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Grading Every Packers Position Group After Rallying Past Jets

As you might expect based on a 20-17 final score, the units on defense scored much higher than the offense in Green Bay’s win at the Jets. Here is our day-after-the-game report card, filled with video clips and analytical stats.
Bill Huber|
Green Bay Packers running back MarShawn Lloyd (32) celebrates with quarterback Jordan Love after catching a touchdown pass.
Green Bay Packers running back MarShawn Lloyd (32) celebrates with quarterback Jordan Love after catching a touchdown pass. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers beat the New York Jets on Sunday. It was a huge win for the Packers’ playoff prospects – 0-2 might have been a death sentence – but it wasn’t promising in terms of the potential for playoff success.

Here’s a unit-by-unit report card that fits nicely with the 20-17 final.

Quarterbacks

It was a forgettable day for Jordan Love, who went 16-of-29 for 145 yards. While he threw touchdown passes with zero interceptions, he also fumbled. There was no blaming the pass protection this week. Of 32 dropbacks, he faced pressure on only nine, according to Pro Football Focus. He completed 1-of-6 passes and took three sacks, a net of 7 yards in those situations.

Love completed only two passes thrown 10-plus yards downfield, though two deep shots gained 61 yards on interference penalties that would have added nicely to his total. He came through late, too, with 7-of-12 passing for 80 yards in the fourth quarter and overtime.

Grade: C-minus.

Running Backs

Any backfield with Chris Brooks as the No. 1 player is going to be in trouble. No offense to Brooks, who is really good at what he’s good at and is as reliable as getting a cup of hot coffee at McDonald’s.

The Packers waited for two years for MarShawn Lloyd. In his second game, he scored his first career touchdown on a well-executed screen. As a runner, though, he carried six times for 20 yards and fumbled. He played only one more snap after the fumble.

Kaleb Johnson, who was acquired during final roster cuts, was the top ball-carrier with eight carries for 32 yards. He also fumbled but spent a lot less time in the doghouse than Lloyd. We credited him with 29 yards after contact and three missed tackles.

“He is a very good outside zone runner and just a natural runner,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “So, we’ll continue to work with him. Obviously, there’s some things that we can clean up, but I think he’s getting more comfortable with our offense, with the terminology, with our protection schemes, so he’ll probably earn more opportunities.”

You can’t fumble. Period.

Grade: D.

Receivers

The Packers have gone all-in on Christian Watson, Matthew Golden and Jayden Reed. Watson caught 4-of-11 targets for 41 yards and one touchdown, but PFF charged him with three drops. A couple times, he heard footsteps and dropped the ball before getting clobbered. It wasn’t his best day as a blocker, either.

Golden caught 4-of-6 targets for 58 yards, totals that don’t include 61 yards on interference penalties. With the Packers in deep trouble down 17-7 in the fourth quarter, Golden gained 18 on third-and-3, 38 on interference and 18 to set up first-and-goal and the eventual touchdown to Watson. Talk about rising to the occasion. He did have one drop.

Reed caught the one pass in which he was injured, Skyy Moore caught two passes for 6 yards, Bo Melton caught zero passes before dropping out with a stinger and J. Michael Sturdivant was not targeted when thrown into the fire because of the injuries.

Grade: C-minus.

Tight Ends

Snap counts? Those are a thing of the past. Kraft played all but one snap, which was great, but his performance was not up to anyone’s standard. He caught two passes for 15 yards, one of which resulted in a fumble. While he was flagged for holding, his blocking was mostly effective.  

Mark Redman and Jonnu Smith mostly blocked. The trade for Redman already is paying dividends.

Grade: D-plus.

Offensive Line

What a bleep show. Right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele, the team’s best lineman, suffered a knee injury that “could” keep him “out for a long time,” LaFleur said. Left guard Aaron Banks missed Week 1 with a knee injury and dropped out at halftime with a toe injury in Week 2. Then his replacement, Donovan Jennings, exited with an injury.

The situation was so dire due to injuries that Kraft almost had to play tackle.

The Packers averaged 3.5 yards per carry against the Jets, which was a slight improvement over last week. The pass protection was better, though it could hardly have been worse. A total of six penalties made matters even worse.

It’s simplistic to blame the offensive line for the team-wide struggles on offense. Nonetheless, the Packers played 65 minutes of football on Sunday and gained 199 yards. The blame has to start somewhere.

Grade: D.

Green Bay Packers defensive tackle Jonathan Ford celebrates a defensive stop against the New York Jets..
Green Bay Packers defensive tackle Jonathan Ford celebrates a key defensive stop against the New York Jets. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Defensive Tackles

The Packers played five defensive tackles. Combined, Karl Brooks, Devonte Wyatt, Jonathan Ford, Chris McClellan and Anthony Campbell had one solo tackle and two assisted tackles. The only time McClellan showed up in the gamebook was that he played 34 snaps and was penalized for unnecessary roughness.

That, of course, only tells a small part of the story. The Jets have one of the better running back tandems in the NFL with Breece Hall and Braelon Allen. They combined for 21 carries for 36 yards. The superb run defense, obviously, starts up front with the big guys. Ford helped ruin the pivotal fourth-and-1 but received no credit in the stats.

Against the pass, Brooks and Wyatt had four pressures apiece, according to Next Gen Stats.

Grade: B-plus.

Edge

Lukas Van Ness was a one-man wrecking ball. According to the official stats, he had nine tackles, 1.5 sacks, three tackles for losses (in the first half) and four quarterback hits. He had six pressures, according to PFF, and nine, according to Next Gen Stats.

What a sequence. With the Packers having clawed within 17-14, Van Ness tackled receiver Garrett Wilson following a completion for 8 yards, combined with Karl Brooks to stop Breece Hall short on third-and-2 and then stuffed Braelon Allen on fourth-and-1. The Packers would not have won the game without those three plays.

Dani Dennis-Sutton had six tackles and a half-sack and Barryn Sorrell had a half-sack and five tackles. Next Gen gave Dennis-Sutton six pressures. The only black eyes were Dennis-Sutton’s penalty for unnecessary roughness on a punt, which forced the offense to start at its 3, and the lack of a consistent pass rush that was helped by blitzing.

Grade: A-minus.

Linebackers

This is exactly what the Packers envisioned. Edgerrin Cooper had eight tackles, including one sack and three tackles for losses. Those eight tackles resulted in the Jets gaining only 5 yards. It was his second superb performance in as many weeks, with Cooper well on his way to the breakthrough season that was forecast last year.

After a quiet debut, Zaire Franklin had seven tackles that limited the Jets to 22 yards.

Grade: A-minus.

Cornerbacks

The Keisean Nixon Experience is a wild ride. A week after LaFleur saluted Nixon for his best day as a pro, the Jets made him the target of their passing game. PFF charged him with 7-of-8 passing for 76 yards. He also was flagged twice for pass interference.

It was interesting that the Jets went after him rather than rookie Brandon Cisse, who gave up two catches for 16 yards out of three targets, though one of them was a touchdown.

Grade: C.

Safeties

Evan Williams was one of the best players on the field with eight tackles and two pass breakups, including a big-time one as the Jets went deep in search of the go-ahead score in the final minutes.

“Definitely a crucial play,” Williams said. “As it gets down to those last few minutes are the ones that you got to understand, you got to be on your Ps and Qs, otherwise you’re going to get exploited. So, yeah, definitely, I had to make that play is how I saw it. I see the ball in the air. We’re taught that the deep parts of the field are a dangerous place.”

Fellow safety Xavier McKinney missed three tackles, including one that let Breece Hall get loose for a 49-yard gain on a screen, but he had the third-down stop that forced the punt that allowed the Packers to drive to the tying score.

Javon Bullard made amends for his unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty with seven tackles, two tackles for losses and two passes defensed.

Grade: B.

Specialists

The first-half MVP was definitely punter Daniel Whelan. His three punts in the first quarter went for 60 yards (muff), 60 yards and 58 yards (muff). He had punts that pinned the Jets at their 5, 13, 10 and 19.

Skyy Moore forced four missed tackles on his huge 63-yard punt return. Last year, Reed had the team’s longest punt return at 20 yards; Romeo Doubs’ longest was 16. It was the team’s first punt return of 40-plus yards since Trevor Davis’ 65-yarder in 2017.

“It feels good, just knowing that I’m able to execute my one-eleventh,” he said. “It’s not only me out there. Everybody, all the 10 other players, made great blocks and we just executed our game plan.”

Trey Smack wasn’t challenged with any difficult kicks but he did make his first game-winner.

Grade: A.

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.