The Green Bay Packers ranked fifth in total defense and pass defense during their Super Bowl-winning season of 2010. During their 15-1 regular season last year, the Packers finished dead last in total defense and pass defense before allowing 420 total yards and 325 passing yards in a playoff loss to the New York Giants.
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Part of that was due to a lack of a pass rush -- Green Bay's 29 total sacks were the third-lowest in the league -- and part of that was due to season-ending injuries to safety Nick Collins and a season-altering shoulder injury to Pro Bowl cornerback Tramon Williams.
The Packers did create takeaways, though, and Williams thinks the unit will bounce back with the additions the team made during the offseason.
"At the end of the day, (did) we have a terrible defense? Yeah, we did, but we were productive out there," Williams recently said, via the Green Bay Press-Gazette. "We did what we've always done. We turned the ball over. We have some things to build off now. We have some more pieces to the puzzle and we're excited about it, and just ready to get back out there now."
What were those puzzle pieces Williams speaks of?
The Packers used their first six draft picks on the defensive side of the ball.
The biggest piece to a possible defensive turnaround came in the first round, when the Packers went back to USC well and added outside linebacker Nick Perry to complement Clay Matthews off the edge. Perry had 21.5 sacks in his college career and Football Outsiders' sackSEER model, which projects the five-year sack totals for 4-3 defensive end and 3-4 outside linebacker, has Perry at the top of this year's crop of rushers.
