The Green Bay Packers’ offensive line performed extremely poorly on Sunday, as quarterback Jordan Love dropped back 46 times and completed only 21 passes (46 percent), getting hit on virtually every true dropback of the game. While the Packers posted 22 points through the first three quarters of the game, they averaged just 3.8 yards per play in the fourth quarter, which included two series where the team turned the ball over on downs and two more where the offense coughed up the ball to the Vikings
outright.
If you can believe it, Minnesota scored 29 consecutive points to end the game, and they only had one drive where they moved the ball more than 30 yards. It was an all-time collapse, assisted by the fact that Green Bay continued to give the Vikings the ball with short fields.
Defensively, Minnesota’s game plan was simple: Blitz the hell out of Jordan Love and hit him. Early on in the game, the Packers took advantage of this by throwing the ball to receiver Christian Watson, but as the game unfolded, more pressure started to get through to Love, who was now getting hit before he could release the ball, instead of while he was releasing the ball.
Pro Football Focus has the Vikings’ blitz rate listed as 93 percent for the game. Next Gen Stats has it at 78 percent, the most for any quarterback in any game since 2023. NGS also credited Minnesota with a 53 percent pressure rate.
Whatever the true number is, here are the facts: The Vikings showed that if you blitz the Packers, they don’t have the ability to protect their quarterback right now. Their guard situation was very bad on Sunday, which should have been expected when left guard Donovan Jennings and right guard Jacob Monk made their first starts together at the NFL level. Unfortunately, there’s a chance that might be the team’s best tandem this year, too. There’s no promise the unit will get any better under Aaron Banks, who struggled himself in 2025 and is currently inactive with knee tendinitis, or Anthony Belton, who was drafted to play under a different running scheme and is now sort of lost in the mix.
NGS had four of the five starters for Green Bay’s offensive line allowing pressure within 2.5 seconds of the play. Generally, when the Packers faced an all-out pressure look pre-snap, Green Bay chose to allow a free rusher from Love’s blindside, the player who was least likely to impact the ball coming out of Love’s hand upon the release.
There just has to be a better way to handle things moving forward. Clearly, what happened on Sunday wasn’t good enough. Defenses will try to copy the Vikings’ blueprint, and if the Packers return to the field with the same answers, Love won’t be healthy enough to suit up for 17 games this regular season.
