How five Packers players to watch performed vs Giants
After three surprising wins, the Green Bay Packers suffered a surprising loss. The team entered as favorites to beat the New York Giants, but played their worst game in a long time, losing 24-22 with a walk-off field goal after the offense was able to score a touchdown with less than two minutes left. Check […]
After three surprising wins, the Green Bay Packers suffered a surprising loss. The team entered as favorites to beat the New York Giants, but played their worst game in a long time, losing 24-22 with a walk-off field goal after the offense was able to score a touchdown with less than two minutes left.
Check out how these five Packers players to watch performed on Monday.
Dontayvion Wicks
The entire passing attack felt the absence of Christian Watson, and it wasn’t different for Wicks. The rookie played a high number of snaps, but was as ineffective as the rest of the offense. He finished the game with only two catches for 20 yards, and he wasn’t open fast enough to be a real option with Jordan Love playing under so much pressure.
Wicks is a good role player, and it might be unfair to put so much value on what he is able to do right now, but he still has a long way to go before being an integral part of the offense.
Later in the game, he also got injured.
Josh Myers
The offensive line in general had a tough time stopping an aggressive style coached by Giants defensive coordinator Wink Martindale. And Myers wasn’t an exception. With the Giants frequently sending extra rushers, Myers had issues with individual blocking at times, and Love was under pressure frequently.
After this kind of performance of the offense, other teams will certainly apply more pressure on the Packers offensive line, and how they respond to it will be a big factor for the rest of the season.
Kenny Clark
Clark was part of a bigger problem, as Myers was. The Packers defensive scheme is built to pressure the opposing quarterback, without much care for running gaps. Clark wasn’t able to transform pressure into sacks, and Giants QB Tommy DeVito was able to evade pressures to scramble several times throughout the game.
For it to be even worse, they weren’t able to truly impact the game rushing the passer, and DeVito wasn’t sacked once — it’s good to remember that the Giants have one of the worst pass-protecting offensive lines in the entire league.
It wasn’t an absurd game for Saquon Barkley, but DeVito showed that the Packers defense can’t handle multiple threats at the same time.
De’Vondre Campbell
Without Quay Walker, Campbell was the main piece in the middle of the defense. As previously mentioned, DeVito ran with ease, but that was mostly because of the defensive line. Campbell had a solid game, with important tackles and helping the team to limit Barkley’s runs. However, Saquon still finished the game with 4.3 yards per carry and two rushing touchdowns, and DeVito had 71 rushing yards.
Carrington Valentine
It was not a perfect game by Valentine, and he gave up a touchdown to Isaiah Hodgins in the fourth quarter. But the passing defense was not the biggest problem at all, and Valentine was very smart not to touch Barkley on the play that allowed him to recover the fumble and return it. He put the offense in position to fight for the game, and they scored a touchdown, but the defense couldn’t hold the Giants offense to finish it up.
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