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Green Bay - Packers coach Mike McCarthy has wanted no part of the discussion about how poorly his defense played in the second half of the team's 43-37 victory over the Atlanta Falcons Monday night.

He has repeatedly said this week that he has moved on.

But defensive coordinator Dom Capers spoke to the media for the first time this week and he didn't gloss over the second-half collapse of his defense.

"It’s a great example that in the NFL it doesn’t matter what the score is, you have to stay on top of your game and be sharp," Capers said. "We just weren’t sharp in a lot of little things. (Quarterback Matt) Ryan got a hot hand, he’s a veteran, he has the ability to do that. Julio Jones is one of the best receivers in the league.

"You have to bring your 'A' game regardless and we didn’t play that way in the second half. It was a tale of two halves."

As Capers pointed out, the first half belonged to the defense. They picked off Ryan once, nearly picked him off two other times, held the Falcons to 161 yards on 22 plays and went into the locker room with a 31-7 lead.

But in the second half, the game changed and the defense didn't change with it.

Capers said that Atlanta turned the game into a half of 2-minute, four-down football and the defense made just enough mistakes to keep drives alive and allow the Falcons to march up and down the field for 30 points and 304 yards. He said those mistakes compounded the fact Ryan and Jones were finding their rhythm, allowing the whole thing to go awry.

"The second half, the very first play, they run a double move for 79 yards and it kind of changed the tempo around," Capers said. "It gave them some confidence. Now, I’ll say this about the second half, when you’re up 31-7, it becomes a 2-minute drill. When you’re playing a game like that, it becomes a four-down game as opposed to a three-down game.

"In the second half, three times we stopped them on third down and obviously they’re down so they’re going to go for it on fourth down; two of those turn into touchdowns. After the 79-yard pass, guys did a good job of catching him, keeping him out of the end zone. We hold him for three downs and we have them fourth and 5. And they scored on the fourth and 5."

Capers said the second half was uncharacteristic of the way the defense had been playing since the bye week. He said the sloppiness of that second-half Atlanta performance can't seep into this week's game against the Buffalo Bills.

He said the corrections that needed to be made this week weren't major ones.

"The challenge is we have to get back on track," Capers said. "That was our poorest half since the bye week. But I feel like we can. They’re very correctable errors and you have to find a way to make plays. Just like in the first half if we’d had all three interceptions it might have been more than 31-7.

"I like the way we started that first series, we forced them to punt a couple times, we got the takeaway. I certainly didn’t like the way we played in the second half."