The last time the New England Patriots faced off against the Green Bay Packers, Bill Belichick was the Patriots’ head coach, Brian Hoyer and Bailey Zappe saw extensive snaps at quarterback, and Jack Jones had a pick-six of Aaron Rodgers. The year was 2022, and a lot has happened since then.
Naturally, the two teams set to square off on Sunday afternoon are far from familiar with one another. To find out more about them, we spoke with Justis Mosqueda of Pats Pulpit’s sister site Acme Packing Company,
the SB Nation community for all things Packers.
1. Has any offense had consistent success going downfield on the Packers’ impressive secondary? Or will Drake Maye and the Patriots’ passing attack have to go with a dink-and-dunk approach for most of Sunday’s game?
Deep? No. Detroit probably did the most damage, because they were able to eat our blitzes and threw the ball over the middle of the field. Our cornerbacks have played well this season. No one has really taken over on the outside against us.
Replacing the blitz with the ball or eating the blitz and throwing intermediate is sort of the way to beat Green Bay in the air right now. I think they’re still near the top in the league in passer rating allowed, and that’s before you start to count in all the sacks.
2. How has Jordan Love grown as a passer this season? What’s the key to slowing him down?
He’s really had to do everything. The line was really shaky early on in the year (they still are on the ground) and the receivers lead the NFL in drops. The Packers have really lived off explosive plays, so I’d try to stop that. Carolina sat in two high all game last week and tried to force Green Bay to check it down or run the ball to move the chains.
3. What’s made Christian Watson and Matthew Golden such an electric duo? Should the Patriots have Christian Gonzalez shadow Watson, or go with more of a field/boundary or left/right-side approach?
They’re fast! Both of them are true deep threats, which is why they’re being featured a lot when Green Bay’s offense is in the state they’re in. The Packers haven’t really played a team that has played man coverage like you guys and travels defensive backs this year, so maybe they’ll try to get Christian Watson in the slot more in this game (they do this sometimes). I guess that would be the thing that would force the hand on the Gonzalez question immediately.
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4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Packers’ offensive line? How has Laken Tomlinson’s presence affected the group?
They’re solid in pass protection now, but the first three-ish weeks of the season were terrible. In the run game, they still can’t reset the line of scrimmage. The combo of no push and not having a dynamic back really kills them on the ground.
5. What’s made Jonathan Gannon’s pressure schemes so effective? Is there any chance Micah Parsons makes his debut?
He’s done a really good job of hiding blitzes and putting a lot of pressure on teams’ protection rules. It doesn’t happen every play, but it’s not surprising to see a team in seven-man protection and there’s still a free rusher, even though the Packers sent only five.
That cat and mouse game is really what he’s trying to do on defense. Teams have to have multiple protections for walked up looks, because if it’s predictable, he’s going to overload and hit the quarterback with a free runner.
Micah won’t play on Sunday. He only did individual drills this week. I doubt we see him before the Thanksgiving Eve game.
