The Green Bay Packers escaped Tampa Bay with a much-needed and hard-fought win over the still winless Buccaneers on Sunday, using a pair of Jordan Love touchdown passes and a couple of defensive stops late to beat the hosts by a final score of 17-14.
No one will be crowning the Packers as true contenders coming out of Sunday's win, but Matt LaFleur's team is 2-2 after four games, with a pair of road wins, and the Packers bounced back from a humbling home loss and escaped a worst-case scenario against a rookie quarterback.
Highlighting the good, the bad and the ugly coming out of the Packers' win in Week 4:
The Good
Offensive line settles, finally: It's difficult to parse whether inserting Laken Tomlinson and Travis Glover into the starting lineup created
real improvement for the offensive line, or the Packers simply faced a poor pass-rushing defensive front who wasn't able to take advantage of the offense's biggest weakness. Time will tell. But on Sunday, the offensive line was less weakness and more strength for the first time this season. Jordan Love wasn't sacked, the Buccaneers finished with only two quarterback hits, and the run game actually produced two explosive runs over 25 yards. Matt LaFleur and the Packers did a nice job of calling boot-action throws, designed screens and quick throws to help the pass protection unit. The run game was also effective with 13 personnel on the field.
The Bad
The offense's final two real drives: Twice, the Packers had the ball with a chance to put the game away late. Twice, the Packers turned the ball over -- first on Kaleb Johnson's careless fumble inside the 5-yard line with 9:06 to go and again on Jordan Love's late throw to Matthew Golden that was intercepted at the 7-yard line with 4:26 left. The Packers ended up finishing late, but no thanks to the offense. In no way should the game have come down to a defensive stop late. Part of finishing games is going and scoring with a lead. Throwing away such golden opportunities to score typically comes back to bite you against better opponents.
The Ugly
Edgerrin Cooper's injury: The obvious pick here. Cooper suffered an Achilles tendon injury in the third quarter and is expected to miss the rest of the season, pending test results in Green Bay on Monday. Losing Cooper for the season would be a devastating blow for a Packers team that has already lost Jayden Reed and Zach Bako-Bewele. Cooper is the defense's top playmaker outside of Micah Parsons and a crucial piece of Jonathan Gannon's scheme. It's not an understatement to say the Packers will have to re-do a bunch of what they do defensively without Cooper the rest of the way.
This article originally appeared on Packers Wire: Good, bad and ugly coming out of Packers' Week 4 win over Buccaneers
