Packers keep playing with their foot on the brake, and it’s clearly holding them back game after game despite the standings
Green Bay suffers another loss against an inferior team.
The Green Bay Packers are now 5-2-1, but the feel around the team is much worse than that. Game after game, even during wins, the team also feels sloppy, underprepared, and underwhelming. The two losses happened to the Cleveland Browns and, now, to the Carolina Panthers — and this one, at Lambeau Field, 16-13.
If the Packers want to compete like they’ve been saying, it’s time to be more courageous, to play like a team that wants to win and not tie the games.
Foot on the brake
Matt LaFleur is a good head coach, especially in play design, but that “all gas, no brakes” mentality has long been left behind. At this point, he’s keeping his foot on the brake, and the best example of that was the final drive of the first half.
Even in a two-minute offense, LaFleur forced too many unnecessary run calls. Even if successful, those wouldn’t help much. Now add to that two holding penalties holding the offense back. When LaFleur let Jordan Love cook, he did, making the offense explosive and efficient.
LaFleur would ideally want a run-centric offense, but this offensive line is simply not built for that, and the offense is much better when it’s more willing to throw it.
On that drive before halftime, specifically, LaFleur badly mismanaged the clock. It seems that his priority was not to give the ball back to the Panthers instead of scoring a touchdown. The Packers ran, left the clock running, and then called a timeout after an incompletion. It was just hard to understand.
It’s not a coincidence that the Packers have scored 10 vs. the Cincinnati Bengals, six vs. the Arizona Cardinals, seven vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers, and now six against the Panthers in the first half. Everything feels hard.
In the second half, LaFleur was aggressive when he probably shouldn’t have been. On fourth and eight from the 13-yard line, he decided to go for it, in one of the worst-looking plays you’ll see from the Packers this season.
When the offense went on a faster tempo, it had its best drive of the game late in the fourth quarter, and Josh Jacobs scored a game-tying touchdown with a little more than two minutes left. An approach that should have been taken much earlier.
Run defense
After some positive games from the run defense, it was exposed against the Panthers, even facing a banged-up offensive line. Rico Dowdle had 12 attempts for 66 yards in the first half, 5.5 yards per carry, which allowed the Panthers to stay on the field for long drives. Additionally, the cornerbacks were exposed on third downs, making it difficult to find answers.
That caused the Packers to have only three possessions in the first half, including a Savion Williams’ fumble and two field goal drives.
The Panthers’ passing offense struggled for the most part; their run defense simply couldn’t contain Dowdle, and this trend continued throughout the entire game. With 40 seconds left, Dowdle had a big 19-yard run on second and 10 to put the Panthers in field-goal range, and that was the game.
Injuries
It’s impossible to talk about this game and not mention the injuries that immensely affect the Packers, particularly the offense. Tight end Tucker Kraft left the game with a knee injury after blowing his leg during a block. Wide receiver Matthew Golden suffered a shoulder injury, left guard Aaron Banks had a stinger, and defensive tackle Colby Wooden also had a shoulder issue.
Kraft would be a huge loss, as he’s been the most productive and explosive offensive piece over the first half of the regular season. And after cutting Ben Sims, who was claimed off waivers by the Minnesota Vikings, the only other tight ends on the 53-man roster are John FitzPatrick and Luke Musgrave.
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