Photo by Evan Siegle - packers.com
Elgton Jenkins at center vs the Lions, November 3, 2024
Elgton Jenkins at center vs the Lions, November 3, 2024
The Detroit Lions are easily the best team in the NFC North, and possibly the NFC as a whole. To stand any chance of beating them, the Packers needed to play a near perfect game on Sunday at a dank, wet Lambeau Field. Instead, they continued to shoot themselves in the foot with penalties, drops, and turnovers, and lost a winnable game 24-14.
Green Bay is now 6-3, and third place in the NFC North, and their ceiling is still as high as any team in the NFC. However, with half a season now under their belt, their flaws can no longer be dismissed as bad luck, inexperience, or random chance. No team has dropped more passes than thet Packers, who have 19 drops as a unit, and 13 between Dontayvion Wicks and Jayden Reed. Wicks has been especially poor and suffered a drop on every target in the loss to Detroit. He has now dropped a pass on 27% of his targets on the season and needs to take a seat on the bench until he can show some level of consistency. Christian Watson has been the lone bright spot in terms of drops, as the only receiver without one, however his consistently poor route running has made several catchable targets uncatchable.
Unlucky with Turnovers
Jordan Love has suffered in the box score as a result, but he also hasn’t done himself any favors, and while he has been unlucky with turnovers (every single turnover-worthy play that Love has thrown has resulted in a turnover, while the leaguewide ratio is typically one out of every six), he has also made a few terrible decisions every single game. Against Detroit, the interception he threw near the end of the first half was inexcusable, and he almost had an even worse turnover near the goal-line when he waited too long to throw the ball away. He has made at least one terrible decision in every game, and as a result, he currently leads the NFL in interceptions with 10 while missing two games.
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Despite all of these issues the Packer passing attack is still a respectable tenth in Expected Points Added (EPA). Josh Jacobs has led a formidable rushing attack as well, and overall, the Packers are ninth in points per game and would rank higher if not for their earlier issues with field goals. Unfortunately, even when they are clicking on all cylinders, they still consistently lose drives to penalties, where they have been called for 66, the sixth most in the league. Against Detroit on Sunday, they Packers were called for ten, versus just five for the Lions, and several key penalties led directly to Packer punts.
Illegal Shifts
Matt LaFleur is an incredibly creative play caller, but this sloppiness needs to stop immediately. When potential big play after big play is getting wiped out because of an illegal shift, or a poor adjustment by a receiver, or a drop, it undoes any and all genius that went into the play design. Some of these issues have been the result of injuries pushing players into unfamiliar roles, like Elgton Jenkins poor work at center against Detroit in which he recorded at least three botched snaps. But some of these issues are simply the result of a lack of discipline. Creativity and discipline do not always go hand in hand, and someone on this staff needs to step up to be the bad cop to LaFleur’s good.
Fortunately for the Packers, they have a much-needed bye this week. This should help with health, as well as providing the opportunity to work on some of these issues without interrupting gameplan installation. The bye is the perfect time to conduct some detail work, and hopefully they do so. After the bye they’ll face Chicago in the Bears’ first NFC North game of the year. Chicago is fresh off an embarrassing loss to the Cardinals in which quarterback Caleb Williams was injured on a meaningless play, late in the game. Chicago head coach Matt Eberflus is firmly on the hot seat, and should they drop their game next week against the New England Patriots and fellow rookie quarterback Drake Maye, the Packers may end up facing a brand-new Bears’ coach two weeks from now.
