After every Green Bay Packers game, we will talk about three points that defined the matchup.

The Green Bay Packers lost 23-19 to the Pittsburgh Steelers, falling to 3-6 in the season. The end result is not as bad if you think about the draft position and that the offense played well. But the loss makes it unrealistic for Matt LaFleur’s team to think about the playoffs — if it was realistic to think about it before the game in the first place.

There are good and bad things, so let’s analyze.

The receivers can’t help Jordan

In our “how five players to watch performed” piece, we talked more about Jordan Love. He played well, and it was probably his best game considering the opposition this season. However, his receivers didn’t help. Drops have been so frequent this year, and it happened many times once again in Pittsburgh.

But nothing was worse than the Christian Watson lack of effort on a decisive fourth-quarter interception. Love threw a decent contested ball, but Watson once again played like he was a small receiver. The Steelers were able to tip the ball and intercept it, making the potential comeback virtually impossible.

It has been hard to see Christian Watson as a reliable, true number one receiver. At this point, he’s probably the fourth best receiver in terms of performance, behind Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed, and Dontayvion Wicks. He has more volume because of how talented he is, but the Packers will most likely need to look for a better option as a primary receiver for the future.

Run defense and penalties

The secondary was expected to be mediocre at best without Jaire Alexander and Eric Stokes, but in fact it wasn’t that bad. But they had a couple of costly penalties, like a pass interference from Carrington Valentine, a holding by Corey Ballentine, and an illegal contact from Jonathan Owens.

But the real reason for the Packers loss, once again, was the run defense. Do you remember the good performances against the Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams? Well, it was probably more related to the opponents. When it’s not Brett Rypien on the other side, it gets way tougher.

People were jokingly excited for the Matt Canada vs Joe Barry matchup. And impressively, Barry was severely outcoached. It was the first game of the season in which the Steelers scored at least 17 points before halftime. Pittsburgh averaged 16.6 points per game, and they scored more than that in one and a half quarters. It’s the same old Packers defense.

Special teams (again)

Rich Bisaccia is the highest-paid special teams coordinator in the NFL, and the Packers have a lot of special teamers on the 53-man roster. But it doesn’t look like it. Missed assignments and bad blocking for Keisean Nixon’s returns are frequent.

And on Sunday, the Packers had a blocked extra point that was extremely costly. Green Bay could have played for a field goal in the fourth quarter instead of a touchdown, and that was the difference between sending the game to overtime or not.

How five Packers players to watch performed vs Steelers

Green Bay lost in Pittsburgh and fell to 3-6