Packer Central

Snap Counts, Stud, Dud and Defining Play From Packers’ Loss to Panthers

The Green Bay Packers lost to the Carolina Panthers on a walk-off field goal on Sunday. Here is our breakdown of the snap counts, plus one stud, one dud and the defining play of a painful defeat.
Bill Huber|
Green Bay Packers tight end Tucker Kraft (85) runs on a catch against Carolina Panthers safety Nick Scott on Sunday.
Green Bay Packers tight end Tucker Kraft (85) runs on a catch against Carolina Panthers safety Nick Scott on Sunday. | Dan Powers-USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images

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Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – A win is a win and a loss is a loss. But some just hurt more. The Green Bay Packers not only lost to the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, they lost premier tight end Tucker Kraft to a knee injury.

Here’s our analysis of the snap counts, plus one stud, one dud and the defining play.

Packers Snap Counts on Offense

The Packers played 65 snaps on offense.

Quarterback: Jordan Love has played all 510 snaps this season.

Running back: After a more balanced snap count last week, when the Packers rode the hot hand of Emanuel Wilson, this was back to the Josh Jacobs Show. Jacobs played 38 snaps, Wilson played 21 and Chris Brooks played 11 – his most since Week 2.

Jacobs carried 17 times for 87 yards (5.1 average) and caught four passes for 13 yards to give him a 100-yard day. Like normal, every yard is a grind. Including one incomplete pass, he had 22 opportunities, or 57.9 percent of his snaps, compared to 38.1 percent for Wilson.

Jacobs’ game-tying touchdown extended his team-record streak to eight consecutive home games with a rushing touchdown.

Receivers: For large chunks of the game, Romeo Doubs was the passing game. He played 60 snaps in a really strong performance in which he caught 7-of-10 targets for 91 yards. Christian Watson, who was on the bench for the fateful fourth-and-8 while being checked for a concussion, played 43. For context, in 15 games last season, Watson played 43-plus in only six.

Malik Heath played 27, his fourth in a row in the 20s and one off his season high. Matthew Golden was limited to 24 by a shoulder injury. The last two games, he has caught 5-of-6 targets for 13 yards. Cornerback Bo Melton played two. Dontayvion Wicks and Jayden Reed can’t get back soon enough.

Tight ends: Tucker Kraft was one of the best tight ends in the NFL and one of the most important players on the roster. Now, he’ll miss the rest of the season and probably the start of next season, when he will be playing for a new contract. It’s a devastating loss to the team and the young star.

Luke Musgrave played 30 snaps on Sunday, his most since Week 3 of 2024. He hasn’t played 40-plus snaps since Week 11 of 2023. That’s when he suffered a lacerated kidney against the Chargers. Presumably, that’s going to be his new reality. The season might hinge on what he does with the opportunities. John FitzPatrick, who played more snaps than Musgrave last week at Pittsburgh, played 18.

Offensive line: Elgton Jenkins, Jordan Morgan, Rasheed Walker and Zach Tom played every snap. Left guard Aaron Banks played the nine-play opening possession but missed the rest of the game with a stinger, so Sean Rhyan played 56.

Banks, who was given a mammoth contract in free agency, has played just 51.6 percent of the snaps this season.

Packers Snap Counts on Defense

The Packers played 58 snaps on defense.

Defensive ends: Micah Parsons played 53 snaps, Rashan Gary played 51 and Kingsley Enagbare played 26. Combined, they made zero plays of note. With Lukas Van Ness inactive again, Barryn Sorrell played only one snap. Elevated from the practice squad for the third consecutive game, Arron Mosby tied for the team high with 13 snaps on special teams.

According to Next Gen Stats, Gary had four pressures. Parsons led the NFL in pressures entering the game, according to Next Gen, but for the first time in his career had zero. He went 0-for-9 in one-on-ones against standout left tackle Ikem Ekwonu.

Defensive tackles: Karl Brooks and Devonte Wyatt led the way with 40 snaps. With Colby Wooden dropping out in the first half with a shoulder injury, which limited him to 15 snaps, Nazir Stackhouse played 16, the second-most of his career.

Wyatt had one pressure – the only one from the defensive tackles – and was in on six tackles (one solo). Karl Brooks had five assisted tackles.

Linebackers: Edgerrin Cooper and Quay Walker, who was questionable with a calf injury that prevented him from practicing on Thursday, played every snap. Cooper had eight tackles and Walker had seven and one quarterback hit. Isaiah McDuffie played 19 snaps when Green Bay turned to its base defense and added 13 more on special teams.

Ty’Ron Hopper, who has played a little here and there the past few weeks, was limited to special teams. In his season debut, Kristian Welch played 10 snaps on special teams.

Cornerbacks: Keisean Nixon, coming off a rough outing at Pittsburgh, played every snap. He allowed a 1-yard catch on the first snap of the game and that was it. Carrington Valentine started and played 43 snaps. Next Gen charged him with 4-of-6 for 47 yards.

Nate Hobbs, who was benched and barely played at Pittsburgh last week, played 19 snaps. He was targeted once, an end-zone pass to McMillan that the 6-foot-4 rookie couldn’t quite pull in.

Safeties: Xavier McKinney played every snap, Evan Williams played 51 and Javon Bullard played 42 between the nickel and safety positions. McKinney was the best player – more on that in a second – and had the only pass breakup by the entire defense.

Packers Stud vs. Panthers: Xavier McKinney

The Packers’ defense was good but not good enough to beat Carolina. Safety Xavier McKinney did his part, though.

With Carolina in the red zone on its second possession, McKinney blitzed, sacked Bryce Young and forced a fumble. The Panthers recovered and managed to gain 6 yards. On the next play, Young went deep to Xavier Legette against Keisean Nixon but Nixon’s coverage was excellent and McMillan showed his sensational range to grab the interception in the back of the end zone.

McKinney finished with a team-high nine tackles. He became the first Packers defensive back since Morgan Burnett in 2011 to have one sack, one interception and one forced fumble in a game.

“It’s cool,” McKinney said, “but we lost. So, it don’t mean much.”

Packers Dud vs. Panthers: Matt LaFleur

Trailing 13-6, the Packers faced a fourth-and-8 from the 13 with about 11 minutes to go. The obvious decision was to kick a field goal. Coach Matt LaFleur kept the offense on the field. With the play clock about to hit 0, quarterback Jordan Love called a timeout.

“The operation, we were messed up on who was where and the formation and everything, so it was a lot of chaos pre-snap,” Love said. “The clock was getting low and I didn’t like where we were at, so used a timeout right there.”

Given a chance to reconsider, LaFleur sent the offense back on the field. Love threw incomplete on fourth down and a chance to score went down the drain. 

It’s hard to say what was worse. Was it the decision to go for it? The fact that the offense was discombobulated before the timeout? Or the pass protection after the timeout?

The play of the interior offensive line gets a dishonorable mention.

Packers-Panthers Defining Play

This might go down as the season-defining play. On the opening possession of the second half, left guard Sean Rhyan pulled to his right. Defensive end Nick Scourton went low to take out Rhyan, which created the pileup that led to Tucker Kraft’s knee injury.

“I got f***ing cut on my pull, so I don’t know what happened,” Rhyan said. “All I know is that mother f***er’s helmet was into my knees. He went low on me, so I had to try to avoid my knees getting clipped out, too. So, it’s one of those things of terrible circumstances and sh**, just didn’t come out right for us.”

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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.