Mike Daniels and Mike Neal team up to sack Chiefs QB Alex Smith. The Packers finished with 43 sacks, tied for seventh in the NFL. Credit: Getty Images

By of the

Boca Raton, Fla. — NFL coaches like to say that sacks don't matter as much as quarterback pressures, but the statistics say otherwise.

The top six teams in quarterback sacks last season finished a combined 69-27 and all made the playoffs.

No. 1 (Denver) won the Super Bowl and No. 6 (Carolina) was its opponent.

Slightly behind that group were the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions, three teams that were in the mix in the NFC but didn't quite have enough juice to push into title contention.

Now approaching the planning stages for next season, Packers coach Mike McCarthy has a firm grasp on some of the things that need to get done in order for his team to end its playoff disappointment.

One of those is to boost a pass rush beyond pretty decent to signature status, where each week of the season the opponent's first thought is how it's going to keep its quarterback clean.

"You always want to do better," McCarthy said Tuesday during a break in the NFL owners meetings at the Boca Raton Resort and Club. "I think the biggest thing is the pressures. We're getting there, we're creating matchups and you look at it, it was definitely a positive.

"And you don't just stop there; it can be better."

The Packers finished tied for seventh with 43 sacks (the Broncos had 52) using Clay Matthews at inside linebacker on the majority of downs; they figure to do better with him playing outside the majority of the time this year.

But the reason the Packers spent $5 million to re-sign outside linebacker Nick Perry, plan to move Datone Jones to an elephant linebacker position (think Julius Peppers) and still have an interest in bringing back free agent Mike Neal is that they need more sacks.

As the Broncos proved in winning Super Bowl 50, you can totally dominate an MVP quarterback with a stifling pass rush. And if the Packers had finished one in overtime in Arizona they might have made it to the NFC Championship Game for the second straight year.

Part of the analysis McCarthy has done since the end of the season has led him to believe the Packers can take advantage of their personnel better by defining roles and creating more continuity within the pass rush group. One way to do that is to keep them all together.

Re-signing defensive tackle Mike Daniels was paramount, but also high on the list was retaining Perry, who despite three years of injury-filled emptiness was identified as someone who could make the rush better. Perry came through with 3½ sacks and a forced fumble in the playoffs and that was enough for general manager Ted Thompson to sign the $5 million check.

"I'm just thrilled to get Nick back," McCarthy said. "We all know how his first four years went and this was his first year he played through a full season. This will be his first time to go through an off-season program. He's always been rehabbing (an injury).

"He's excited about it. He's been at the facility the whole time, too. I look for Nick to be an impactful player for us on defense. His pass rush opportunities vs. his production was very high. He played extremely well in the Washington game against an outstanding player (left tackle Trent Williams). His run defense was very good."

McCarthy wants to get Perry more third-down rushes, but he has to balance that with having Matthews, Peppers, Daniels, Jones, Jayrone Elliott and possibly Neal in the lineup. Part of the reason he wants Jones playing linebacker instead of defensive end is that he can both play next to Peppers or in place of him at two positions (linebacker or defensive line).

It doesn't have to be one or the other.

"You want as many different combinations as possible," McCarthy said. "It's creating matchup and targeting issues, too. The rush pattern and the rush rotation for the last year was probably our best year in my time here. We'll see how it shakes out once the season hits, but it's something I know, from an offensive perspective, that creates a lot of problems."

That's where continuity comes in. McCarthy feels the danger in players serving in multiple roles is that they don't get enough work perfecting one. It's OK to use Matthews in multiple positions because you don't want the offense knowing where he's going to line up every down, but it's not ideal if three or four players are doing that.

McCarthy wants practice to be a place where jobs are perfected, not split up three or four ways.

"The thing you've got to worry about with multiplicity is you start rolling all these different guys, you've got to make sure, particularly in the movement scheme, the stunt game and things like that, you spend enough time with certain guys working together because there is a lot of timing that goes along with that technique, too," he said. "So we've just got to watch that we don't get too cute and just stick to the way we've been going about it.

"How it shakes out and who's going with who and so forth, that's really for the season."

Where things could change is personnel. The Packers don't know who their first-round pick is going to be and if it's a linebacker or a defensive lineman they may have another piece to incorporate into the pass rush.

Even an inside linebacker could make a difference, especially if it's one of the lighter, more explosive kind that seem to be in abundance in this draft. Defensive coordinator Dom Capers has shown what he can do with Matthews blitzing from the inside and having another threat there would add a lot to the scheme.

"We feel like we know what we have," McCarthy said. "We have a good bead on the projection of what we could do with these guys and that's how we'll build our installs. With that, we're always building with an open mind.

"Hopefully, if we get a specific talent in a certain position that our scheme and our playbook — we'll definitely have a place for him."