The Lions aren’t good, but beating them was going to be difficult as the Packers were missing receivers Geronimo Allison, Randall Cobb and cornerback Jaire Alexander. Every team has to overcome personnel deficiencies over the course of a season, but Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy were simply overwhelmed. That’s an extremely bad sign, as the defense actually played well given the hole they were put in, and far from being a weakness, Equanimeous St. Brown, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling acquitted themselves quite well. The biggest problem in this game was Aaron Rodgers.
The Packers have made an alarming habit of getting behind early, and this game was no exception. The Lions rolled out of the gate scoring on what was officially a muffed punt, although the officials actually botched the call as the punt in question clearly touched a Lions’ player first.
The Lions would punch it in a few plays later on a one-yard Legarrette Blount score, and the Packers never really recovered. Mason Crosby would suffer a historically bad day of field goal, and extra point kicking, and Aaron Rodgers would cough up a few first half fumbles, hopelessly burying the team.
Packer fans are used to blaming everyone but Rodgers, but on this day it was so obvious that it can’t be ignored. On the plays where he lost two fumbles, he had receivers running wide open, and was generally inaccurate, especially in the first half.
Rodgers has posted below average yards per attempt numbers for more than three years now, and as long as he is paired with McCarthy, it’s unlikely those numbers will ever improve again.
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Those speedy rookie receivers made all problems evident, as they were frequently open, but Rodgers either failed to see them, or made poor throws.
The deep throw has been absent since Jordy Nelson tore his ACL, and at this point it is basically a distant memory, as Rodgers is simply a shell of himself down the field. When you think about how Rodgers approaches the game this is especially strange, as he holds the ball longer than almost any other quarterback, and deep drops, including improvisation plays, are big plays for most of the rest of the league. More often than not, Rodgers’ long plays end up as incompletions, or as short completions with no possibility of YAC, as he finds players coming back to the ball. Rodgers is in a rare situation where his quick passes often go further through the air, and for bigger plays, than his long-developing plays.
To me it looks like he is so hesitant to make mistakes that he’s now looking to check down first, especially if the player is inexperienced. Rodgers left a ton of yards on the field, and while there are plenty of scapegoats available, including one of the worst days a kicker has ever had, he is the primary reason they lost the game.
McCarthy Isn’t Helping
The offense would have a better time of it if they actually played their best players. Running back Aaron Jones is clearly the best back on the team. He leads the team with 6.1 yards per carry, which would be the third-best average in the league if he had enough carries to qualify. Jones has noticeably improved as a pass protector, and while Ty Montgomery has been an excellent receiver out of the backfield, Jones has been much better as a receiver than Jamaal Williams, who continues to see far too many passing downs. Jones was suspended for the first two games, and maybe it’s possible he’s being punished, or used as an example in the clubhouse, but if that’s the case, it’s at the expense of on-field production.
Jimmy Graham has been a disappointment at tight end so far, and McCarthy’s love of Lance Kendricks defies expectations, especially given the fact that Marcedes Lewis and Robert Tonyan are both on the roster. A more creative coach would use Lewis to create defensive mismatches, as Lewis is a fine receiver, but more importantly, a devastating blocker. For a team that employs deception, and embraces formation diversity, he would be a godsend. For this Packer team, he has seen just 15% of offensive snaps. Tonyan is an unpolished rookie, but it’s hard to imagine he would show less than either Graham or Kendricks as a receiver at this point.
The trend around the league is for smart coaches to do the heavy lifting tactically, creating mismatches for his offense while keeping the actual on field concepts simple for the players themselves. This has several benefits including fewer formation and procedural penalties, fewer wasted timeouts, and most importantly, faster integration of young players. Young players, especially rookies, are often cheaper than their veteran counterparts, and the faster they can be trained and integrated, the more value they contribute. If this team is going to succeed it is going to need more offense down the field. The only players capable of providing it need to get that chance. McCarthy’s scheme is stale, but it’s also getting to be expensive.
Finally, this should never ever happen.
