Packers Will Face the Rams in a Difficult Matchup

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Photo by Evan Siegle, packers.com

Mason Crosby - Vikings Nov. 21, 2021

If you count the current season, Kirk Cousins has five Top-10 DVOA ranking under his belt, which is quite good. This season has been his best as he currently ranks fourth, which is even more impressive when you consider that Aaron Rodgers is currently ninth. Other advanced metrics love Cousins just as much, and this isn’t a fluke, yet mainstream opinion, and many a Vikings fan, thinks of Cousins as something less.

Part of this is because Cousins can be an abrasive personality. Cousins has many of Aaron Rodgers’ quirks without the charisma to back it up, and he drew strong criticism from head coach Mike Zimmer earlier this season for his failure to get vaccinated. On the field, Cousins often has issues with timing, failing in high-profile night games, and at least last season, on 3rd down, where he took a ridiculous number of sacks. The Vikings’ lackluster record also tarnishes his resume, but there is a lot of bad luck in that record as Minnesota has suffered a several key missed field goals and dropped two of three overtime games. Cousins’ failures stick in your head, but it’s not all his fault, and in the grand scheme of things if you’re facing Cousins at noon on a Sunday, you should be concerned.

King Outmatched

Unfortunately for the Packers, this game did take place at noon on a Sunday, and Cousins did a better job getting the ball out quickly, cutting those 3rd down sacks, and the Vikings’ just happened to get lucky. The Vikings, and their offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, also came in with an excellent game plan, which started with a sustained attack on cornerback Kevin King. King has played well of late, and started the game over Rasul Douglas, but it quickly became apparent King wasn’t up to sticking with Justin Jefferson. King can be effective against more physical wide receivers, especially in the red zone, but he is outmatched against elite route runners like Jefferson, who in his second season has quickly established himself as one of the NFL’s best and is the closest thing to Davante Adams since Davante Adams.

Joe Barry eventually reacted by bringing Douglas back, but he struggled with the veteran savvy of Adam Thielen. Rookie corner Eric Stokes often managed to stay with Jefferson, but struggled at the catch point, and in the end wasn’t any more effective than King. Compounding all of these issues, the Packer secondary failed to capitalize on several opportunities for interceptions, any of which would have given the Packers the victory. Safety Darnell Savage let at least two easy interceptions get away from him, including one on the Vikings final drive that would have cemented a win, and Cousins made the Packers pay almost immediately.

On the offensive side of the ball, Aaron Rodgers was nearly good enough to overcome the defense’s deficiencies. Rodgers got off to a slow start, completing just 8/15 passes for 111 yards and one touchdown to tight end Josiah Deguara. He took several ill-advised deep shots on third down, badly overshooting Marquez Valdes-Scantling several times. Rodgers entered the game with a toe injury that kept him out of practice all week, and that rust showed. The second half was a completely different story as Rodgers was 15/18 for 274 yards and three touchdowns and managed to connect on all of his deep shots, including an incredible 75-yards strike to MVS to tie the game at 31. Davante Adams dominated almost as much as Justin Jefferson with 7 catches for 115 yards and 2 scores, but ultimately it wasn’t enough.

Special teams issues continued to plague the Packers as well, as Mason Crosby missed yet another field goal, and long-snapper Steve Wirtel almost missed punter Corey Bojorquez while snapping a punt. Special Teams continues to cost the Packers wins, and doesn’t seem to be improving in any meaningful way. If would not be surprising to see the team change long snappers yet again. If they don’t resolve their kicking and returning issues before the playoffs, it will cost them.

A Rematch with the Rams

The Packers will face the Rams next, before heading into their bye week, and it’s likely to be much more difficult matchup than it was when Green Bay faced Los Angeles in the playoffs last season. First, and most importantly, Matthew Stafford is now the quarterback for the Rams, and while he’s not one of the NFL’s elite passers, he is an enormous upgrade from Jared Goff. Stafford by himself makes the Rams much more formidable, but the Rams will also have two additional upgrades.

The first is more of a downgrade on the Green Bay side. The Packers lost Elgton Jenkins for the rest of the season to an ACL tear against the Vikings, and with tackle David Bakhtiari still out until at least the bye week, the Packers will be using a patchwork offensive line featuring the struggling Royce Newman, and third string tackle Yosh Nijman. Last season, no one handled the Rams’ all-world defensive tackle Aaron Donald as well as Jenkins, who completely shut him down. Keeping Donald in check was a huge factor in the Packers’ win, and given how much Aaron Rodgers struggles with interior pressure, Donald is likely to be a huge problem in this game.

Finally, the Rams went into the 2020 playoffs without their best receiver in Cooper Kupp who was lost to an injury. So far this season, by almost all metrics, Kupp has been the most valuable receiver in football. We just saw what Justin Jefferson is capable of doing to the Packers’ secondary, and Kupp has been at least as good, and in many ways, even better. If Green Bay is going to win this game, they’re going to have to play much better than they did against Minnesota, with much worse personnel.