Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Dom Capers explained why his defense only had 10 players on the field during Mark Ingram’s first-half touchdown run on Sunday.

According to Capers, an injury forced another substitution mistake.

“We went to big people. We had a couple of injuries in the secondary and we didn’t get a guy replaced who was injured. So that was unfortunate because that was kind of a gift touchdown,” Capers said Monday.

On 3rd-and-1 early in the second quarter, the Saints brought in an extra offensive lineman and forced the Packers to make a personnel change. Green Bay went to its “Big Okie” package, but the defense was missing a player – likely a cornerback on the side Ingram’s run exploited.

No one on the field or the Packers’ sideline saw the mistake in time to call timeout.

“It happened so late,” Capers said. “They were up there and snapping the ball, and one of our guys at a critical spot wasn’t out there. That happens sometimes when you have a lot of moving parts and when you have a guy get injured, you really have to be on top of that.”

Ingram ran in untouched off the left side for the touchdown.

The constant shuffling of the secondary – created by injuries, especially to Kevin King and Davon House – likely caused the confusion. An in-game injury to King was a contributing factor.

“We had some guys going in and out that may not show up on the injury report,” McCarthy said Monday. “It’s been excessive frankly, particularly in our defensive backfield. That was a product of the 10 on the field yesterday. Kevin was up, and he was part of the Big Okie, and then Davon took his place and then Davon went down. We have to be better there.”

Both Capers and McCarthy commented on the impact of not having veteran safety Morgan Burnett, the quarterback of the defense who wears the headset helmet and calls the plays. Without him, the organization of the defense occasionally crumbled.

“The communication was clearly not good enough,” McCarthy said. “We knew they were going to roll personnel groups in. We weren’t even close to being where we need to be.”