a position/scheme that the coaches asked of them.
And they both did it very very well because they were that talented/willing.
Gary ate up what he was asked to do.
If you don't see that, that's not my fault, plenty of analysts did.
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:57 PM ^
You're talking about the #2, #3, (Bosa's) and maybe even next #1 (Hutch) pick in the NFL draft
And you're talking about the #1 HS recruit in the country and the #12 overall draft pick.
Hey, I love Gary as much as the next guy. I too wish he had done more on the field and had a bigger impact. The fact of the matter is, he didn't. Whether he was injured, or the other team played too hard against him, or Peppers was just too good. It doesn't take away from the fact that he didn't have the impact you'd want from the #1 overall player.
The fact that he did it tonight, and has finally turned it on this season, only further shows how much potential was truly there. The numbers on the field, while at Michigan, simply didn't bear it out.
January 23rd, 2022 at 12:18 AM ^
I think we just disagree on what "impact" means.
WRs/RBs score touchdowns, and OLs, TEs, and WRs throw the blocks to get them.
Gary (and Peppers) are prime examples of players who "underperformed" because coaches put them in positions to eat up blocks and take up field which caused offenses to scheme away from them.
David Long was another player who didn't rack up stats/plays, quietly forcing offenses to scheme around him.
I'm not saying Gary didn't "disappoint" but, I just think, much like Harbaugh's "Return", people today but into hype so deeply and expect such insane results as if advertising wasn't literally fake/made to sell you a fantasy--he completely flipped the school/culture (well before this last season) and people wanted him fired--unreal. Same with the hype around Gary, he was everything he was billed to be as a football player.
A TD from a 4.25-dash RB is the same 6pts as from a 4.5-dash RB, just because your measureables are insane doesn't make his anchoring the defensive line forcing a TFL from a teammate all of a sudden count for 2x TFLs, even if he runs a 4.10-40yd dash.
Watch the game film, every single offense schemed around him. And his teammates feasted because of it.
It's what Georgia did to Hutch. Only Georgia's talent allowed them to still work around his teammates (which is what OSU did with Gary), but for teams that couldn't, UM'a defense tore them apart. That was the sacrifice for Gary anchoring and sucking up doubles/triples. Our defenses with him were statistically very sharp, until running into an OSU (Georgia) talent mis-match.
I'm not saying Gary did pick up the stats, clearly he didn't, I'm saying he played a role where the defense picked up the stats (and they did, that's undeniable). And sure as a #1, you could certainly expext more, but HS rankings are bounded not linear.
January 23rd, 2022 at 12:44 AM ^
Do you think the same thing applies with Dax Hill? Didn’t have insane stats. Played all over the field and often neutralized the most dangerous threat. He was on Njigba most of the game and played him very closely and limited his YAC. He was a huge part of our defense this year but maybe didn’t have the stat lines and highlights because of all he had to do because he didn’t have a strong supporting cast around him. I’ll be curious to see who gets drafted first him or Lewis Cine.
January 23rd, 2022 at 10:48 AM ^
Gary was a good but not great college player. Whether that’s attributable to injury or coaching , or both, is debatable. But he was one of the top recruits ever and his performance wasn’t commensurate.
January 23rd, 2022 at 1:34 AM ^
................who [expletive] cares?
Are we really still harping on what a guy did or didn't do or should have done when he hasn't stepped on a field in a Michigan uniform in over three years?
Good grief. Good for him. Glad he's doing well. Get over it.
January 23rd, 2022 at 12:58 PM ^
Agreed. He was the highest rated recruit ever- 1st across the board #1 in US
January 23rd, 2022 at 1:35 AM ^
Do you not think other DEs faced double or triple teams in college?
JJ Watt, Clowney, Nick and Joey Bosa were all constantly double or triple blocked constantly in college. They were game-changers and elite college DEs was because they still put up impactful numbers despite the lopsided attention.
January 23rd, 2022 at 1:36 AM ^
DariyQueen is 100% right. Rashan ate doubles and triples every down and still got to the qb just .5s after the person who got the sack. Hutch himself talked about how the change to the new defense this year let him just rush the qb more. Rashan was a beast but some people only know how to count sacks.
January 23rd, 2022 at 9:11 AM ^
No he didn't. Please stop with this. He didn't live up to his hype, simple as that, but it's all good now. Love the kid, he's a Michigan man, but he never performed at Michigan like he has in the pro's, and it's because he was playing in the wrong defense to shine. If you think he was doubled more than Hutchinson, you are high.
January 23rd, 2022 at 10:29 AM ^
That isn’t true (double and triple teams) on passing downs. Gary was asked to do a lot in Don Browns defense, specifically when they played their base set. Yes, he took on multiple blockers specifically agains the run.
When faced with passing situations Michigan adjusted which put Gary in a more traditional pass rushing set where he wasn’t taking on multiple blockers.
Gary wasn’t a great pass rusher at Michigan, he didn’t have the bend to get around the edge so he ran himself out of plays. He was a very good player overall but not the disruptive force we’ve seen from other Michigan defensive lineman like Hutchinson.
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:12 PM ^
Yeah, I get that he played an important role (Anchor) in Don Brown's D, and allowed other players to go off with all the attention he commanded, but I can't help but wonder if he wouldn't have been more productive in a different role, either as a hybrid DE/OLB like Macdonald used Hutchinson (and what seems similar to how he's being used in GB), or as a penetrating, Suh-like DT (the recruiting sites had him ranked as a DT, not DE)...
January 23rd, 2022 at 9:47 AM ^
1 post.
My over/under for a backhanded compliment about Gary was 4 posts...I was WAY off.
Winovich was Winovich, but Gary was eating doubles on the other side so he could get singled up (the same way Ojabo got off this year).
(Which tells you how good Hutchinson was, because he was, who he was, despite the doubles and triples).
Ojabo is great, but he's not having the same year without Hutchinson and Winovich was EXCELLENT, but doesn't have his same year without Gary.
That's why it's a team. Devin Bush doesn't needed DTs to hold up interior OL and at times they used Furbush to act as a FB for him. He shined.
Gary also played a different positon in college so while so many of you throw shade, he didn't play in Macdonald's system...if he did, you'd probably see better numbers, but that wasn't his job. He played Anchor.
Rashaun was ELITE when healthy and a big time contributor, for those expecting every 5 star to be Aidan Hutchinson or Charles Woodson, that's not going to happen.
But whatever, I'm not going to change your opinion...you wish Gary and Peppers were better, we get it.
Congrats to Rashaun on a monster performance! Not "but."
January 23rd, 2022 at 10:07 AM ^
No one can object too much to a sentiment like this. But then the piling on begins. And it's a little unfortunate that an occasion of great success for the guy turns into an anatomizing--by we mere mortals here in our jammies, of a cold Saturday night--of the failures to live up to (what?) our little desires for guys as gifted and--for fuck's sake--good-spirited as a guy like Rashan. C'mon, amigos. We can be better.
January 22nd, 2022 at 10:49 PM ^
That inside move on that 4th down stop was top notch.
January 22nd, 2022 at 10:51 PM ^
He was not used properly here
January 22nd, 2022 at 10:56 PM ^
You could maybe get away with saying he wasn’t coached properly, but I don’t know how you could say he wasn’t used properly.
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:02 PM ^
The guy can obviously get to the QB, he was basically not even used as a pass rusher at all when he was here.
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:09 PM ^
That is flatly not true.
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:36 PM ^
Really? His primary use was to set the edge and get Winovich and the LBs free to the QB. He would have been better used as a primary DT I feel like. Here's his draft report on pass rushing:
"Struggles with lateral mobility, specifically when trying to turn the corner as a pass rusher. Does not possess the needed tilt to carry speed through corners if contacted and having to play with leverage simultaneously."
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:42 PM ^
Wait, do you think Michigan should use him as a pass rusher, or as a DT? Those two things are not consistent with each other.
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:47 PM ^
I think they could have gotten more use out of how he played here as a DT. I think tonight showed he does have the ability to be more of a pass rusher, but maybe didnt get that coaching/technique here.
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:55 PM ^
He's not a DT at the NFL level. It's possible that the coaches that turned Chase Winovich and Josh Uche and Aidan Hutchinson into NFL-caliber pass rushers did a poor job teaching Rashan Gary, but I tend to think that he was and is a physically gifted player who didn't quite put things together at a first-team AA level. But it's hard for me to buy an argument that the Michigan staff that produced some dominant defensive lines while Rashan was here was somehow doing something wrong.
Sometimes things just don't quite mesh as well as you expect in a particular situation. It's not like he was a dud. He was very good. He would have been similarly very good at other places, too; not notably better or worse. It has just taken time for his physical gifts to be harnessed into what they can be. And it's not like this happened the instant he stepped on the field in the NFL, either--it has taken Rashan three years to start producing like this at Green Bay.
January 23rd, 2022 at 10:23 AM ^
It’s taken 3 years because he had to completely change his body. He was the #1 DT prospect in the country coming out of high school and now he’s playing outside linebacker….Think about that for a second. He could have easily been a 3 tech in college (which I think he would have been dominant at), he played defensive end, and now he’s playing OLB. We can blame Don Browns scheme in that It didn’t really showcase Gary’s talents but everyone acting like they knew we should have had Gary playing as an outside linebacker at Michigan is lying to themselves.
There are plenty of articles that talk about how Gary had to lose weight and cut his body fat down significantly when he got to the NFL. I’m honestly amazed that he’s doing what he’s doing now at that position. We all new he was a freak but I didn’t think he would be able to move in space well enough to play OLB. The Packers use bigger OLBs so he fit exactly what they wanted.
January 23rd, 2022 at 2:46 PM ^
UMx, just put the shovel down, and chill for a bit.
January 23rd, 2022 at 10:32 AM ^
I agree about being a DT, he could have easily been over 300 and been a force.
January 23rd, 2022 at 12:15 AM ^
I seem to recall he would often over penetrate/get too far up field on his rushes
January 23rd, 2022 at 12:24 AM ^
This is exactly what I saw. He didn't have the bend to get around the OT and just got shuffled up field when he tried to come off the edge. Great athlete who was a terror in the run game though.
January 23rd, 2022 at 12:20 AM ^
Don Brown is taking heat about Gary on Twitter tonight, but I don’t see why. Maybe the guy is finally figuring how to use his talents, but everyone seems to be forgetting that Gary was also pretty underwhelming his first two years in the NFL and only good, not great, this season.
January 23rd, 2022 at 1:04 AM ^
The biggest thing Don Brown should take heat for is calling him "The best I've ever seen" in the 2017 offseason.
January 23rd, 2022 at 8:39 AM ^
This. He hasn't been an all pro in the NFL. Even this year, from a pure stats perspective, he's good, not great, like a weighted 20th in the league across metrics for his position. He's going to get a large contract and he is a good NFL player. And he was a great player at Michigan even if his stats underwhelmed.
January 23rd, 2022 at 8:09 AM ^
January 22nd, 2022 at 10:54 PM ^
They should put him on special teams to help block.
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:00 PM ^
August 2016, I just got to AA after flying from LAX to Detroit. My aunt and I were walking down South U for a late lunch. We turned the corner and I basically ran into Rashan. Had a handshake and a quick conversation. Good kid, glad to see him having a big game today.
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:09 PM ^
Good for him.
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:12 PM ^
Great game for RG, but so happy Mr. Immunized lost in the bitter cold and snow against a....California Team!!!!
A-aron, karma is a BITCH!
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:20 PM ^
I’m here for the posbang
January 22nd, 2022 at 11:41 PM ^
Rodgers might have been in sharper form had he not missed all that practice time due to a disease he refused to get vaccinated against. Perhaps there's a lesson in there somewhere
January 23rd, 2022 at 12:40 AM ^
Also all that time and effort in getting the....
January 23rd, 2022 at 12:23 AM ^
Anyone who doesn’t get the shot you want them to get deserves to lose.
January 23rd, 2022 at 8:43 AM ^
His public commentary on it probably led to multiple people dying. He's a big influence and he chose to use it being an ass.
January 23rd, 2022 at 12:39 PM ^
Right. Do you you make life decisions based on what some athlete says? Who do you think does? And vaccines had been available long before he said anything, so I guess you must be talking about the multitudes who were waiting to make their decision about it until they heard what Aaron Rodgers thought.
January 23rd, 2022 at 2:31 PM ^
Yes, people these days are easily influenced by presidents, news reporters, radio personalities, celebrities, and yes athletes.