Packers get pummeled in primetime

Sunday night’s game was anything but a showdown for Green Bay as they wound up getting absolutely dismantled by San Francisco in primetime by a score of 37-8. The first drive for Green Bay was when you knew things may not go right. QB Aaron Rodgers ended up fumbling the ball at his own 15-yard line, leading to a recovery by star DE Nick Bosa and an eventual 7-0 lead two minutes into the game. After that, Green Bay couldn’t get anything going on offense. They were 1-15 on third down and Aaron Rodgers was pressured all game. Right tackle Brian Bulaga also went down in the game with a knee injury and would not return. Luckily for him, the injury isn’t season-ending but he should only miss a few games, per NFL Insider Ian Rapoport. The defense of San Francisco was smothering all night both on Green Bay’s wide receivers as well as with pressuring/sacking Aaron Rodgers (he was sacked a total of 5 times in the game).

The thing that amazes me most about last night’s debacle was that Green Bay’s offense could not do anything against San Francisco’s defense. Yes, late in the third quarter, Green Bay got a touchdown and two-point conversion to cut the score to 23-8, but right after that came a 61-yard touchdown to TE George Kittle of San Francisco, which put them up 30-8 late in the third quarter. Kittle had quite the night, catching 6 passes for 129 yards and 1 touchdown. San Francisco would score again late in the fourth via an RB Raheim Mostert rush, making it 37-8. That would end up being the final nail in the coffin as Green Bay fell to 8-3 and third place in the NFC.

So, with this loss begs the question: What went wrong for Green Bay? They had two weeks to prepare but came out absolutely flat against a great team. I think the biggest factor was San Francisco’s smothering defense. Even when Green Bay found some semblance of pass protection, that still wasn’t enough as San Francisco’s secondary had Green Bay’s wide receivers locked down all night — which I believe was one of the many reasons why Green Bay looked so flat on offense during the game. Aaron Rodgers was also just bad as well. Along with not having enough time in the pocket due to San Francisco’s immense pressure on Green Bay’s offensive line, Rodgers also looked very shaky within the pocket and for obvious reasons. He ended up with 104 yards on 20/33 passing and 1 touchdown; his lowest offensive output since 2015 vs the Denver Broncos (77 yards).

Rodgers spoke about his performance as well as the team as a whole after the game: “I feel good about the locker room, I feel good about the leadership. We didn’t play very physical tonight as a whole and we obviously didn’t execute. I felt good about the energy pre-game and the approach. I think we had a good week of practice, which is why it’s so surprising [with] the [on-field] performance. You gotta give them credit, they played really well but I still like our chances. I think we have the makeup to bounce back from these kinds of things and put ourselves in a position to potentially come back here and play again.” 

Head coach Matt LaFleur also spoke about the loss to Packers’ radio play-by-play man Larry McCarron: “They jumped out on us. I thought our defense actually was doing a pretty good job at keeping us in the game. We just could never get going. We finally scored in the third quarter but they answered that score right away with a long bomb to [George] Kittle. On the third-down inefficiency: “Yeah, that’s something that we’re going to have to look at and get corrected because we haven’t been very good on third down all season long. I think a lot of that starts [because] we’re in too many third and long yardage situations so we gotta be more efficient on first and second down. On leaning on the leaders after a loss: “Absolutely. The best teams I’ve been a part of have been player-led. I’m confident that we have the guys in this locker room to lead and to make sure that we’re all looking at ourselves critically because we’re all accountable to one another and if we want to be the team we want to be and a team that I think that we can be, then we’re going to have to clean up some things.” Hopefully, the leadership both Rodgers and LaFleur spoke of steps up in the final weeks — including themselves. This was another bump in the road for them, they know they have to execute better as a team in order to have success.

So, where does Green Bay go from here? 8-3 is not a bad record by any means and right now, they still are a top-5 team ranking wise in the NFC (third-seed), so all is not lost for them. Of Green Bay’s final five opponents, four have records below .500 (at NYG, vs WASH, vs CHI, and at DET), so a 12-4/13-3 record and top-three seed in the conference is still definitely within reach. The x-factor game will be week 16 at Minnesota. Green Bay still isn’t a bad team — even after what they showed on Sunday night, but they aren’t an elite team either — at least not yet. These final five games will show whether or not they indeed are still a contender. Remember, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish — and it’s time to finish strong.

@DieHardPackrFan #DHPF #ParkerMoes @ParkerMoes