Pennel, Gaston making move on defensive line – Green Bay Press Gazette
Suspensions to Letroy Guion and Datone Jones mean a couple of the Green Bay Packers’ young defensive linemen will have to play early in the season.
Right now, Mike Pennel and Bruce Gaston look like better bets than former draft picks Josh Boyd and Khyri Thornton.
Pennel especially was a force in the middle of the line defending the run in the Packers’ preseason opener Thursday night at New England.
Pennel, who made the Packers’ roster as an undrafted rookie last year, has tremendous upper-body strength at 6-feet-4 and 332 pounds. You can see it with his ability to extend his arms against a blocker, which is crucial for interior defensive linemen to make plays. He did it consistently against the Patriots.
When a defensive lineman gets quick arm extension, the separation from the blocker allows a better line of sight. If the two are chest to chest, the defender’s vision is narrow. He can’t see much past the guy’s face and helmet.
So when a defensive lineman can extend his arms, he can see if it’s a run or pass, and react to the ball quicker. Also, if he’s locked tight against a blocker, he tends to lift his head to see, which raises his center of gravity. That means less body control and less ability to get off blocks and make plays.
With some defensive linemen, it can take until their third or fourth step to extend their arms fully, if they ever do. With Pennel, it’s almost instantaneous. A perfect example came Thursday night with 10:23 left in the second quarter, on a first-and-10 for New England.
Pennel lined up over center David Andrews and on the snap moved him back nearly 2 yards while extending his arms. That allowed Pennel a clear view of halfback James White taking the handoff. Pennel shed the block and dropped White for a 2-yard loss. It was textbook nose-tackle play.
Pennel is a little robotic as a pass rusher, but against the run he can hold or collapse the line of scrimmage. He’s powerful and will command a double team if the offense wants to run inside, whether he’s lined up in the base or nickel defense. Pennel is a step further along than last year, when he was just a bulldozer. Now he’s familiar with the defense and is more practiced in its techniques.
Gaston, who was signed off Arizona’s practice squad last December but never suited up for a game, is another big guy (6-2, 310) who shows a little quickness. Though he’s not going to blow away anyone with his speed, he has a nice arm-over move as a pass rusher and enough athleticism to get to the quarterback when he gets past the offensive lineman. Not all big guys have that.
He showed that on his sack of Jimmy Garoppolo late in the second quarter. Gaston initially bull-rushed guard Shaq Mason, then pushed Mason aside and was on Garoppolo too quickly for the quarterback to evade. Datone Jones, not Gaston, got official credit for the sack, but make no mistake, Gaston made the play and Jones arrived after Garoppolo was down.
Not saying that Gaston is as good as Johnny Jolly, but he looks like he has that kind of athleticism. With the suspensions — Jones will miss one game and Letroy Guion will miss three, pending appeal — Gaston might be able to hang onto a roster spot early and get a chance to play.
Boyd and Thornton haven’t performed as well.
Boyd, the 2013 fifth-round pick who played 35.3 percent of the Packers’ defensive snaps last season, looks like the better of the two. But sometimes it looks like his feet get stuck. He needs to keep them moving all the time if he’s going to consistently get off blocks and make plays.
Thornton, a third-round pick from last season, is hard to peg because some plays he looks very good and others he looks bad.
For instance, early in the third quarter, on a New England first down, Thornton made a good play where he came from the back side of a run, hustled down the line of scrimmage and tackled White for only a 1-yard gain. But Thornton also looks like he takes off some plays. Like on a first down with about 31/2 minutes left in the second quarter when he was knocked off the line of scrimmage and then spun around, which opened a hole for White to pick up 5 quick yards.
Coming up short
The Packers still have a problem converting short-yardage plays. On Thursday night, New England stopped their starters on a fourth-and-1 in the first quarter. What the Packers are missing is a tight end who can block in those situations.
On that play, the Packers’ offensive line created enough push in the gap to center Corey Linsley’s left to get the first down. But tight end Andrew Quarless couldn’t stop defensive end Jabaal Sheard from going across his face and making the tackle on James Starks.
Richard Rodgers (257 pounds) looks like he should be the type of tight end who can make that block, but he wasn’t out there on that play for a reason. Last year he had a rough time as a blocker.
Maybe coach Mike McCarthy needs to play a lineman at tight end in those situations, though then he’d really be telegraphing that it’s a run. Or maybe he should go with four wide receivers and spread the defense, which is what Mike Holmgren often did on third-and-short in the ’90s because his team also struggled in short-yardage offense.
Extra points
■First-year pro Josh Walker has been something of a surprise on the offensive line and looks like he might have a future in the NFL. He’s big (6-5, 328) and can move. He definitely locks into defensive linemen in the run game. He’s a tough player and is going to push Lane Taylor for the backup guard job. At this point, Walker might even have a slight edge. He’s big, and he’s a good run blocker. But to ever be a starter he’ll have to bend his legs better in pass protection.
■There still are three preseason games to play, but it’s looking like Carl Bradford has an uphill battle to make the team with his position switch to inside linebacker. He had a nice sack on an A-gap rush Thursday night. But he looked out of place when White juked him in the open field after a catch on a swing pass. And more than anything, Bradford’s reactions down in and down out are just a half-tick slow.
■Backup tackle Don Barclay is really struggling in pass protection with his reconstructed knee. On Thursday night he gave up a sack, two pressures and had a holding penalty to avoid another sack. The Packers don’t have many good options at backup tackle so they need Barclay. He’s started 18 NFL games in his career and knows how to play. It’s just whether he can get over that mental hurdle. It looks like he’s not comfortable planting that leg and setting the anchor.
— Former football coach and player Eric Baranczyk offers his analysis of Green Bay Packers games each week. Follow him on Twitter @EricBaranczyk1
— [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @PeteDougherty
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