The Template for Beating the Packers

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Jim Bievers/ Packers.com

You learn something new every week in the NFL. It’s one of the most unpredictable leagues partially because of the short schedule, but also because people get injured (constantly), coaches get fired, and offenses get figured out. The Lions cleaned house and have looked much better for it, and the Packer loss to them suddenly looks better in retrospect. They destroyed the Eagles this weekend behind the strength of Matt Stafford throwing bombs to Calvin Johnson, otherwise known as the most obvious offensive scheme in the world. The Lions still have decent talent on defense, and given a lead they thrived.

The Bears came into this game with a surprisingly good offense – 12th in DVOA – and while they didn’t blow the Packer defense away, they were able to generate a few sustained drives and put up enough points to overcome the truly sad Packer offense, which can’t take advantage of any defensive weakness no matter how glaring. The Bear defense is still a dumpster fire talent-wise, but defensive coordinator Vic Fangio has basically been having open tryouts all year, shipping out his predecessor’s mistakes in favor of any practice squad player with any hint of talent. Chris Prosinksi is such a player. A journeyman who has been cut from both the Jaguars and Eagles at various points in time, he was not only good in coverage for the Bears, he also caused Eddie Lacy’s fumble, and fought through a well-developed  Packer screen play near the goal line to single-handedly prevent a James Starks touchdown.

Starks should have been able to walk in with two blockers in front of him. Instead the Packers settled for a 22-yard field goal. The Bears are quietly (or perhaps, now more loudly) doing a very good, efficient, and quick job rebuilding, and with 5 wins aren’t even out of the playoff or divisional, race yet.

The Packers, on the other hand, displayed continuing ineptitude on offense. It was nice to see Eddie Lacy run effectively, but he showed his typically awful football acumen by throwing the ball away a second before scoring a touchdown (though he was saved by poor camera angles and poor officiating) and again early in the 2nd quarter when carrying the ball in an extremely careless manner just before coughing it up. Lacy was at least useful when actually holding the ball, unlike Davante Adams who continued a run of not just bad, but historically poor performances. His 11 target, 2 catch, 14 yard performance is just one of 13 such performances to have as many targets, and as few receptions, over the last 25 years.

He once again averaged fewer yards per play than an average Lacy run, and every Adams target was another step towards failure. You could argue that it is difficult to blame the Packers for targeting him so much with injuries to Montgomery and Abbrederis rendering the team razor-thin at the position. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine waiver-wire fodder playing worse than Adams.  Maybe he’s still suffering the effects of his earlier ankle injury, but the fact is that outside of two good games Adams has been a huge disappointment, and shown a very limited skillset. The  Packers’ best hope going  forward is to see Ty Montgomery, Andrew Quarless and Randall Cobb get healthier, but Montgomery has had nothing but setbacks, and Cobb seems to get worse every week. Adams is likely to remain a frustratingly inefficient cog in the offense.

The last play of the game is Adams in a nutshell. He runs a nothing route straight into a defender, does not use his body well to box out, and can’t hang on to a pass that hits him directly in the hands. Rodgers made a fine throw under duress, and a better receiver catches it most of the time.

The Packers had dozens of chances to win this game, and several of them, including the final one, were blown by Adams.

The Future

Let’s assume for a second that nothing changes much and the Packers stay as they are right now, with a pretty good defense and a putrid offense incapable of capitalizing on even the Bears’ lack of defensive talent. This mix makes them extremely vulnerable to teams with good offenses, because they can’t keep up if the defense let’s their opponent have anything.  The Lions actually have good offensive personnel and a new offensive coach. They came into that game just 28th in offense, but since ridding themselves of Joe Lombardi they’ve shown steady improvement. They were hardly great offensively against the Packers, but good enough. The Vikings have a reliably poor offense (22nd overall, with no improvement in sight), their weaknesses play to the Packers’ strengths, and the Packers were able to hold on as a result. The Bears are another good offense-bad defense team and they were able to score just enough to stay on top.

This trend does not bode well for their future. A rematch with the rapidly improving Lions is up next.  They will eventually face the league’s best offense in Arizona, and the Raiders, while a sorry 27th in defense, are actually the 11th best team in the league on offense, and a stellar 5th in passing. They are basically a slightly better version of the Bears as long as Derek Carr remains healthy.  The Packers have an easy schedule by most measures, for the current incarnation of the team, there really is no such thing as an easy schedule, and even the bad teams on it are capable of hitting them where it hurts.

The Lions

The Lion defense hasn’t allowed more than 16 points since November 1st, and while their offense hasn’t put up huge totals outside of last week’s 45 point effort against a good Eagle defense, they did have an uncharacteristically high 375 yard output against the Raiders, and have rushed for over 100 yards in their last two games, which is in stark contrast to basically every game they’ve played up to that point. I don’t want to paint the Lions as offensive juggernauts because they are not, and one game is not a trend, but they’ve showed a larger commitment to the run, to play action, and to Calvin Johnson in recent games. The Packers were able to hold their offense in check three weeks ago, and this should at the very least be a close game, but the Packer margin for error is razor thin right now and another frustrating loss would not surprise me one bit.