Packers football: Monday's game will be a chess match between experts

GREEN BAY — Dom Capers was a 25-year-old assistant coach in charge of Hawaii's defensive backs when he arrived at Honolulu's Aloha Stadium for a non-conference game against San Jose State a few days after Thanksgiving in 1975.

On the other sideline that day was a 24-year-old offensive assistant by the name of Mike Martz.

The game looked like a mismatch on paper — San Jose State was 9-1, including a win at then-No. 18 Stanford; Hawaii was 5-4, with home losses to non-majors Texas A&M-Kingsville and Grambling State by a combined 63-15 margin — but Capers and the Warriors pulled off a 30-20 upset over Martz and the Spartans.

"That's going way back," Capers said earlier this week.

It would have taken an industrial-strength crystal ball to know that a pair of twenty-something assistants who were in the infant stages of their coaching careers would each go on to make a name for himself at football's highest level.

Capers vs. Martz wasn't a subplot that day, but it will be Monday night when the Green Bay Packers (2-0) travel to Soldier Field to take on the Chicago Bears (2-0). Capers is in his second year as the defensive coordinator for the Packers, while Martz is in his first season as the offensive coordinator for the Bears.

It's been almost 35 years since that first meeting in paradise, and Capers and Martz have crossed paths several times since then. But not like this.

Capers was an assistant at Ohio State in 1982 when Martz was at Minnesota and the teams met in Big Ten Conference play. The two faced off in 1993 when Capers was the Pittsburgh Steelers' defensive coordinator and Martz the quarterbacks coach for the Los Angeles Rams. They met six times from 1995 to '98 when Capers was the head coach of the Carolina Panthers and Martz was with the St. Louis Rams (1995-96) and Washington Redskins (1997-98).

They were scheduled to match wits as head coaches in 2005, but Martz was on a medical leave of absence when the Rams rallied for a 33-27 overtime victory over Capers and the Houston Texans.

Both were coordinators when Miami defeated Detroit 27-10 on Thanksgiving Day in 2006, but Capers was calling plays that day for a Dolphins defense that belonged to hands-on head coach Nick Saban. Two seasons later, Capers was a secondary coach in New England when the Patriots defeated Martz and the San Francisco 49ers.

So while they are hardly strangers, Monday night will be the first legitimate chess match between two coaches who have proven themselves as experts on opposite sides of the ball. It's Capers' system vs. Martz's, a game within the game between two bitter rivals.

"It's going to be a good game," Packers safety Nick Collins said. "Two coaches who've been around the game a long time. It's going to be fun."

Mutual admiration

Though they've never worked on the same staff, it's clear Capers and Martz respect each other's work.

Capers, 60, is in his 25th season in the NFL. His 3-4 defense helped the Packers finish No. 1 in the NFL against the run and No. 2 in overall defensive ranking last season. Green Bay's defense has 43 takeaways in 18 games under Capers.

"He does such a good job of moving guys around so he can put the offense on their heels, and you just have to really focus on who's got who, so to speak," Martz said. "He's as good as there is at doing that. One of the guys that's really instrumental in getting it going in the league. He knows what he's doing.

"They're very disciplined in how they approach it. You don't find guys — sometimes you get guys out of position in a blitz. You won't see that with Dom. Everybody is where they're supposed to be. He obviously does a lot of good things and I have great respect for him."

Martz, 59, is back in the league after spending a year in television. He was the coordinator for an electric St. Louis offense — dubbed "The Greatest Show on Turf" — when the Rams won the Super Bowl following the 1999 season. They made it back to the Super Bowl following the 2001 season — Martz's second as head coach — and lost to New England.

"I think Mike's a good coach," Capers said of Martz, who's in his 18th season in the NFL. "The sign of any coach is they adapt their system to the personnel they have. I think that you make a big error if you try to do it the other way. If you go in and you have the system and you try to plug guys in too much — he's been around long enough that he's going to adapt and adjust. He's obviously done an outstanding job at this point."

Especially with Jay Cutler. The Bears quarterback threw a league-high 26 interceptions last season, the former first-round pick's first in Chicago after being traded by the Denver Broncos. Granted, it's early, but Cutler has five touchdowns and one interception through two games this season.

"Getting Mike in here and really straightening things out and helping us to turn the offense around has been fun," Cutler said.

Detailed approach

When Packers defensive end Ryan Pickett looks at Capers and Martz, he sees two highly intelligent coaches. Both are perfectionists who pay attention to every detail.

"With Martz, it was amazing how he was with the guys on offense," said Pickett, who played for Martz in St. Louis from 2001 to '05. "If they were supposed to take four steps, they better take four steps. No more, no less.

"That's just how he was. That's how he ran his ship. You had to do it his way, or you weren't doing it at all."

And Capers?

"He's pretty detailed in his work as well," said Pickett, who played nose tackle in Capers' system last season. "But he gives us a little more freedom."

That's not the only difference between Capers and Martz, according to Pickett.

"Martz, you didn't want to cross him," Pickett said. "He was pretty tough on you, especially young guys. I think coach Capers is a little more laid back than coach Martz is."

Although both crafty coaches are sure to come up with some wrinkles, the key to Monday night's game is pretty simple: Martz will try to spread the Packers out with a passing game that features deep, breaking routes. Capers has to find a way to get pressure on Cutler, who generally uses a five- or seven-step drop.

"We try to have some answers for everything," Cutler said. "We've hit a few this year, we've been stumped a few times. We spread it out sometimes and if you're going to blitz us, we're going to have some hot answers for you. It's just whether or not a defense is prepared for them or not."

The way Pickett sees it, Capers vs. Martz is an interesting storyline, but it still comes down to Packers vs. Bears.

"They're both good at making adjustments," Pickett said. "It's going to be interesting to watch, but it's going to be ultimately up to us to make plays when we have the opportunity to."