Packers vs. Rams: Three Reasons to Worry

The Green Bay Packers face a must-win game on Monday night against the Los Angeles Rams. Here are three reasons why the Packers should be on upset alert.

Author:
Bill Huber
Publish date:
Dec 19, 2022 11:47 AM EST

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Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – There’s absolutely no reason why the Green Bay Packers shouldn’t beat the Los Angeles Rams on Monday night. The Packers are coming off their bye, have built momentum on offense and are in must-win mode. The Rams will be without their three most important players – defensive tackle Aaron Donald, quarterback Matthew Stafford and receiver Cooper Kupp – and have nothing to play for.

But these are the 2022 Packers. They needed to rally to beat the downtrodden Chicago Bears two weeks ago. So, of course there are reasons to worry. Here are three.

1. Brick-Wall Run Defense

The Rams feature one of the best run defenses in the NFL. They enter Monday night ranked fourth with 3.98 yards allowed per carry. Even without the All-Pro Aaron Donald, they allowed 4.1 yards per carry to Seattle and limited NFL rushing leader Josh Jacobs of the Raiders to 3.9. They are physical up front and are excellent tacklers. Linebacker Bobby Wagner ranks among the top 10 with his 111 tackles and their defensive backs are perhaps the most physical in the game.

Green Bay’s success this season has been tied to the running game. When it’s run the ball well, it’s either won or had a chance. When it’s run the ball poorly, the results have been disastrous. It averaged 3.0 yards per carry against the Jets and lost. It averaged 3.2 yards vs. the Commanders and lost. It averaged 2.9 yards vs. the Titans and lost. In fact, over the last 10 games, the Packers are 0-5 when averaging less than 5.0 yards per carry and 3-2 when topping 5.0.

“Their front – their D-line and their linebackers – do a good job, and you can see as the year progressed just them being a more physical unit,” offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said. “We’re just going to have to buckle our chinstraps and come off the rock. These guys do a good job. They put a lot of hats in the box to try and stop the run, and then obviously their defense is like ours where it’s just kind of made to lull you to sleep and make you get out of position or make you have a negative play. We’ve got to really rely on the run game, come off the rock, and knock them off the ball.”

2. Six, Not Three

The Los Angeles area is renowned for making moving magic. Part of the remake of the football classic “The Longest Yard” was filmed in suburban Los Angeles. A movie about this Rams defense would be called “The Longest 20 Yards.”

Raheem Morris’ defense bends but doesn’t break. While the Rams are 13th in total defense, 16th in yards per play and 23rd in yards per passing play, they excel at stomping on the brakes in the red zone. Los Angeles ranks second with an opponent touchdown rate of 41.5 percent. In goal-to-go situations, it ranks No. 1 at 52.2 percent.

Green Bay’s offense, on the other hand, is 24th in the red zone (51.3 percent touchdowns) and 32nd in goal-to-go (50.0 percent). By contrast, in 2020, the Packers were No. 1 in the red zone (80.0 percent) and No. 2 in goal-to-go (90.5 percent).

“We’ve got to score points,” quarterback Aaron Rodgers said. “We need to be in the 30s moving forward. Regardless of what our defense does, we score 30 points, we should win those games. Whatever it takes for us on offense. Obviously, we’ve been running the football pretty well most of the season. The emergence of Christian (Watson) and his dynamic ability’s been, obviously, a very welcome sight. We’ve got to find ways to get him the football and then everybody else, let’s just do our roles and score points. If we can get ahead of teams at home – we have three out of four at home – we can put some things together, I think.”

3. Nothing to Lose

With their 4-9 record, the Rams aren’t going to the playoffs. Rather than Matthew Stafford throwing to Cooper Kupp and Odell Beckham, it will be new-to-the-team Baker Mayfield throwing to Van Jefferson and Tutu Atwell. Their defense has rarely resembled the powerhouse unit that won a Super Bowl last year. The special teams are ho-hum.

In other words, based on a wild Week 15, the Rams are dangerous. The Indianapolis Colts had no business giving the Minnesota Vikings a fight on Saturday. They led 33-0 at halftime. The Houston Texans are the worst team in the NFL and should have played the role of the Washington Generals to the Patrick Mahomes-led Kansas City Chiefs. Instead, the Texans took the Chiefs to overtime. The Jacksonville Jaguars beat the Dallas Cowboys. They lost, but the Miami Dolphins were supposed to freeze to death in Buffalo. They lost, but the Chicago Bears pushed the powerhouse Philadelphia Eagles.

The Packers aren’t good enough to just count on Mother Nature to hand them a victory. Coming off a bye means almost nothing; the Packers are 8-6 in the Aaron Rodgers era and the Rams played last Thursday. Their chances for victory will be especially dicey if Jalen Ramsey can keep Christian Watson from scoring a couple touchdowns.

“I don't care what their record says,” Rams coach Sean McVay said. “This is a really good football team.”

They’ll have to play like one in order to be playing a meaningful game at Miami on Christmas.