Rebounding Will Take More Than Talk for Packers

The Green Bay Packers were thorougly outplayed in all three phases by the Los Angeles Chargers.

Monday was a day of looking inward for the Green Bay Packers.

The Packers packed a 7-1 record and a four-game winning streak for their road trip to Los Angeles for a pseudo home game against the Chargers. Green Bay, one of the hottest teams in the league, was crushed 26-11. In every phase, the Packers were thoroughly outplayed on Sunday.

On Monday, coach Matt LaFleur was digging for answers. While the focus will quickly turn to Sunday’s home game against Carolina, a trip to undefeated San Francisco looms after the bye.

“We’re going to have an after-action meeting as a staff here pretty soon,” LaFleur said on Monday afternoon. “We want put this game to bed. We obviously talked about some things, but [we want to] have those ideas ready to roll because that trip’s coming up shortly.”

Offensively, Green Bay’s offense was as impotent as it was explosive in victories over Oakland and Kansas City the past two weeks. A false-start penalty on right tackle Bryan Bulaga on the opening possession turned a second-and-11 into a second-and-16. A false start on left tackle David Bakhtiari on the second possession turned a second-and-5 into a second-and-10. An illegal block on receiver Allen Lazard and a delay of game on quarterback Aaron Rodgers turned a second-and-5 into a second-and-15.

Compounding the problem was a lack of rhythm. When Los Angeles capped its second drive with a second consecutive field goal, it had more than a 6-0 lead on the scoreboard. It had a 20-3 advantage in plays.

“We never got into a real flow, a real rhythm,” LaFleur said. “In the first half, we had the three pre-snap penalties that got us back in those get-back-on-track situations, and you just get away from what you want to get done. But I thought I could have done a much better job of staying patient with it. Because our defense, although we were giving up a lot of yards and they held the ball for the majority of the time, they did a good job of not giving up the touchdowns. It was 12-0; that’s well within striking distance for any team in the National Football League. I’ve got to be more patient, got to trust that we’ll come around and just keep grinding it out.”

Defensively, Green Bay’s run defense remains as soft as a bag of cotton and with as many holes as a pair old socks. The Chargers were on a four-game streak of failing to rush for 40 yards. The 1947 Detroit Lions were the last team to accomplish that dubious feat. You wouldn’t have known it, as the Chargers ran for four times that 40-yard barrier until Philip Rivers took a knee to run out the clock.

LaFleur and linebacker Blake Martinez mentioned gap discipline as the defense’s No. 1 issue. The problem with that is that’s what the coaches and players said earlier in the season. Only one team has allowed more 120-yard rushing games than Green Bay, with six in nine weeks.

“Yeah,” it’s frustrating, LaFleur said, “because it’s got to improve, otherwise people are going to follow the same recipe and same formula and we’re going to have the same issues. We’ve got to get it fixed.”

After the game on Sunday, quarterback Aaron Rodgers spoke optimistically that the leadership in the locker room would rise to the occasion and the Packers would bounce back. LaFleur viewed it the same way.

“I love that locker room,” he said. “And I think we’ve got the right guys in that locker room. But I told them, you can’t talk about it. You’ve got to be about it. We’re going to have to put in the work, and it’s going to be tough work, hard work. We’ve got a heck of an opponent coming here. The Carolina Panthers, they’re a damn good football team. And so we’re going to have our work cut out for us.”