I just had the misfortune of watching the Green Bay Packers’ offense on All-22, the third (and final) time I’ve watched the Minnesota Vikings game so far. To make this short: The Packers’ offensive line looked like a second-rate high school team, passing stunts off to no one, turning guys loose when they had to and getting edged in pass protection left and right.
Jordan Love deserves a medal of honor for this game. He will not last
17 games if they continue to play like this. Every single offensive lineman disappointed, with the guards disappointing the most and Jordan Morgan disappointing the least.
For the most part, the tackles held up decently, aside from their matchups against Dallas Turner. Turner, who had not done great in his first two years in the NFL after being drafted in the first round, had the best game of his career on Sunday. Maybe this is a breakout year for him. Maybe the Packers’ offensive line is just bad.
Either way, everyone expected better out of Green Bay’s front, who, despite their shortcomings over the years, were arguably the best team in the league in terms of giving their players extra help, preventing one player from taking over a game and developing a pass protection plan. In this game, Love was hit 15 times, officially, and more than that unofficially.
Yes, Brian Flores blitzed like crazy, even for Flores’ standards. I would have, too, considering how the line played. Even when the Packers were max protecting and running bootlegs, it didn’t look like the team knew the rules they were supposed to be playing, resulting in players being turned loose.
According to NFL Pro, Love dropped back 46 times on Sunday, the second-most of any quarterback in Week 1 — only behind the Saints’ Tyler Shough. As a reminder, New Orleans played in an OVERTIME GAME yesterday.
NFL Pro has the Packers down for 176 routes run in the game, meaning that Green Bay had 54 extra blockers over Love’s 46 dropbacks in the game, 1.2 per play. At some point, it doesn’t matter if you have extra blockers if the offensive line is performing poorly and guys are getting loose anyway.
Does Flores drop guys who look like they’re blitzing and blitz guys who look like they’re dropping? Yes! You know who else does that? The New York Jets, the Packers’ next opponent, and the Detroit Lions, who they’ll play twice in divisional play this year.
They need to get this issue figured out.
What the Vikings did was a complete and total pantsing of the Packers’ pass protection unit on Sunday. If it doesn’t get better (maybe Aaron Banks’ return will help — hell, there are no bad ideas right now), it’s going to be a long season.
