I’m sure that we’re going to talk about the offensive line a lot this week, so I just want to give this space for people to fire off their thoughts on another major subject: the first game that Jonathan Gannon called on the defensive side of the ball. For the most part, I thought the defense did fine on Sunday.
The defense gave up 3.1 yards per attempt in the run game and 4.9 yards per dropback. It’s amazing how the Minnesota Vikings were able to get 39 points with those numbers. They scored 29 points straight
with only one drive over 28 yards, because the offense not only was getting off the field quickly but also giving the defense short fields to defend.
What really hurt Green Bay at the end was that Carrington Valentine was playing snaps at cornerback, as he was run at directly for a touchdown and gave up another score to Justin Jefferson on a catch-and-run opportunity.
In general, the Packers pretty much played their base 3-4 defense and nickel defenses, as the Penny defense was sort of shelved. I thought Gannon put Lukas Van Ness and Edgerrin Cooper in really good positions to succeed, leading to some of their best games as pros. Keisean Nixon had a good game, too. Zaire Franklin didn’t get exposed in coverage, outside of the touchdown where he was the runner in Tampa 2 (a changeup play that Green Bay just got caught in).
If you want to check out the Packers’ snap counts in the game, you can find them here.
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