After 25 years in the NFL and four painful conference championship losses, Packers defensive coordinator Dom Capers finally made a Super Bowl this year. He did his best to make it count.
Sunday’s game was a challenge for Capers because cornerback Charles Woodson didn’t play after halftime, and cornerback Sam Shields was on the field sparingly the final two quarters. That forced Capers to switch gears.
“A lot of our gameplan went out the window,” Capers said in the locker room after the game. “Our man coverage stuff was out. We played more zone, played fire zones in the second half.”
The gameplan didn’t call for a lot of blitzes, even when everyone was on the field.
“We wanted to be smart with our pressure,” Capers said, noting that one of Ben Roethlisberger’s big early runs came against a blitz.
Still, with the game on the line, Capers didn’t sit back and let the Steelers offense dictate things. Capers said he called for pressure on the final three snaps of the game. Those final three snaps, of course, were incompletions that finally gave Capers a Super Bowl title.
“There’s nothing more rewarding,” Capers said. “I’m going to let this one sink in for a little bit.”
