Packers celebrate spooky season with scary loss to Vikings

In a pathetic display, the Packers mustered just 10 points in loss to the division-rival Vikings.

Good morning!

The Green Bay Packers teeter on the verge of catastrophe after a 24-10 beatdown at the hands of the Minnesota Vikings. The offense still can’t do anything in the first half and Joe Barry’s defense couldn’t get off the field on Sunday in another pathetic performance from the more veteran side on the team.

Today's edition of The Leap focuses on horrific circumstances around some stinky play from Jordan Love and the offense.

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Ex-Packers QB Kurt Benkert asked how many QBs could function in the 2023 Green Bay offense. With the understanding Jordan Love’s play hasn’t been great by his own admission, what other factors are holding Love and the offense back right now?

Peter Bukowski: Packers head coach Matt LaFleur, take it away:

“There are always going to be a couple plays you want back. But also, we got to make some plays for him too. We had like six dropped balls. That's going to be hard to overcome."

Six is probably generous and one of them came on third-and-8 that turned a potential game-changing play for the Packers into one for the Vikings. Facing inverted Cover 2, Jordan Love threw the ball where only Jayden Reed could get to it. Vikings defensive back Josh Metellus’ head was to the quarterback, famously a sign to a certain former Packers quarterback that a receiver was open. Reed not only couldn’t come down with a pass in his hands, it fell into the lap of the cover man.

The Packers’ receivers had other lowlights as well. Rookie wideout Dontayvion Wicks dropped a perfect throw on a slant in the low red zone with the Packers poised to cut the game to one score. That mistake occurred on the first of two trips inside the Vikings’ 20 on which Green Bay came away with no points.

Right now, the offense needs Love to be perfect, to do everything, and overcome these kinds of mistakes. That’s on top of the team drawing the most accepted penalty yardage of the LaFleur era during Sunday’s loss to Minnesota.

To wit, on the first drive, two penalties scuttled a promising start including a terrific play by Love and Romeo Doubs that will never count. On the next drive, it was two drops that forced a three-and-out. And to round it out, Love missed a pair of open receivers on reads the following drive.

That typifies the Packers’ offensive experience at the moment.

OK, but what about Jordan Love? Why isn’t this going better?

Peter Bukowski: If you’re feeling this way, don’t worry because so is Jordan.

“Not good enough. Pretty average to start,” Love said of his play to date.

“It's too bumpy right now. I need to find consistency in my play where I'm able to make every play, go to the right place with the ball on every play.”

To the earlier point though, that level of proficiency can’t be achieved. Even Aaron Rodgers in 2011 or Tom Brady in 2007 never reached such levels of down-to-down consistency. There will be missed throws, missed reads, and some bad play calls that are unavoidable. But are they getting down on themselves?

"I think it is hard. I think everybody feels we're not playing at the level we're expected to and we know we can play at. I think the message for everybody in that locker room is to keep that confidence,” Love said after the game.

“Who's going to step up? Who's going to make those plays? Who's going to be able to turn this around to where guys can feel that confidence from them and gain confidence from them. Everyone's frustrated, but I don't think guys are losing confidence."

Love, for his part, looked like a guy losing confidence in himself in the first half. He missed Reed in the middle of the field on an in-breaker that became a sack and then decided to run when he had Wicks open, also in the middle of the field.

In some ways, it’s hard to blame Love because the pockets around him have atrophied the last few weeks and the problems with receivers being in the right place at the right times going on two years now are well-chronicled. Green Bay had a gimme third-and-1 conversion on an RPO receiver screen in which no receiver ran the screen in the first quarter.

“You don’t even get into what you work on all week and what you plan for, you can’t even get into your normal rhythm,” Matt LaFleur said after the game.

Well, gee Matt, maybe call some of the good stuff on early downs when it can actually help the team stay out of third-and-long situations. If the team is planning all week for stuff, maybe some early down offense would be nice.

The fear for the Packers is Love reverts to some of his habits in his final season at Utah State when he was forcing balls into coverage, believing he had to make every play perfectly because no one around him could do a damn thing. When Christian Watson, the team’s 6-foot-5 should-be alpha receiver, can’t even be bothered to get his hands up to make a contested catch in the end zone, maybe Love is right to feel that way. Still, that’s a dangerous way to operate as an offense.

It’s why I won’t be surprised if Green Bay is buying at the deadline just to give Love some reliable NFL players (or a player, in this case) just so the team can effectively evaluate him at this point in his short career.

The Packers forced the Vikings into a slew of third-and-longs but still couldn’t get off the field. What gives?

Peter Bukowski: Joe Barry. He’s a giver. And in this case, he’s giving over 9 yards per play on third down. The Vikings converted seven third-and-8-plus situations in the game, one with a rookie backup under center. He created more first downs in two drives than the Packers did in all but one of their first-half drives. Just noodle over that one for a moment.

Or how about the time Green Bay gave up a rushing touchdown to a team that didn’t have one yet this season? Or a defense that couldn’t stop Kirk Cousins on play-action despite the run game generating fewer than 3 yards per carry. Alexander Mattison and Cam Akers were bottled up in this game and Minnesota torched the Packers on play-action and in situational football.

What’s worse, there was no Justin Jefferson to blame for this one. Rookie Jordan Addison, all 160 pounds of him, torched Jaire Alexander repeatedly, including on the touchdown that all but ended the game in the second half.

To get demolished defensively when the Vikings’ one virtuoso talent is out, the run defense holds, and Preston Smith makes a terrific play in coverage is an indictment of Barry and this coaching staff. It turns out that firing the DC and replacing him with an old buddy but not making any other meaningful changes to the staff has not worked out. Neither has the Barry hire. If they’re just playing out the string, then make the change now and at least give one of these other coaches an audition for another staff.

Maybe he won’t land the Packers’ DC job when it next opens, but he could get one somewhere.

Parting shot

PB: Tennessee Titans rookie QB Will Levis threw four touchdowns in his first NFL start, two of them to purportedly washed receiver DeAndre Hopkins. Given the Packers offense's inability to reliably be where they need to be, for receivers to consistently make catches, and Love’s accuracy issues, it sure would be nice to have a contested catch monster who would be able to provide stability to an offense without any modicum of it through half a season.

We talked plenty on this newsletter and on Locked on Packers about Hopkins' potential fit on this roster and coming into the year, and there were worthy cases to be made on either side of the matter. Green Bay didn’t expect Watson to regress as a contested-catch player after producing one of the most efficient contested seasons in the NFL in 2022.

But it wasn’t hard to envision “Nuk” in a Packers uniform either, converting third-and-8s on slants just by big-boying cornerbacks or going up to bring down a fade in the end zone. He sure looked like he helped out a young quarterback on Sunday.