One of the most frustrating developments in football is when one side of the ball plays well enough to win, but the other side hamstrings the team, as a whole, and eventually becomes the catalyst behind a loss.

That's exactly what happened to the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night Football. The often-maligned defense played a pretty damn good game outside of a couple bad/weird calls from defensive coordinator Joe Barry, but the offense was an absolute train wreck. Outside of one touchdown drive, Jordan Love and co. were out of synch all night long and the Packers lost because they couldn't muster up enough plays to amass more than 17 points.

"I thought our defense did enough for us to win the game," Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said after the game. "And unfortunately, we didn't do enough offensively to get it done. [Maxx] Crosby was a problem, he had some big-time splash plays that knocked us back in critical situations and forced us into long-yardage situations – which are tough to convert in this league."

This is now the fourth game out of five in which the Packers' haven't been able to play well on both sides of the ball. Three of the four games have been losses: Week 2's 25-24 loss where Love and the offense led the team to a 24-12 fourth quarter lead just to watch the defense give up 13 points in order to lose, 25-24. And, obviously, there's Week 4's and Monday night's performances.

It took a miracle to beat the New Orleans Saints. That's a game where the defense held Derek Carr and co. to just 17 points and the Packers rallied just enough to win, 18-17. If they don't pull that off, they're sitting at 1-4 and are joined at the hip with the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears at the bottom of the NFC North.

When the offense is humming, the defense is getting gashed. And when the defense has tightened up, the offense can't move the ball. Sure, this is a young and inexperienced team, for the most part, but this is the same veteran coaching staff that has plenty of experience. They should have the Packers playing better football on a much more consistent basis.

Except they don't. And with the injuries continuing to pile up, it's getting harder and harder to see the Packers breaking out of this slump.

"We have to find something to get us going to jumpstart us," said LaFleur. "… We have to look at everything because it seemed like when we dialed up some passes, they had some timely calls defensively. Give credit to [Raiders DC] Patrick Graham and their staff. You know, they definitely did a better job than we did."

One can make the case is this the second-straight game in which the Packers were out-coached from start to finish. Even with a 3-0 lead, the Packers just didn't have any kind of edge nor were they ever able to make any plays to give themselves a shot at increasing that lead. The inability to capitalize at the end of the game is what really stung the most, however.

"It's tough," Love said after the game. "We had a lot of opportunities. Definitely, [the] defense did a great job giving us those opportunities and we just we didn't do enough. You know, I didn't do enough. And, obviously, there's a lot of good stuff to learn from. But, it's tough because we had opportunities to go win it."

According to LaFleur, the Packers did a lot of self-scouting after their awful loss to the Detroit Lions on Thursday Night Football, but it's clear they need to go back to the drawing board, yet again. Fortunately, this week represents the team's bye week, so there is time to potentially get back on track.

"I mean, [we're] obviously searching for a little bit of answers, right now. "I think this week will give us an opportunity to kind of go back -I thought we did that over the mini-bye- but we have to find something to get us going."

Youth isn't an excuse to lose games. Yes, the Packers have the youngest team in the league, but six of the next nine teams to follow the Packers in terms of age are all .500 or better and the Bengals are bound to start turning it around, soon. 

This is the year where the Packers coaching staff has to be able to carry its weight and guide this young team in the right direction. But so far, it's been more of dipping off the path and getting lost in the woods for whatever reason.

And if that continues to happen, then the Packers aren't finding their way out of this anytime soon.