Consistent Inconsistency Should Cost Packers’ Joe Barry His Job

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Sunday’s loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers served as the extreme example of all that’s wrong – and all that’s been wrong – with Joe Barry’s Green Bay Packers defense.

Barry wanted to limit the damage done by future Hall of Fame receiver Mike Evans and take the bite out of Tampa Bay’s rushing attack.

“When you go into a game plan like that and you have to deploy of that attention to an elite guy like that, you’ve got to make up for the other things,” Barry explained. “The first two things that we talked about going into that game were we can’t let No. 13 completely destroy the game and, within that, we’ve got to play the run. I thought … we did those two things pretty well. Unfortunately, we did nothing else well.”

Evans was limited to four catches for 57 yards, though one was a 19-yard touchdown. For the first 58 minutes, the Bucs’ rushing game was held to 3.3 yards per carry.

Everything else went to hell.

Baker Mayfield, who wasn’t exactly lighting the world on fire following back-to-back games of 14-of-29 passing, routed the Packers or 22-of-28 for 381 yards. He threw four touchdowns vs. six incompletions, and his 13.61 yards per attempt was the second-best in the NFL this season.

Chris Godwin caught 10 passes for 155 yards. Reserve receiver David Moore had a 52-yard touchdown. Running back Rachaad White had a 26-yard touchdown and another catch for 24. Tight end Cade Otton had a pair of 22-yard catches.

It was as if the Bucs’ pass-catchers were in line at the deli, number in hand, waiting for their turn to be served a pound of ham and an explosive play.

To be fair, Green Bay’s defense hasn’t been that inept in every game this season, but strong performances against the Raiders, Broncos and Chiefs have been outliers. Like a gerbil on an exercise wheel, sustained success under Barry is just one revolution away. Close but impossibly far.

That’s never been more true than the last three games. A strong performance in the upset victory over the Patrick Mahomes-led Chiefs should have set the stage for a run to the playoffs. Instead, like a dog that chases its tail, the thrill of actually catching the tail is replaced by the realization that the reward is biting yourself.

The Giants, who are next-to-last in the NFL in points and yards and on track for their worst scoring season since 1977, beat their season averages by more than 10 points and 100 yards. The Buccaneers set a season high in yards and would have set their season high in points had White not bypassed a touchdown in the final moments.

Big day of #Packers news yesterday.
Joe Barry's hot seat: https://t.co/T0nFcZ6pI4
Luke Musgrave: https://t.co/1X6xA2x2g8
Dontayvion Wicks' emergence: https://t.co/ZoovI191pe
Pass-catcher power rankings: https://t.co/boeYS11osc
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) December 22, 2023

Barry talks frequently about the necessity of limiting “explosion” plays. According to Sport Radar, the Packers have given up the second-most “big plays,” which it defines as runs of 10-plus yards and passes of 20-plus yards.

Some games, the run defense has been good but the pass defense has been bad. Some games, the pass defense has been good but the run defense has been bad. Some games, there are coverage breakdowns. Some games, the tackling goes in the tank.

It’s always something, which is understandable if you’re lacking talent or experience but the Packers have plenty of both.

The consistent inconsistency has been maddening.

“Some weeks it’s been there, some weeks it hasn’t. Some periods of games it’s been there, then a period of the game it doesn’t,” Barry said. “That is ultimately, in the chair that I sit in, that’s the ultimate frustration.”

A variety of numbers tell the tale of a defense that has underachieved and is ready for a change at the top.

- Criticized even by LaFleur for playing too much soft coverage on third down, Green Bay has allowed a conversion rate of 57.8 percent on passing plays on third-and-1 to third-and-4, eighth-worst in the league. Mayfield was 4-of-5 passing for 80 yards and four first downs last week.

- Overall, Green Bay’s third-down defense is eighth-worst in the league, even though the average distance required of 6.2 yards is third-longest in the league.

- The Packers are 26th in opponent passer rating at 95.1. That includes Mayfield’s perfect 158.3 on the heels of Tommy DeVito’s 113.9 the week before.

- After getting destroyed by Mayfield for nine completions of more than 20 yards, the Packers have allowed 48 completions of 20-plus yards. That’s seventh-most in the league.

- And yet, they can’t stop the run, either. Green Bay is 28th with 4.55 yards allowed per carry and 30th with 138.8 rushing yards allowed per game. The Packers have given up 200-plus rushing yards in four games – no other team has more than two – and at least 140 rushing yards in a league-worst eight games.

For bad teams, it’s a repeated process of two steps forward and two steps back.

- After allowing 2.0 yards per carry against the Vikings and 2.6 against the Rams, the last six games they’ve allowed a 31st-ranked 5.2 yards per carry.

- After flirting with top 10 in yards allowed per passing play for most of the season, the Packers even with five sacks allowed 12.6 yards per attempt against the Buccaneers. That was their worst since 1998. In those two games, they allowed a 79.6 percent completion rate and 146.5 passer rating, worst in the league by significant margins (Commanders, 75.9 percent and 127.2 rating).

- After allowing a red-zone touchdown rate of 47.1 percent through the first 10 games – a number that had been the team’s salvation – that’s ballooned to 62.5 percent the last four games. It might have been 68.8 percent had the Buccaneers not run out the clock.

Added together, a defense that counts eight first-round picks among its ranks has never come close to consistently being the sum of its parts.

“I think any coach, the thing that he’s always striving for is consistency,” Barry said. “You don’t want it to be up and down and there’s obviously been too much of that. Getting that consistency, getting that flow, getting that quarter-in, quarter-out, game-in, game-out consistency, that starts with me. And it’s the constant search for getting that. There’s been too much up-and-down. Bottom line. And that’s what’s cost us.”

And what’s probably going to cost him his job.

Barry Feels Heat Under His Seat