I’m going to put a quick post together explaining what I saw from the Green Bay Packers’ offense on Sunday, after watching the film of the game. In short, there was some good and some bad. Obviously, you want to put up more than 17 points in regulation, but I want to explain some of the positives and negatives that I saw and some differences between Week 1 and Week 2.
General Notes
The Packers’ passing game changed a good amount, as they relied on moving the pocket (with sprintouts or play-action bootlegs) against
the Vikings. Versus the Jets, it was a lot of quick game passing, which put a lot less stress on the offensive line, as quarterback Jordan Love got the ball out quicker.
That’s good and bad. Good, because it was a short-term solution for their line issue. Bad, because now the running game and passing game are sort of divorced, rather than building upon each other. The Packers still run outside zone in the ground game, but did you see the team pull it and pass off the same look much on Sunday? No? Edge defenders, who are usually unblocked on the backside of outside and are supposed to be held by the threat of a bootleg, probably will notice that. Linebackers, who are the players put in the most pass-run conflict when facing zone/boot teams, will also probably respect the pass threat less.
There were also injuries. Receiver Jayden Reed (neck) and offensive linemen Zach Bako-Bewele (knee), Aaron Banks (knee/toe) and Donovan Jennings (hand) all left action and did not return, leaving the Packers with just five active offensive linemen for the end of the game. Despite the injuries, I think you can make the argument that Jager Burton, who was the third left guard option, and Anthony Belton, who subbed in at right tackle for Bako-Bewele, played better than the starters.
Passing Game
Despite the horror show in Week 1, I actually think the pass protection unit did fine in Week 2. To be fair to the Week 1 players:
- They didn’t go against Brian Flores in Week 2.
- The Packers made the OL’s jobs a lot easier in Week 2 by leaning into the quick passing game instead of using longer developing plays.
The line wasn’t perfect, but I really only thought they “killed a play” three times. One was a weird pressure that they were caught off-guard for (but a play they should have made), one was a bad call on which way to slide (you can see the screenshot of that above) and the other was left tackle Jordan Morgan letting his man cross his face on the Hail Mary.
Belton still has some issues with an anchor, which might be surprising considering his size, but that doesn’t make a play dead in the water by any means, and there were a lot of plays that died within the first step of the down against Minnesota. In general, we’ll consider it improved, especially their ability to pass off stunts correctly.
Honestly, if you want to know why I think the passing game sputtered a bit this week, it’s drops and Jordan Love. To be fair to Love, it looked like a lot of the issues stem from him playing spooked. For example, there was one play where he recognized a stunt from the interior line and immediately started bailing…but Burton simply went through his rules and picked up the stunt correctly on his blind side.
After the Vikings game, I’m not going to blame Jordan for being a little panicky, but he was certainly panicky on Sunday.
The best example of this is the sack-fumble, where Love, on first down, had a good pocket, bailed out of it and just didn’t throw to the wide-open drag. He didn’t think the pocket was gonna hold up (it did, but again, we all saw the Vikings game), and tried to make a play he didn’t need to, resulting in him losing feeling in his throwing hand. Hopefully, he gains trust in his line again soon, because he was playing really good football for the Packers (including in the 2025 season) before it all went to hell late against the Vikings.
Love also missed some throws that he tends to make. A lot of shorter routes, like swings, curls and drags, were missed short, resulting in incompletions. There was weather, and he was dealing with a numb hand, but some of these passes were made before that sack-fumble, which is when Love said he got injured. For what it’s worth, Love wasn’t on the Packers’ injury report on Monday.
When Love did make some plays, his receivers didn’t really help him out. I counted at least four times when either Matthew Golden or Christian Watson had drops, potentially five (the final one was a bang-bang play for Watson on a corner route). There was the play on the Bako-Bewele injury where Golden had a drop, and then Watson dropped passes on the play that was flagged for an illegal formation, a third-and-seven in the red zone and then the play where he took a shot in the mid-section over the middle late in the fourth quarter.
You can blame weather, Love’s hand or whatever on the passing game, but to me, I think the skill players just needed to make more plays — and I think one reason Love ran why he didn’t need to was that he didn’t trust his line, not because they were actually losing blocks quickly or blowing assignments.
Running Game
Here is where we can blame all sorts of stuff on the offensive line. Icut up all the carries, by individual running backs, in Week 2 for a post we made earlier.
The ground game is still very much an issue from a line execution issue, unlike the passing game.
Guys aren’t getting tight on double teams, they’re climbing to wrong defenders, they’re still late off the ball and they’re not trusting their rules/footwork.
Green Bay’s backs are making some bad decisions right now, like MarShawn Lloyd passing over an open point of attack on the first carry of the video below, but much of the running game’s woes are because blockers (this includes tight ends and receivers) aren’t doing their job.
Guys like Watson and tight end Tucker Kraft, who are usually really good as blockers for their positions, were making mental mistakes in this game. Watson’s father even took to Twitter to criticize him.
There was some good in the ground game. I thought the tackles all did their jobs, as did center Sean Rhyan, but the guards were incredibly inconsistent outside of Burton. Banks, Jennings and Jacob Monk all struggled when the Packers ran the ball, though Monk did have some good plays where he was able to build up some steam as a puller to actually get some knockback. The problem is that Banks and Jennings got stuck up in the hole by off-ball linebackers when they pulled, so the line is only successful running some concepts to one side of the field.
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Overall, I thought the offensive line’s execution was a lot better in pass protection this week, but they also faced a lesser challenge, in part because of the defense they played and in part because of the plays called by head coach Matt LaFleur. In the running game, the team is still finding itself, but I wouldn’t be shocked if Burton and Belton were improvements over Banks and Bako-Bewele (who was clearly playing through injury in the first two weeks, to the extent that it was significantly limiting him. Burton only solves one hole at guard, though, and the Packers might have two holes to fill. How they will fix that issue will define their season.
It didn’t help that Love, Watson, Golden and Kraft had relatively poor games by their standards, considering the opportunities that they ended up blowing. There’s plenty of blame to go around for the 20-point overtime performance. Hopefully that was the worst we saw of them moving forward.
