The Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Green Bay Packers twice during the 2024 season: once in Brazil and once at Lincoln Financial Field. Now we’ll see if the Birds can beat the Packers at Lambeau Field in 2025.
In order to preview this Week 10 Monday Night Football matchup, I reached out to our enemies over at Acme Packing Company. The judicious Justis Mosqueda kindly took the time took the time to answer my questions about this upcoming battle. Let’s take a look at the answers.
[For my answers to questions about the Eagles, stay tuned to APC.]
1 – For some reason, I get the sense you’re not feeling so great about the Packers at the moment. What about them concerns you?
This team has scored 29 total points in its two losses this year. If Matt LaFleur sees two-high defenses, he defaults to a failing running game or the quick passing game. The quick passing game survived against the Pittsburgh Steelers because Tucker Kraft had the most YAC yards of any tight end since a 2018 George Kittle game, but he went down with a torn ACL against the Panthers. On the season, Kraft has more YAC yards than all of the Packers’ other WRs and TEs combined. LaFleur is scared of split safety defenses, and his easy button is not coming back for the rest of the year.
2 – What about the Packers do you feel good about right now?
Jordan Love is playing at an extremely high level. He basically played a perfect game outside of 1.5 throws against the Panthers. With that being said, when he’s asked to check the ball down for 18 completions within five yards of the line of scrimmage to guys who aren’t getting any yards after the catch, the team was still only able to put up 13 points on Carolina. I’m not sure there’s a stat where Jordan Love isn’t like top six in the NFL right now. I know he’s #1 in EPA/dropback. He’s not peak Aaron Rodgers by anyone’s account, but he’s the only reason the offense hasn’t totally collapsed this year.
3 – Safe to say you’d do the Micah Parsons trade over again, right? To what extent has he made an impact on Green Bay’s defense?
Absolutely. He’s closed out three games for the Packers in the fourth quarter this season. We might be like 3-4 or 2-5 if we didn’t make the trade. While Rashan Gary’s sack numbers are good, he’s really struggled at getting quick pressure against quarterbacks this year and is mostly just doing clean-up work for those numbers. The addition of Parsons has completely changed how teams play against the Packers. Last year, Green Bay was this sort of disguise defense that blitzed linebackers and slot defenders a lot. This year, everyone is just running quick game against the Packers, because they don’t have time to throw the ball on later-developing plays.
4 – How big of a deal is losing Tucker Kraft? And how will the Packers operate without him?
It’s the worst thing to happen in the history of the world. I’m hoping that LaFleur will finally allow Love to throw in the deep and intermediate areas of the field more frequently, but LaFleur seems to believe that split-safety coverages that have been around since my father was born are unbeatable beyond five yards from the line of scrimmage.
5 – Who wins this game and why? With the Eagles currently listed as 2.5-point road underdogs, what’s your score prediction?
Eagles. I can’t believe they are underdogs. I saw some Vegas power rankings where the Packers are like 4th in the NFL and are in the top tier of the league. This is not a good football team right now. LaFleur doesn’t seem to know the team that he’s coaching. There’s 14 quarterbacks in the league who have more yards before contact than Josh Jacobs, who is basically earning every single yard himself this year. This offensive line cannot block in the run game, and LaFleur just can’t seem to accept that reality. Eagles 24, Packers 10.
