Paul Bretl | 1/1/2025
GREEN BAY, Wis. — With only one game left in the regular season, the focus for the Packers is on the Chicago Bears and cleaning up everything that went wrong against the Minnesota Vikings.
“There was a lot to clean up,” said Matt LaFleur on Monday. “It was just, honestly, I didn’t feel like it was to our standard, and you got to give them credit. I mean, that’s a good football team, but I thought there was a lot of things within our own control in terms of playing with fundamentals and discipline that we did not do a very good job of. And that was disappointing. It just was sloppy football.”
Against another one of the NFC’s top opponents, it was another slow start for the Packers’ offense. The passing game, in particular, was disjointed from the get-go, with the Vikings’ man coverage-heavy looks catching Green Bay off guard. In addition to that, there were also penalties, and the lack of a steady pass rush on defense–along with other factors–resulted in a big day through the air for Vikings’ quarterback Sam Darnold.
It goes without saying, but yes, teams want to win every game. However, losing by two points on the road to a 14-win Viking team isn’t the part of all this that stings the most. Rather, it’s the fact that the same lingering issues–much of which was highlighted above–continue to rear their ugly heads for this Packers’ team when facing the NFC’s best.
“I want to say yeah but right now the story is we haven’t beaten those teams,” said Xavier McKinney when asked if the Packers were at the level of the NFC’s best. “So I can’t sit up here and say we’re on the same level if we ain’t beat them. In order to be on the same level, you gotta beat these teams. We gotta be more on our details. We gotta play cleaner. We gotta start faster. That’s just what it is.”
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As GM Brian Gutekunst described during the Packers’ bye week, peaking when the playoffs arrive and being at your best, is the goal for every team. On paper, the 2023 Packers were 9-8 and the seventh seed in the NFC, but on the football field, especially on offense, they were operating as one of the better units in the NFL and that late season momentum propelled them to some postseason success.
But where we sit right now this season, can we say that the Packers are peaking at playing their best? I’m not sure that we can.
Now, don’t get me wrong, at 11-5 on the season, a lot has gone well for the Packers this season and despite being 0-5 against Minnesota, Detroit, and Philadelphia, they’ve shown that they can hang and can give themselves the opportunity to beat any of those teams. I mean, on both sides of the ball Green Bay ranks top-10 in scoring this season.
However, what still eludes the 2024 version of the Packers is consistency, particularly on offense, where that unit is still looking to put together a four-quarter performance.
In their recent performances against the Vikings and Lions, the Packers would score 25 and 31 points, respectively. But in both games, it wasn’t until the second half that the offense started to find any steady momentum.
Against Seattle, where the offense again hit the 30-point mark, there was a four-possession stretch in the second half where Green Bay went punt, fumble, punt, and turnover on downs over the span of just 15 plays. It’s those types of stretches against teams like Detroit, Minnesota, or Philadelphia that can send a team home in the playoffs.
Even in a 34-0 win over New Orleans, Jordan Love and the passing game was just off, averaging a modest 6.5 yards per attempt, which over the course of the season, would rank 25th in the NFL. While it was a blowout victory against an inferior opponents–which is what good teams are supposed to do–and win clinched a playoff spot for the Packers, the overwhelming feeling afterward was that there is more out there for this offense.
“It’s just being consistent,” said Jordan Love after the Saints game. “I think there’s, I don’t think we’re far off, I think we’re right there. I think it might just be a missed throw here, not being able to hold up in protection long enough, I just think it’s little things that when we start being more consistent and dialing in on these things that the sky’s the limit for the offense. We’re definitely not far off. It’s just little things that we can clean up.”
The pieces of the puzzle are very much there for the Packers. We’ve seen them lean heavily on the run game and we’ve seen the passing game be lights out. On defense, we’ve seen Green Bay force turnovers, for much of the season, the run defense has been quite good, and the pass rush was trending upward prior to their most recent performance in Minnesota.
Yet what we’ve seen very little of against the NFC’s top teams, is all of those elements coming together, which is why the Packers haven’t been able to defeat Minnesota, Detroit or Philadelphia. As the NFC’s sixth or seventh seed in the playoffs, the Packers are going to have to likely go through two of those teams if not all three to get to the Super Bowl and do so on the road.
When it comes to putting together that complete performance time is running out. We are approaching the now or never point of the season as Green Bay navigates many of the same issues that have plagued them all season.
“That’s that’s going to be our reality,” said Love of going on the road in the playoffs. “And, you know, we’re going to have to find ways, when the playoffs start to go into those road atmospheres and win those tough games, but it’s only going to get tougher for us. So we know that, you know, we got to find ways to keep improving, keep getting better. Watch the tape, find ways to improve on the slow start and just the miscues we had today and take advantage.
“But we know we’ve got to come out and play our best ball, and everybody’s got to be locked in and play the best game they’ve played all season. So there’s no secret, you know, we’re going to have to find ways to win these games on the road. It’s going to be our reality.”
With that said, while all that may be true, just because the Packers haven’t yet come away with any wins against those top-tier opponents doesn’t mean that their belief in their ability to do so has wavered. And getting to that point begins with getting back on track this week as they prepare for the Chicago Bears and try to establish some positive momentum heading into the playoffs.
“I think absolutely,” LaFleur said when asked if there is belief that they can beat the top teams. “I think there absolutely is a belief that we can win one of these games. We’ve got to go do it, bottom line. And we’ve got to earn the right to play these guys (Minnesota) again. And it ain’t going to be easy. It’s going to be a tough road. But I think it’s a challenge that we’ll gladly accept.”