GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Dom Capers and Joe Whitt have as tough a task as anything a pair of defensive coaches in the NFL will undertake this week: The Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator and his cornerbacks coach must figure out a way to deal with Julio Jones sans their top two -- and possibly their top three -- cornerbacks.
Already without Sam Shields, whose concussion problems landed him on injured reserve last week, they now know they won’t have Damarious Randall, either. The second-year cornerback underwent surgery over the weekend to repair his groin injury and will miss several more games.
Jones, who’s not just the Atlanta Falcons' leading receiver, but also the NFL’s No. 1 target, must be salivating in anticipation of Sunday’s game at the Georgia Dome.
Capers and Whitt will be reminded this week of what Jones did to their defense two years ago at Lambeau Field, where he torched them like no other receiver has. He caught 11 passes for 259 yards, which remains the most any receiver has ever put up against a Green Bay defense. In that game, a Packers win on Monday Night Football, they actually benched Shields.
The only cornerback who had any success against Jones on that night was Davon House, who’s now in his second season with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Perhaps Capers and Whitt will get Quinten Rollins back from the groin injury that kept him out the past two games. But even that would give them only one of their top three cornerbacks heading into the season.
If they don’t get Rollins back, then it’s another week with LaDarius Gunter and Demetri Goodson (and undrafted rookie Josh Hawkins in reserve).
Gunter has been up and down. He played well against Odell Beckham Jr. and the Giants. He struggled against the Dez Bryant-less Cowboys and bounced back and won his individual matchup against Alshon Jeffery and the Bears last Thursday night.
“This guy, he’s just such a tenacious competitor, and that’s what you look for in your younger players, is to take a step,” coach Mike McCarthy said of Gunter after the Bears game. “We talked all week about moving on, cleansing ourselves from the Dallas loss.
“So the ability to move on and just start clean against the Bears, that was everybody. I thought our team did that, and he was a great example of that.”
Still, nobody left in Whitt’s cornerback room has ever had to prepare for a challenge like Jones. He has a league-high 830 yards receiving in seven games. He’s averaging 20.8 yards per catch.
He’s surpassed the 100-yard mark four times this season, including a 300-yard game in Week 5 against Carolina and a 174-yard game in Sunday’s overtime loss to San Diego. Both of those came in Atlanta, where Capers and Whitt best come up with a way to get Gunter, Goodson and the rest of the Packers’ secondary to limit Jones’ production.
“I’m telling you, people out there don’t really know us,” said Goodson, who missed the first four games of the season while serving a suspension for a PED violation. “They don't know the players that we have, but we’re probably one of the deepest groups in the whole league. And when those guys went down, no one was really panicking because all the coaches know that we can play. And it’s just actually getting that game time. And I feel like the more game time we get, the more comfortable we’re going to get out there. It just goes to show that we have a really, really deep room.”