The Packers defensive identity is broken and it's not clear how they will be able to fix it

Matt LaFleur blamed urgency and sloppiness, maybe even a little bad luck too.

The defensive problems for the Green Bay Packers coming out of a dispiriting loss-from-ahead in London against the New York Giants cut to the very core of the philosophy LaFleur brought to Green Bay when he hired Joe Barry, or at least the one he thought he was bringing. Play two deep safeties, don’t give up explosive plays, rally, and tackle. Expect the offense to make some mistakes and create turnovers. Meanwhile, they spent resources to improve the front seven to better stop the run from nickel personnel with those deep safeties and, voila, problem solved. Only so far, the opposite has been true.

Right now, the Packers are neither stopping the run nor preventing big plays. They’re creating pressure at a solid clip, but because receivers are running free, even mediocre quarterbacks like Daniel Jones found soft spots in the secondary with pressure in his face.

Players who were superlative last season like All-Pro De’Vondre Campbell and stalwart Adrian Amos barely resemble their 2021 selves, as if an ayahuasca-induced fever dream. It even comes with the vomiting for those watching this defense try to cover crossing routes.

On Wednesday, I wrote about the Packers’ second-half problem, and there’s a case sticking with the game plan for the week (assuming that plan doesn’t assume becoming preposterously passive and conservative in the second half with cornerback and safety alignments) will be enough.

But there are plenty of reasons to wonder about that logic.

According to Pro Football Focus, the Packers have the worst run defense in football from two-shell looks by EPA/play. But it’s actually worse than that. Offenses have an EPA/play against their two high that rivals Aaron Rodgers’ EPA/play during his MVP 2021 campaign (H/T our former Acme Packing Company colleague Jon Meerdrink for that morsel).

In other words, when teams run the ball against the Green Bay defense when both safeties are playing deep, their offenses are as good as an MVP passing game. That’s atrociously, terribly, awfully bad considering the average EPA of any run game is actually negative. Most run plays lose value. Running against the Packers produces like Aaron F’ing Rodgers.

Earlier this week, LaFleur pivoted potential criticism of their fronts, pointing out that single-high safeties against teams with reduced splits can create its own problems.

“There’s pluses and minuses with that,” LaFleur said.