There is one certainty about the Green BayPackers; if Aaron Rodgers plays poorly, they will not be a good team. This teamcan withstand a lot of hardship and injury, but 12 has to play at a top-5level, and everything else is predicated around the assumption that he will.For three weeks now Aaron Rodgers has been bad. This was understandable againstthe elite defenses in Denver and Carolina, but some of the problems he hadagainst those two teams persisted into the Lions game, and that is worrisome. Ican only guess at the problem, but I suspect it has more to do with thefrustration of never having open receivers as it does anything. When thePackers have been effective Rodgers has held onto the ball a long time to letplays develop, and he’s taken many big hits. Eventually that will start to getto anyone. Against the Lions he frequently threw off of his back foot, did notstep into throws, and consequently airmailed receivers over and over again. Itlooks mostly like an issue driven by a fear of stepping up into the rush

While Rodgers needs to get better, at least inthis instance I’m fairly confident he will. MVPs rarely decline that severelyovernight. The bigger concern for this team is the actual talent of their widereceiver corps, and in particular Davante Adams. Adams showed some flashes ofproductivity last year, but he was used in a limited capacity mainly when hedrew single coverage with the DB playing off. Outside of those plays heactually wasn’t terribly effective and while many people, and the front officehave spoken very highly of Adams, he is still unproven. Almost immediately uponstarting the season he suffered an ankle injury which provided an excuse forpoor production but now back and healthy, he has been an enormousdisappointment. He was a popular pick to replace Jordy Nelson’s production, orat least to mitigate the loss, but to this point he has been sub-replacementlevel. I charted every target Adams had on Sunday, and he was absolutelybrutal. Some issues were not necessarily his fault as Aaron Rodgers missed himopen deep a few times, although Adams let himself get held up by defensivebacks on some of those as well. What I can tell you is this:

• On passes to the “short right” part of the field, Adams was targeted 10 times, catching 7 balls for 49 yards.

• On passes to the “short middle” he was targeted 5 times, catching 3 balls, for 30 yards. He only had 79 yards receiving for the game, and so every single catch he made was short right or short middle.

• He was targeted “deep” (either direction) 5 times. He failed to catch a single ball.

• He was targeted “short left” once, and not only did he not catch it; he was also charged with a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct play.

• While Aaron Rodgers’ throw on the 2-point conversion was not great, Adams did everything wrong that a receiver can possibly do. He left his feet unnecessarily, costing himself leverage. He let the ball get into his body instead of trying to catch it with his hands. This is what allowed the defender to get a hand on the ball.

• Including the 2-point try, Davante Adams was targeted 22 times in this game. He caught 10 of those passes. If we subtract the 15 yards he was penalized from his yardage total leaving him with 64 yards, Adams averaged 2.9 yards per target.

• For a time period starting at the 8:28 mark of the 3rd quarter and ending with 31 seconds left in the game, Adams saw 8 targets. He did not catch a single one.

• Adams caught 10 balls, but only 6 of those passes resulted in a successful play (“successful” meaning the Packers were more likely to pick up a first down after the play than they were before it).

• Forgetting about the penalty for a second just for the sake of a fair comparison, Adams averaged 3.76 yards per target. Everyone else on the team average 6.35 yards per target. That is a huge difference 

As I said, almost every offensive player was badin this game. Randall Cobb looked like a shell of himself, and it appears hislingering shoulder injury is having a huge impact on his ability to createseparation. Jared Abbrederis played fairly well until he was injured yet again.Richard Rodgers was at least a big target near the end zone, but providesalmost no value outside of that. James Jones simply can’t get open anymore andRodgers doesn’t trust him unless it’s a free play. Perhaps the most damningthing you can say about the current corps of wide receivers is that no onelooked quite as good as backup blocking tight end Justin Perillo. 

The Lions are a bad team. They may be slightlyreenergized due to recent turnover in the coaching staff, but no one else hashad any trouble moving the ball on them this season. All-Pro linebacker andformer Badger DeAndre Levy is out for the year, Haloti Ngata hasn’t even comeclose to replacing Ndamukong Suh, and neither the Vikings nor Bears failed toput up fewer than 26 points against them. The Chiefs put 45 points on the Lionsjust two weeks ago.  

And while the players were terrible, I suspectthe scheme had as much, if not more to do with this loss. No one targetsDavante Adams 22 times by accident. They clearly thought they had some kind offavorable matchup with him and went to that well over and over again despitepoor returns on almost every play. Once again, the offense was better in panicmode partially due to the Lions going to a mild prevent, but also due to somescreens to James Starks, and some downfield throws to Abbrederis and Perillo.No offense is going to be efficient going back to a player averaging 2.9 yardsper play. Part of the reason that James Starks only got 15 carries was becausehe was averaging 2.8 yards per carry, yet they went back to the Adams wellrepeatedly despite nearly identical results. To lose to a team like the Lions,who tried their hardest to give this one away, you have to screw up in nearlyevery facet of the game, and on offense and special teams, the Packers did justthat. The one thing you can say is that they continue to play pretty well ondefense. Hopefully that is enough in the second half of the season.

Special Teams

It’s bad enough to give up a huge kickoff returnto Ameer Abdullah, as the Packers did to start the second half, but the worstspecial teams play, and one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen,happened on the final play of the game. As ESPN’s Rob Demovsky first pointedout, it looks very much like that Mason Crosby’s final field goal attempt wasblocked - by punter and holder Tim Masthay.

I have watched this kick hundreds of times now,and while you cannot see anything definitive, you can see that no Lion touchesthe ball. Crosby’s form is good and it looks like he makes proper contact withthe ball. In my opinion, only contact with something could have caused the ballto knuckle like it did, and I think you can actually see it touch Masthay’soff-hand if you look very closely.