Packers escape Chicago with a win, but can't find an answer for red zone woes

Green Bay didn't dominate, but got a 20-19 win. It should never have been that close, but they also got lucky to win. Weird right? Sounds like an NFC North rivalry game.

Good morning!

The Green Bay Packers escaped with a 20-19 win that was a Jordan Love red-zone interception away from looking like a blowout. Green Bay once again struggled in the scoring area and until that changes, they’ll remain a theoretically dominant offense rather than dominating in our shared sense of reality.

Today’s edition of The Leap focuses on those struggles, the controversial Matt LaFleur call to go for it in the fourth quarter instead of kicking a field goal, and whatever is going on with the Packers starting middle linebacker.

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To quote Vince Lombardi, “What the hell’s going on out there?” and “out there” is the red zone

Peter Bukowski: Against a top-5 passing defense, Jordan Love averaged over 15 yards per attempt. On the day, the Packers offense produced 8.5 yards per play on the road against a desperate team. Green Bay efforted six real possessions (plus a kneel-down before the half) and found the red zone on five of them.

Scoring 20 points has to be the lowest possible number they could imagine. But this has been a trend all season long. Coming into Sunday, the Packers were 29th in red zone efficiency. They did score three times in the red zone, but failed on a fourth-and-goal and Jordan Love threw a devastating interception on a flat overthrow.

More on LaFleur’s decision to eschew the field goal, but the turnover was particularly galling. Instead of going up 14-3 in a game the Packers had dominated to that point, Love airmailed Tucker Kraft who has a good chance to pick up the first down if the ball is on him, and the throw winds up in the hands of Bears cornerback Terrell Smith. I swear I didn’t make that name up.

Chicago counters by punching in their first touchdown in 84 years (approximately) and now it’s a 10-7 deficit with the Bears getting the ball out of halftime.

Love bears responsibility on this drive in more than one way too: earlier in the possession, on 2nd-and-1, LaFleur calls an RPO. Love decides to pull it, a decision Tom Brady loved for whatever that is worth, but held the ball too long and a Packers lineman wound up downfield. It’s not the blocker’s fault either; he doesn’t know what choice Love made. By contradistinction, Love has to know that too, which means if the pass off the RPO isn’t there, the ball has to be out.

On 2nd-and-6, they ran a doomed reverse off the single-wing spinner action that has produced quality plays all season, but Jayden Reed got caught in the backfield thanks to some shoddy blocking and it turned into 3rd-and-long.

LaFleur bears responsibility for the failed fourth-down conversion though. On first-and-goal, he calls in Bo Melton and Malik Heath to a heavy personnel grouping. This is about as obvious a run tell as it gets and they run nothing particularly creative.

Remember, this is right after Love makes a ridiculous hookup with Christian Watson on a 48-yard bomb where Love had Kraft zooming open but decided to take a shot. LaFleur has played post-splash opportunities with puzzling conservativism this season. Too many simple inside runs off turnovers or after big plays, nothing to keep the foot mashing down on the pedal.

On 2nd-and-11, it’s another run, which would be fine to grab four yards, but it puts the Packers in an obvious pass situation at the five yardline. They can’t shake anyone loose on third down and then Love makes an aggressive (that’s the charitable read) decision to run it, and is stopped short on fourth down.

Some question that call to go for it. I don’t.

Why not take the points?

PB: The answer to that question is almost always, “because it’s not the sound choice” but those who use phrases like “take the points” tend not to understand (or care) what the data says about it.

Here, Ben Baldwin’s model had the decision as a toss-up, which leads me to believe outrage over the decision either way is foolish. But it seemed obvious to me the decision was to go for it for myriad reasons.

The first is the kick-go blink test: do the points the kick earns your offense change how many scores down your team is? If the answer is no, it’s likely best to go for it. In this case, the Packers would kick a field goal that would turn a one-score game into a one-score game.

The other essential part is the reward: a 70% win probability if the offense converts the touchdown. If LaFleur kicks the field goal, his win probability doesn’t change and in fact remains under water at 43%. Why would I want to do things that don’t add to my chances of winning when they’re already bad?

Furthermore, the Packers average over six yards per play on the season. They averaged over eight yards per play in this game. Yes, they’re a bad red zone offense this season, but small sample size clouds that data. The offense played well all game, the quarterback gets paid like an elite player (he is one), and his ability to create is one of his core strengths.

Go for it.

Here’s the last part: scoring the touchdown, as the Packers eventually did, gives the Packers a chance to go up three points with the two-point conversion they subsquently did not get. That means the field goal Karl Brooks blocks would have been to tie the game rather than win it. Even more reason to go for the touchdown.

In the end, they got exactly what the “take the points,” folks wanted: kick the field goal, then all you need is a field goal. Net six points.

We can’t assume they’d have gotten a touchdown had they kicked the field goal. In fact history suggests they’d be less likely.

In 2020, Eric Eager wrote about this dilemma for Pro Football Focus. He now works in the Carolina Panthers front office after a stop with Sumer Sports analytics company. Teams needing a field goal tend to play more conservatively than teams needing a touchdown. This is intuitive human behavior.

Jeff Hafley’s group would need a stop to win anyway, so why not take a close chance to score a touchdown when you have it? Even at 30%, they weren’t going to have a 30% chance of scoring a touchdown from 70 yards away with under five minutes left either. They just happened to do it.

And I believe the Packers had a better than 30% chance of success. Six yards is my cutoff for a good offense because that’s an average play for them. When in doubt, pull a George Costanza, and if people tell you to “take the points,” do the opposite.

When will the Packers’ plan at linebacker make any sense?

PB: Not this week, that’s for sure. We’ve been writing about this puzzling issue all season at The Leap HQ, most recently in a story suggesting the Packers’ solution to defensive inefficiency rested on playing their best players.

A novel solution, indeed.

But aside from the Edgerrin Cooper of it all — he did not have his best day today either, including two spy reps where he let Caleb Williams turn the corner on him thanks to bad angles to the sideline — this is really about Quay Walker.

The madness has to end.

Isaiah McDuffie rotates, so does Eric Wilson and the aforementioned Cooper. In fact, Walker is one of the only players on the defense not in some form of rotation and that’s been true since he arrived at 1265 Lombardi Ave. According to PFF grades, he’s been arguably the worst starter in the NFL since he became the Day 1 starter in Green Bay.

He consistently plays with bad technique, the athleticism has never translated to impact plays, he rarely tackles with force, and has regressed from what was a somewhat promising stretch of play at one point last season.

On the Bears’ first touchdown drive in a month (seriously), Walker contacted Bears running back Roschon Johnson behind the line of scrimmage on 2-and-goal from the three, and Johnson nearly scored. On the next play, Walker once again meets Walker behind the line of scrimmage: touchdown.

The D’Andre Swift 39-yard touchdown happens in part because Walker jumps inside a block, walling himself off from the play. And on the go-ahead Bears touchdown drive late in the third quarter, the Packers had the perfect call on a 4th-and-1 zone-read play where Walker appears to have the quarterback on the read, but gets way too wide and never comes close to making the play.

This is about accountability. Everyone rotates. At the very least Walker deserves the same treatment. Wilson wasn’t a star in two starts, but he’s made more splash plays this season than Walker despite playing a fraction of the snaps.

Live with the limitations of Wilson because he has a defined skillset. Ditto for Cooper. What is it that Walker does well, exactly?

Parting shot

PB: Josh Jacobs wants all the smoke. And he had the most versatile performance of his Packers career 76 yards rushing on 18 carries and another 58 yards on four catches. And he wants to tell Bears star cornerback Jaylon Johnson all about it. He just wants to talk, Jaylon.