The Green Bay Packers should be 4-0 right now. The reasons they’re not are entirely down to them shooting themselves in the foot. Now, at 2-1-1, they’re already 1.5 games behind the Philadelphia Eagles for the NFC’s top seed, and a half-game behind the Detroit Lions for the division, a team they thoroughly browbeat in Week 1. The team has used up most of its dumbassery allowance within the first month of the season, and can’t afford to continue to blow its leg off with dumb personnel decisions, mistakes,
and bizarre field goal blocking schemes. If the Packers want to be a legitimate Super Bowl contender, that will not only have to come from playoff performances in January and February, but from taking care of business in October. In the last ten Super Bowls, only one Wild Card team (2021 Tampa Bay) reached the Super Bowl, and only three teams have been seeded lower than third.
Fret not, though. As Green Bay is an extremely talented team, and an extremely good team when they’re not actively engaging in poor trigger discipline. Aside from a game where an absolutely battered offensive line played perhaps the best defensive front in football, the offense has largely been able to move the ball at will. The defense was absolutely punishing teams until Devonte Wyatt went out with an injury in the Cowboys game, and Dak Prescott played one of the best games of his career. The team isn’t perfect, but the tools are all there to be very good. But the team is not so good as to overcome clear problems from a coaching perspective or roster management perspective once we get to win-or-go-home games.
The obvious elephant in the room is special teams. Good lord. Field goal block has cost them two wins by itself so far this season, two wins they desperately need in a very competitive NFC. Who was on the field when the first extra point was almost blocked against Dallas, and then the subsequent one was? Brant Banks, who was like OL13, and Luke Musgrave, who is one of the worst blocking tight ends in football. Afterwards? Elgton Jenkins replaced Brant Banks, and Karl Brooks replaced Luke Musgrave. After getting kicked in the teeth, the team responds by playing the good players. These plays matter. They involve scoring points. There are no opportunities to get veteran players 20 seconds of extra rest.
The same thing occurs when it gets to clutch time on punt return. The team takes rookie wide receiver Matthew Golden off and has replaced him with either Keisean Nixon or Romeo Doubs. And I don’t blame the coaching staff for not trusting Golden. This might be one of the dumbest things I’ve seen a punt returner do in the NFL.
And aside from doing slow-mo spin moves with a man running at you at the speed of a residential zone car, Golden actually just stinks at being a punt returner in the most basic sense. Aside from having very little feel for setting up blocks, angles, and changes of pace, he just doesn’t catch the damn ball. Despite not having a turnover on punt return yet, miraculously, the Packers are still 32nd in punt return DVOA, and by a sizable margin. The difference between Green Bay and the 31st-ranked unit is nearly the same as the 31st ranked and the 28th-ranked unit.
One of these times, it’s going to bounce and hit one of the vices, and it’s going to be a turnover. All Green Bay has to do is put someone back there who is actually a punt returner, versus lying to themselves about how Matthew Golden getting punt return reps is going to somehow make him a better wide receiver. I’m sure getting tapioca-brained via slow-mo spin move will help Golden learn how to settle down between zones.
Golden is not the only culprit of the rookie-wide-receiver-getting-development-reps-at-returner bit the Packers seem so committed to doing.
In just a handful of returns, there are multiple mistakes already in here. The worst of all is letting Aubrey drop those kicks down at the one- or two-yard line and then take the touchback from there, only moving the ball out to the 20. And doing that multiple times. He also has a return when he caught the ball in the endzone and brought it out, which is something a returner should never do under the new ruleset, because the touchback in that instance goes all the way out to the 35. If the ball is in the landing zone, just catch it. If it’s in the endzone, just kneel. Williams at least has legitimate ball-carrying experience, even if he hasn’t returned kicks since his freshman year of college, but if he can’t execute relatively basic returner protocols, then Green Bay once again needs to go the Keisean Nixon well on kick returns.
With the special teams stuff largely out of the way, in this continued list of grievances, it actually involves someone who is at least partially at fault for the blocked extra point, Luke Musgrave. I’m going to be quite blunt here. I don’t know why Luke Musgrave is active on gamedays. I mean, I know why, but aside from being a former second-round pick, I don’t see what he does here. Tucker Kraft has long since supplanted him as TE1 on the roster (and was always the better player from the very first training camp practice in 2023), and so Musgrave has been knocked out of the starting role, but Musgrave doesn’t do anything you’d typically want from backup tight-ends. The team has mostly avoided using him on special teams, which is understandable. Musgrave is a horrendous blocker (PFF run blocking grade under 50), something that isn’t surprising if you watched him at all in college. He’s about as graceful as a baby giraffe. You don’t want him trying to react to opponents in open space, and he can’t block in tight spaces, so he can’t help you on special teams. He’s too tall and stumbly to be an F tight-end in the way Green Bay generally uses them, which is mostly as a wing running split-actions or holding the edge on run downs.
He’s basically a 6’6”, 250 lb wide receiver. His best position in the NFL was always going to be as a spread F tight-end, a role the Packers just hardly ever use, and even when they do use it, guess who is even better at it? Tucker Kraft. When Green Bay wants to get extra tight ends on the field, they’ve been more successful utilizing John Fitzpatrick as Kraft’s partner, because Fitzpatrick can actually block, and doesn’t nearly fall down when he tries to turn. When Green Bay gets into 21 personnel, they’re not looking to go empty; they want to condense things and either run behind it, or set up play-action, and teams do not respect Musgrave as a blocker to put them into conflict. Even as a pass catcher, Musgrave is too clumsy to be a real threat. The list of receiving-only tight-ends who are bad YAC players and are good is pushing zero. Green Bay needs to cut the cord here and find a trade partner to get anything back for him, ideally looking for a team that actually likes to split out their tight-ends more. He just doesn’t fit here, and Green Bay does not have the luxury of wasting roster spots on players that don’t fit either on offense or special teams.
On the topic of players who have struggled, Nazir Stackhouse. When Devonte Wyatt went down against Dallas, it forced Stackhouse into regular rotation, a role he’s just not ready for, and probably won’t ever be ready for. Our own Justis Mosqueda outlined the carnage well here, and woof. PFF rightly gave Stackhouse an almost unprecedentedly bad 30.1 grade. I’m not going to kill Stackhouse for struggling as a pass rusher. He’s a 330-pound nose tackle. That’s not what he’s here to do, and frankly, Green Bay has plenty of other options for that. His whole purpose is to be a run stuffer.
Stackhouse was getting moved pretty easily, and when he wasn’t getting moved, he was unable to move to cover his gap because he’s too slow. While the Cowboys did have left guard Tyler Smith, the center and right guard were both backups as Cooper Beebe and Tyler Cooper both missed the game. This honestly shouldn’t be surprising. Stackhouse was an undrafted free agent. Those players usually aren’t any good. Green Bay tried to get cute with a developmental/redshirt year nose tackle spot on the roster, and one they could maybe use for five-to-eight snaps a game in short yardage (which because of his porous pad-level he may not even be useful in anyways), but they’re going to need much more than that if Wyatt is out for any real period of time. Which is something the Packers should be planning for because, despite being quite good when he’s on the field, Devonte Wyatt has been unable to stay healthy for an entire season. Green Bay is going to need competent defensive tackle depth, and that almost certainly won’t come from Nazir Stackhouse.
The final bugaboo that has beaten up the Packers has been head coach Matt LaFleur’s game management. The “all gas, no brake” line has been hilarious for years now, as once the Packers get a two-score lead, they’d prefer to just end the game right there, turn the lights off, and go home, but that’s honestly the least of my annoyances. I don’t feel bothered at all about LaFleur playing for the field goal to end the Browns game. Their offensive line was getting crushed all game, and asking a professional field goal unit to hit that shouldn’t be asking for too much. Against the Cowboys, though, LaFleur was all over the place.
The first crime was punting on 4th and 2 in the first half.
While two points of win probability don’t sound like a lot, it’s enough to generate a “STRONG” recommendation from the model. Thankfully, the Packers got a quick stop and the ball back, but this continues a larger trend noted by our own Jon Meerdink. Particularly since Connor Lewis moved from a game management/analyst position to assistant quarterback coach, the Packers’ game management has meaningfully worsened. Whoever is in LaFleur’s ear isn’t getting him the right information.
On the flip side of this conservatism, LaFleur got randomly hyper-aggressive at the end of the first half, which ultimately cost Green Bay seven points. The Packers got the ball at the 20-yard line (thanks to Savion Williams) with only 41 seconds left and a single timeout. After going incomplete on the first two plays of the drive, Green Bay picked up a first down to Kraft and had to burn their last timeout. There were 21 seconds left on the clock, and Green Bay was at its own 32-yard line. With the new kicking balls, McManus can probably stretch to 57 or 58 yards to try a field goal, but even with that, you’re talking about needing to get to the opposite forty. That requires picking up 28 yards with no timeouts in 20 seconds, and Dallas knowing you need to stop the clock. Except Darian Kinnard then false-started. Pushing the yardage requirement up to 33 yards in 20 seconds and stopping the clock via spike. At this point in time, LaFleur should have just canned the half. Have Love kneel it down and regroup at halftime. Instead, a long-developing play was called (anything to get into field goal range required it), Rasheed Walker was absolutely whooped on the play, and Love gets sacked from his blindside as he was just starting his throwing motion. One play later, Dallas has the lead going into the half.
Then the finale of this disaster class was overtime. Green Bay got the ball back with 4:40 left. Overtime has fourth-quarter timing rules, so there was also a two-minute warning. But rather than show urgency with an offense that has steamrolled over perhaps the worst defense in football, LaFleur coached scared of Brandon Aubrey. The lack of pace in the final four minutes was, in LaFleur’s own words, like watching a slow-motion car wreck. Instead of trusting and empowering his elite offense to be able to go down and win the game, win a game they need to bank in the seeding race in the NFC, he effectively tried to have them score with as little time left as possible.
I find myself so frustrated because it really does not have to be this way. This is low-hanging fruit to fix. The Packers probably can’t do much to fix the offensive line until Aaron Banks and Zach Tom are back. They can’t really make their cornerback room any deeper. But they don’t have to keep being unserious in these aspects. This should be a Super Bowl contender. It has an elite pass rush and an elite offense. They just need to stop finishing 32nd in special teams, cut the fat off the roster, and the head coach needs to find his 2019-2021 game management again.
