Three weeks into the season, the Green Bay Packers are in a bad place. Not only are they 1-2, but they just got their butts whooped by the previously 0-2 Atlanta Falcons on "Thursday Night Football," falling 35-14 at home. Don't believe me? Ask coach Matt LaFleur.
"It was a butt-whooping," LaFleur said after the game.
And it certainly was. Green Bay yielded 498 total yards of offense to a Falcons team that had totaled just 524 yards through its first two games. The Packers allowed Bijan Robinson to tear them up for 194 yards and two touchdowns on the ground, and Drake London to dice them for 194 yards through the air.
They weren't much better offensively, totaling just 194 yards before a pair of garbage-time drives late in the fourth quarter that masked an otherwise miserable day at the office. The Packers ran the ball a grand total of nine times for 17 yards, while Jordan Love averaged a mere 5.8 yards per pass attempt.
It was, frankly, an embarrassing performance — one that brought out the boos from the Packers faithful at Lambeau Field. It was also one that put the Packers' myriad problems squarely on display. When you're playing an island game, those things can be hard to ignore. LaFleur specifically took the offense to task after the game.
"I think we've got to continue to work with these guys and try to figure out what we do well," the head coach said. "Because right now I don't know what we're doing well offensively."
The biggest issue on that side of the ball at the moment is the offensive line. The Packers cannot create any push in the run game and they cannot protect Love. Like, at all.
Some of it is due to personnel issues: Zach Bako-Bewele and Aaron Banks are injured and didn't play on Thursday night. But the construction of the line was deficient to begin with. They have a career guard, Sean Rhyan, playing center. They have another guy who has mostly played guard or right tackle, Jordan Morgan, playing left tackle. They are depending on Jacob Monk, a 2024 fifth-round pick who had played just 57 career snaps entering this season, at one of the guard spots. And on Thursday night, they had a fifth-round rookie center, Jager Burton, playing guard. It's all a big mess.
Green Bay's problems extend well beyond offensive line
It should be no surprise that Green Bay is averaging a mere 0.92 yards before contact per rush, according to Tru Media. That's not quite among the very worst in the league this year because we're still working with a small sample size, but it would have ranked 30th last year.
The Packers have also yielded pressure on 42.4% of Love's dropbacks so far this season, a rate that would have checked in 31st a year ago. On Thursday night alone, they allowed 15 quick pressures, per data from NFL.com's Next Gen Stats. That is totally untenable for an offense.
LaFleur, though, insists that there are other issues aside from the line.
"I don't want to put all the blame on the offensive line," LaFleur said. "There's enough blame to go around. We've got to catch the ball better. Certainly, there's some throws I think J-Love would love to have back, just like there's some play calls I would love to have back."
The Packers' problems extend to nearly every part of the roster. Here's a snapshot of the most alarming numbers behind their 1-2 start:
| Problem | Alarming number |
|---|---|
| Offensive line | Pressure allowed on 42.4% of Jordan Love's dropbacks |
| Running game | 0.92 yards before contact per rush |
| Dropped passes | NFL-high nine drops |
| Turnover risk | Two interceptions and four potential interceptions dropped |
| Tackling | Bijan Robinson gained 163 yards after contact |
| Yards after catch | Drake London gained 108 yards after the catch |
Do the Packers have to catch the ball better? They sure do. They've played one more game than most teams, but they already lead the NFL with nine drops to date. No other team has more than five, according to Tru Media.
Does Love have some throws he probably wants back? Well, he's already been picked off twice and also had a league-high four more potential interceptions dropped (nobody else has more than one), so I'd say that he probably does.
And LaFleur himself can't stop talking about how the team needs to run the ball more often and more successfully, and he's the one calling the plays, so that tells you how satisfied he is with the job he's doing.
And those are just the offensive issues plaguing the Packers. The defense hasn't been much to write home about, either, and the "tackling" display the unit put on on Thursday night was pitiful. Robinson gained an incredible 163 of his 194 yards after contact, according to Pro Football Focus. London gained 108 of his 194 yards through the air after the catch. The second and third levels of the defense were practically invisible, and the first level didn't do its job, either.
Things were a bit better in the first two games of the season, but only marginally. It's also worth noting that they faced Carson Wentz coming into the game cold in Week 1, still fell apart down the stretch in the fourth quarter, and then faced Geno Smith and the Jets in a rainy, windy environment at MetLife Stadium in Week 2. They haven't exactly been going up against the league's best offenses, and they haven't yet looked very good.
Some of that is due to the injury to Micah Parsons, who totally changes the defense the second he steps on the field, but being that dependent on one player for success is a failure of team construction. The Packers don't have enough players who are good enough to keep them afloat without Parsons. And they're apparently not well-coached enough to do it, either.
Could changes be coming to Green Bay?
All of the various issues with the team make one wonder why the Packers announced multi-year extensions for both LaFleur and general manager Brian Gutekunst at the end of last season, after the Packers lost their final four games of the regular season and then blew an 18-point second-half lead in their playoff game against the division rival Bears.
The Packers have had a lot of regular-season success during the LaFleur era (77-42-1), but they're just 3-6 in the playoffs, haven't been past the divisional round since 2020, and have lost in the wild-card round each of the last two years. They've arguably been moving backward since LaFleur's first two seasons on the job, when he took the team to consecutive NFC title games with Aaron Rodgers at the helm.
Wherever you want to lay the blame, whether with LaFleur and the rest of the coaching staff or with Gutekunst or with the players or with some combination of the three, it's clear that things aren't working right now. The Packers are in a bad way, and if they don't turn things around quickly, there are probably significant changes on the horizon, whether they come during the season or after it.
