Yeah except I can't explain the losses to the Skins and Dolphins that season. And we only won 10 games and backed our way into the playoffs on the foot of Matt Dodge and Wellington's laptop.
We were a mediocre 3-3 team that went 7-3 to finish the year (0-2 without our starting QB, 7-1 with).
The D was the strength all year, I think they finished 2nd in points allowed -- and it's not like we were playing ball control to prop that up. The offense was inconsistent but still good (this is the explanation for the Skins/Dolphins games, they only put up like 13 points those weeks), and the special teams were unforgettable. lybad.
Were they? I don't know.
They got a lot of turnovers but meh. I think they just had Aaron Rodgers and played sub-par QBs in the NFC for the stretch.
Taking the Giants to the shed was a bit of an anomaly.
Getting a rested Pickett and Jenkins for the playoff run seemed to make a huge difference.
I think you're conflating '09, which was a statistically good defense with no CB depth that got completely demolished by good QBs, with '10, which was a great defense despite a myriad of injuries. The Giants game was not an anomaly, we did it to Ben in the first half of the SB before half the secondary got injured.
Jenkins + Clay + Pickett (pre-old) + Raji (on limited snaps!) + Bishop + elite Tramon + Woodson (pre-old) + Nick Collins. It's a fairly straightforward equation when you have that many good players on one side of the ball, and Shields coming out of nowhere to play nickel (and Tramon's emergence as a legit #1 corner) meant we didn't have the obvious weak link we had the year before.
And the year after without Jenkins (no pass rush) and Collins (no safety net).
edit: Forgot about this initially, but the simple stat about the '10 Pack is that they never trailed by more than 7. To anyone. All year. That's pretty rare.
. Yeah that's an issue. Still, I'd say the 1996 Packers were loads better than the 2010 version.
