These Are the Three Factors That Will Crush Packers Against Patriots

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers are 5-3 but need to show they can beat a good team on the road in order to prove they’re legitimate Super Bowl contenders. The New England Patriots also are 5-3 but have nothing to prove after reaching the Super Bowl last year.

In a measuring-stick game, here are three reasons why the Packers will fall short on Sunday.

1. One-Dimensional Offense

This will be the Packers’ fatal flaw unless they find a solution. They can’t run the football even a little bit. The offensive line hasn’t given the running backs many holes to run through. The running backs haven’t done much on their own. Last week against Carolina, half of their running plays gained 1 yard or worse.

That’s, obviously, meant a lot of second- and third-and-long situations, which are tough to overcome against legit defenses, like the one they’ll face on Sunday. It’s also completely ruined Green Bay’s play-action passing game.

Jordan Love is ninth in play-action passer rating this season but just 21st in play-action dropbacks the last three games. Why? Because, as much as the analytics people will tell you otherwise, the running game really does have to be at least a little bit of a threat.

As it is, the linebackers are probably giggling when Love puts the ball into the hands of the running backs. There’s just no urgency to race forward to get to the ball-carrier.

According to Pro Football Focus, Love is 7-of-19 passing for 37 yards in play-action the last three weeks. The 36.8 percent completion rate and 1.9 yards per attempt are the worst in the league. In terms of completions, the league median for the season is 64.8 percent. In terms of yards per attempt, the median is 7.8 yards with three quarterbacks averaging more than 10.0 yards.

Green Bay’s offense under Love revolves around the deep passing game. The play-action game is where those big plays need to be made.

“Yeah, I think defensively there’s not as much that might grab people up to be able to step up as much in some of the play-pass stuff,” Love said, “but I still think we’ve been doing a good job with some of our play passes.

“Maybe we haven’t been running as much as we have in the past. I don’t know. That’s something we look at with the numbers. I always think with play pass, once you get the run game going and teams are afraid of that, it just makes everybody step up a little bit more and respect it, so I think when it’s not going as well, teams don’t need to, I feel like, respect it and step up as much.”

2. Drake Maye Throwing and Running

The starting quarterbacks in this showdown are tied for the NFL lead with 17 completions on passes with 20-plus air yards.

Due in part to the lack of a running game, Love is 17-of-52 on those passes – just 32.7 percent. He has thrown 17 more deep passes than any quarterback in the league. With a reliable running game, Maye is 17-of-34 on those passes, or 50.0 percent.

Maye is a big-time threat, whether it’s throwing deep from a clean pocket, extending the play to make something happen or scrambling for yards.

According to Sumer Sports, Maye trails only Washington’s Jayden Daniels with 219 scramble yards and he’s No. 1 with 16 scramble first downs.

New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye (10) runs the ball against Miami Dolphins safety Michael Taaffe. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

“Obviously, he’s big, he’s accurate, he’s got a huge arm, you can’t sack him, he gets out of pressure,” Packers defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon said. “He extends plays to throw, generates explosives (and) he extends plays to actually run.

“This is a huge challenge. I remember when he was a rookie in ‘24, we played him in Arizona, and he was running all over the ballpark, and it was frustrating. He’s doing that right now. Big-time challenge. He’s playing at a high level.”

Green Bay has allowed only 94 scramble yards and four scramble first downs this season, but Maye will be by far their biggest challenge from that standpoint.

The other challenge presented by Maye is how well he handles pressure. When pressured, he’s fifth in completion percentage (55.3), third in yards (672), fourth in yards per attempt (7.9) and first in touchdowns (six).

“I think one of the biggest things is trusting the guys up front. You’ve got to trust guys, and you’ve got to trust the guys running routes for you that they’re going to be in the right spot,” Maye told reporters this week.

“I think one of the biggest advantages of having my dad play quarterback growing up, he used to rip me if I started looking down and looking at the rush. You’re going to have to take some hits and stand in there, and it’s part of this position: getting back up, taking hits and delivering shots. Some of it’s being able to avoid it and go make plays, and some of it’s just taking the hit, getting back up and going to do it again. So, I think that’s a little bit of credit to my dad and just knowing at a young age, you’ve got to, ‘Man, you better hang in there and give it to the guys that run better than I do.’”

3. Special Teams

Green Bay’s special teams got off to a strong start under coordinator Cam Achord. However:

Kicker Trey Smack is kicking like a rookie. Including the missed extra point against Carolina, Smack has missed a league-high eight kicks this season. He’s left a total of 18 points on the field, which is a big problem for a team with a limited margin for error.

“It’s good to see you make the next three,” Achord said this week of Smack’s three consecutive extra points. “You saw the different ball flight where the contact made good. And I think that’s just things we’re going to keep working at practice, just to make sure we’re making good, solid, clean contact.”

The return game has done more harm than good without Skyy Moore. Coleman Owen, who is in the return role because of his sure hands, fumbled his first kickoff return against Carolina.

“Anytime you’re in traffic, it’s the guys you can’t see or a guy coming off a block that actually gets the ball punched out there,” Acord said. “So, anytime we’re in traffic, we got to make sure we have two hands on the football, and that’s a premium.

“You know, the success of the team is anytime someone’s carrying that football. You’ve got the fate of the team when that ball is in your hands. So, we’ve got to do a good job of making sure we’re securing the football and putting two hands on it and not putting our defense in those type of situations.”

His struggling units will face a big challenge against New England with All-Pro punt returner Marcus Jones. The fifth-year pro has a career average of 13.8 yards per punt return with three touchdowns. He’s got a 10.9-yard average this season.

“He’s very, very dynamic,” Achord said. “He can break the game open at any point. I’ve played a lot of good returners; he’s in that bunch – top three guys – in the National Football League.

“Anytime he catches the ball, he can score. He’s going to be a tremendous challenge for our gunners to get down the field and make sure we’re preventing the returns and we’re tackling the guy. He breaks a lot of tackles. He gets from zero to 60 now. So, he’s a little bit of an elusive guy. Maybe doesn’t run through arm tackles but he makes the guy miss.”

The Packers will face the Patriots in a big showdown between five-win teams tomorrow. Here are 3⃣ reasons why the Packers will earn a huge win. ⬇️https://t.co/BS2ZLprUir
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) November 7, 2026

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