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Williamson: Can Packers' banged-up secondary slow Julio Jones?

Mike McGinnis / Getty Images Sport / Getty

Matt Williamson is a former scout for the Cleveland Browns, and spent the last 10 years at ESPN as a scout and co-host of "The Football Today Podcast."

Last year, the Falcons' passing game was basically a one-man show - they had Julio Jones and that was about it. So, wisely, Atlanta reinforced its offense with acquisitions such as Mohamed Sanu, Taylor Gabriel, and Austin Hooper as receiving options, and Alex Mack to fortify and complete their offensive line. The acquisitions have paid off very well. Mix the additional talent to this being Year 2 of the Kyle Shanahan scheme and we have the league’s best offense with the probable MVP behind center.

While Jones is as dominant as ever, and he was super impressive last week even though he spent a great deal of his time against Richard Sherman before tweaking his foot, the fact is that Atlanta can just attack their opponents in so many ways. In fact, they truly have too many high-quality skill position players to really get them all on the field at once. If a defense is having success in one area early in the game, Shanahan and Matt Ryan adjust on the fly and attack in another manner ... with great potency.

We see an awful lot of fullback usage by today’s NFL’s standards, as well as extra (sometimes three) tight ends when the Falcons have the ball. As mentioned above, the receiving corps is much deeper and there is a strong argument to be made that Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman now make up the NFL’s best one-two running back punch, especially when factoring how effective both are as receivers.

Green Bay’s defense, as would be the case with any defense heading to Atlanta right now, is going to really have their hands full. But this is an especially poor matchup for the Packers because of the status of their cornerbacks.

The Packers prefer to line up in their sub package defense with extra defensive backs on the field. In fact, maybe more so than any defense in the NFL, they go that route without much regard for the offensive personnel they are facing. Against the massive run threat that Dallas presented, the Packers often had an extra defensive back on the field.

This secondary is very worrisome even against an average NFL passing attack, which certainly is not what they will be facing Sunday. Green Bay is quite good at safety, but Morgan Burnett’s thigh injury could be a big problem. Not only one of the Packers best defensive backs, Burnett is also the most consistent and versatile, which would be key against Atlanta’s wide array of receiving weapons and particularly the Falcons running backs, as Burnett is often employed near the line of scrimmage.

The cornerback situation is far more worrisome. The Packers allowed Casey Hayward to leave via free agency and he went on to have an outstanding season in San Diego. Wow, could Green Bay use Hayward now.

By default, LaDarius Gunter has become the Packers top cover man. As we saw when he so often matched up against Dez Bryant last week, having Gunter as the best cornerback is certainly not a good thing for Green Bay’s Super Bowl chances. And with all due respect to Bryant, Jones is even more threatening.

There were high hopes for Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins - two talented high draft picks - before the season started. Injuries have been a big problem for Randall, but if just analyzing his play on the field, it would be kind to describe it as sub par.

Rollins also regressed quite a bit in his second season. Both players could turn their careers around, but right now, they are very difficult to count on and Green Bay’s pass defense is going to need an awful lot of help from the pass-rush to keep up.

That leads us to the predicament in defending Jones, let alone all the other options at Ryan’s disposal. The answer is, assuming Jones’ foot injury doesn’t derail him, Green Bay’s cornerbacks are highly unlikely to slow down Ryan or Atlanta’s superstar wide receiver.

At least the Packers have the most dangerous player on the planet on the other side of the ball leading their offense and very well could advance to Super Bowl LI in what is sure to be a true shootout.

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