Packers Suffer a Disaster in Cleveland

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Photo by Evan Siegle - packers.com

Packers vs. Browns

Games like this happen sometimes. On Sunday in Cleveland Ohio, several factors in and out of their control conspired to defeat the Green Bay Packers in a 13-10 rock fight. While there were big, obvious mistakes like Jordan Love’s inexcusable fourth quarter interception with just three minutes remaining, and Brandon McManus’ low line drive field goal attempt that was easily blocked by Milwaukee’s own Shelby Harris, this game was primarily lost in the trenches due to injury.  

Right tackle Zach Tom and guard Aaron Banks were forced to leave the game with injuries, and in relief, Jordan Morgan and Anthony Belton struggled mightily. Matt LaFleur and offensive coordinator/offensive line guru Adam Stenavich should have been prepared for this as Banks and Tom have been banged up all year, and Tom’s oblique injury has been a consistent issue, but instead of relying on solid and versatile veteran tackle Darian Kinnard, they instead bumped Jordan Morgan between right tackle and guard, despite the fact that Jordan Morgan has never once played right tackle, at least since high school. It showed as he was repeatedly bullied by a very good Cleveland front led by all-word Myles Garrett.  

Morgan has only played nine games as a professional, and he’s yet to impress, but he’s also never been granted to stability of learning any single position. He’s bounced around the interior of the line, but he may just be a left tackle only when it’s all said and done, and LaFleur and Stenavich hurt Morgan and the team by forcing him to play in unfamiliar positions on Sunday.

Short Throws 

By the end of the game, Jordan Love had been sacked five times (tied for his career high), and almost all of those sacks were unavoidable, quick pressures directly up the gut. LaFleur obviously realized the line was an issue because for the first time this season, the passing game was limited to short throws, with the only exception a 34-yard bomb from Love to Matthew Golden. The line simply wasn’t up to creating the time necessary for medium and deep passes, which is a major problem against the Browns. While Cleveland’s front is among the league’s elite, their secondary is among the league’s worst. If you can buy enough time to throw downfield, you can score on the Browns at will, as the Bills did in week two (a 41-17 win).  

In addition to Kinnard playing just four snaps, backup running back Chris Brooks was also limited to just eight snaps while Emmanuel Wilson was out there for 15. While this may not seem like a major issue, Brooks is the best pass blocking back on the team, and without the injured Marshawn Lloyd, the best receiving back as well. Wilson is a fine runner, but when the line broke down, he was of little use in helping Love. Starting running back Josh Jacobs had no room to run because of the line issues (16 caries for just 30 yards), but Jacobs is also a poor receiving back and wasn’t positioned properly for four of his checkdown targets. Brooks would have been a major improvement over both backs given the game situation.  

There were a few additional contributing factors, as the rain made things even harder for the offense, and the officials threw 22 flags for a total of 165 yards between both teams, which stunted several Packer drives, but a smarter game plan for a compromised offensive line would probably have resulted in a victory. For the most part, I don’t think the officiating favored one team over the other so much as it was just intrusive, however, I did want to call out the officials in one specific instance that I think is being under-covered. 

Game Winning Field Goal 

With 12 second left in the game, the Browns were desperately trying to get in range for a game winning field goal attempt. Quarterback Joe Flacco found tight end David Njoku open over the middle at the Green Bay 37, and the Browns rushed to the line to clock the ball, which they accomplished with two seconds remaining.  

At the end of any given football play, the referee will take the ball and spot the ball at the appropriate location before play is allowed to resume. On this play, that never happened as Cleveland center Ethan Pocic hustled upfield, took the ball, and spotted it himself. This is notable because if the referee had been involved, the Browns almost certainly run out of time, and also because Pocic did not spot the ball in the correct place. Cleveland snapped the ball for their spike a full yard and a half, behind the actual line of scrimmage because no one took the time to set the play properly.  

I don’t really think the Packers played well enough to deserve to win, and this was hardly the only weird or bad call over the course of the game, but officials are usually sticklers about spotting the ball. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this happen before, and if it had not happened, Green Bay wins.