Making sense of the Packers as the playoffs begin

The Packers hobble into the playoffs, but that doesn't mean a run is completely off the table.

Good morning!

The Green Bay Packers lost to the Chicago Bears for the first time in over seven years. While a cause for celebration in the Windy City, the game represents merely a footnote in Wisconsin given the larger concerns facing the Packers as the playoffs begin.

Today's edition of The Leap examines Green Bay's handling of its key players in Week 18 and whether the team has a realistic chance to upset the Philadelphia Eagles next Sunday.

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The Packers had valid reasons for playing their starters

Jason B. Hirschhorn: When a team experiences as many injuries to significant players as the Packers did on Sunday, the decisions that led to that outcome will come under scrutiny. Officially, Green Bay had already locked up a playoff berth and could only alter the seeding with a Washington Commanders loss that didn't materialize.

In some cases, the criticism has merit. Health can determine how well a team performs as much as any other factor, and a Super Bowl contender will face premier competition at some point no matter the seeding. Staying healthy, even on the margins, can matter greatly.

Still, that doesn't necessarily mean the Packers handled Sunday's matchup with the Bears the wrong way.

Firstly, Green Bay had different plans for each prominent player. Josh Jacobs played just 20 snaps -- easily his lowest total of the season -- before the coaching staff let him spend the rest of the day in a parka. Jacobs touched the ball just seven times, scoring a touchdown on his final play. Given the strain of his usual workload, that approach makes sense.

By comparison, the Packers seemed comfortable letting Jordan Love ride a little longer. The game plan didn't call for Love to take many deep drops, leaning instead on the quick game and ground attack. If not for Love's right elbow knocking into the helmet of his teammate, the quarterback might well have remained in the game until halftime or later.

"He was good to go back in," head coach Matt LaFleur said of Love after the game. "In fact, we thought that there was a chance that he was going to have to go back in the game because Malik got his thumb hit and he couldn't really feel it.

LaFleur later confirmed that the elbow injury won't prevent Love from playing in next week's playoff game.

On the other end of the spectrum, Christian Watson suffered a potentially serious knee injury early in the second quarter. The wideout crumbled to the ground as he attempted to break on his route. Watson immediately began clutching his right knee, eventually taking a cart ride to the locker room.

Though the exact severity of Watson's injury remains uncertain, the Packers seem to fear the worst.

"I'm not super confident about that right now," LaFleur said when asked about Watson.

Still, if the post-facto argument against the Packers playing their starters boils down to a dinged elbow with which Love would have played if the game had higher stakes and a non-contact injury that could have just as conceivably happened during a normal practice, how much weight does that argument truly hold?

The Packers entered the week with areas to improve. The passing game has put up great numbers this season in the aggregate, but it also hasn't worked as consistently as it did at this time last year. Given the opponents that Green Bay will have to go through to reach the Super Bowl, that part of the offense could stand to get more live reps. If anything, LaFleur and his staff could have called more play-action shots for the unit to fine-tune that element.

Meanwhile on the other side of the ball, the secondary needed to feel its way through its post-Jaire Alexander landscape. That process seems to have borne some fruit as Carrington Valentine created yet another turnover and generally held up well in coverage. Those developments might not have become evident if not for the starters playing around him on defense, especially along the defensive front.

And while some teams did rest their starters this past weekend, most have considerably older and more experienced personnel. The Packers began the season with the youngest roster in the league and still got younger after sending away Preston Smith before the trade deadline. But the average age doesn't tell the whole story as virtually all the key components on offense have three or fewer years as starters, including Love. He can benefit from more snaps in a way that, say, Patrick Mahomes and Matthew Stafford wouldn't.

Also, keep in mind that the same people arguing that it never made sense to play the starters at all would have cried foul if the team rested its starters and then started slow in the playoffs. And, of course, Green Bay still had a chance to improve its seeding when the day began.

Ultimately, the Packers faced some risk no matter which path they took, and they'll have to accept the consequences of their choices. However, one cannot fairly assess the decision based only on what happened and ignore the downside of the alternative. Green Bay weighed the pros and cons of their options and made a selection that, under the circumstances, seemed reasonable. It just didn't work out as the team hoped.

What needs to happen between now and next Sunday for the Packers to beat the Eagles?

JBH: On paper, Green Bay represents a less-than-ideal draw for Philadelphia. Unlike most No. 2 versus No. 7 playoff matchups, the Eagles host an opponent more commensurate in quality with a division winner. The Packers finished the regular season with the third best point differential in the NFC and entered Week 18 ranked second in the conference by DVOA (notably ahead of Philly).

At the same time, not everything looks rosy in Green Bay at the moment. With or without Watson, the Packers need to find a better way to move the sticks in the passing game. The expected return of Romeo Doubs should help, but the offense will need more than him alone. For all the offseason praise the receiving corps garnered, none of the components has emerged as an every-down bucket-getter, the kind that literally every other NFC playoff team has.

On defense, the pass rush remains unpredictable. In some games such as Week 16's blowout of the New Orleans Saints, the Packers generated pressure on over 60% of dropbacks, according to Pro Football Focus. And yet in a matchup with Caleb Williams, who entered Week 18 with an outside chance of breaking David Carr's record for most sacks taken by a rookie, Green Bay only touched him twice and one of those plays involved a high snap.

The Packers can't meaningfully bolster their receiving corps right now nor can they add a stud pass rusher. However, they can minimize those issues in other ways, and it doesn't require some massive transformation. Green Bay can simply play up to its potential in takeaway generation while reducing the number of giveaways on offense, both achievable goals for this group of players.

In the NFC, no team finished the 2024 regular season with a better turnover differential than the Packers. The majority of that production came courtesy of star safety Xavier McKinney who grabbed another interception on Sunday, but he hasn't worked alone. Keisean Nixon, Carrington Valentine, and Evan Williams have each accounted for multiple takeaways despite each either starting the season as a backup and/or spending time shifting between positions. When the group plays together, Green Bay has a fantastic chance of taking away the football.

However, the Packers have cut into their turnover advantage lately due to mistakes on offense. They have fumbled away three possessions over the last two weeks, and two of those occurred in enemy territory. Those kinds of mistakes can kill teams, and indeed Green Bay lost each of those contests by two points.

At the same time, most of those turnovers don't seem like trends. Jayden Reed had never fumbled before Sunday and has generally taken good care of the football once he has it in his possession. Malik Willis didn't feel the free runner who forced the ball out of his hands, but he also won't play unless Love's injury proves far more serious than the team described it. Only Jacobs has fumbled somewhat regularly this season, but he also went 11 games without a turnover earlier this season.

Love also factors into this discussion. Over his first eight starts this season, he threw 11 picks and fumbled four times. He has done neither once in the six games since. Considering that Love played through lower-body injuries during the first half of the year and his mobility limitations at the time contributed to many of his turnovers, those numbers look artificially inflated. He has generally done a solid job protecting the football, and that bodes well for Green Bay moving forward.

When it comes to turnovers, the Packers don't need the defense to hit its ceiling nor do they need the offense to completely avoid mistakes. Rather, they need to simply do a notch better than they have in big games. Take out, say, Watson's fumble against the Detroit Lions last month, and Green Bay probably wins. Perhaps the same holds true for Jacobs' fumble against the Minnesota Vikings three weeks later. Even with those changes, the Packers wouldn't have delivered perfect performances, but the outcome still likely flips.

In that way, Green Bay has valid reason to believe it can upset the Eagles next Sunday as well as any opponent in the playoffs. Yes, the margins for error remain small, but that holds true for every team, and the Packers have proven better than almost everybody at protecting the football and taking it away from others.