Now What? Three Big-Picture Overreactions From Packers’ Loss to Panthers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Nine weeks down, nine weeks to go, and the Green Bay Packers are in first place in the NFC North.

That’s where the happy news ends following Sunday’s brutal 16-13 loss to the Carolina Panthers that might have unalterable ramifications on a season that was filled with Super Bowl aspirations less than two months ago.

Here are this week’s Overreactions.

1. The Season Is Over …

You might find that statement to be a tad bit hyperbolic, and I get it. But I come at my coverage of the team with one premise and one premise only.

This is Titletown.

As former coach Mike McCarthy said entering the 2016 season, a year after watching the rival Vikings win the NFC North: “Frankly, I don’t want to be flippant about it. Division titles are important, but I don’t lose any sleep over it because we have a bigger goal. We don't hang division title banners around here.”

Nor should they. They are introduced before every home game as the “13-time world champion Green Bay Packers.”

Is this team going to add a 14th world championship and fifth Lombardi Trophy?

Hell no. Not unless something drastic changes. And after eight games in which the only discernable changes are strengths turning into weaknesses and not the other way around, that just doesn’t seem like a reasonable belief.

The offensive line, which features three high-priced veterans and a first-round pick, has more leaks than a colander just filled with a pot of spaghetti noodles.

Green Bay’s red-zone offense, which entered the game ranked seventh in the league with a 70 percent touchdown rate, went 1-of-5.

On offense, “we thrive on some explosive plays,” coach Matt LaFleur said. Defenses are taking those away; his offense is either unwilling or unable to adapt.

Green Bay’s run defense, which had been a strength to start the season, just got crushed by Rico Dowdle and a bunch of backup offensive linemen.

A defense that thrived on takeaways last season is next-to-last in generating turnovers this season.

Brandon McManus, who rescued the kicking game last year, is either too injured to perform or too much in his head.

Green Bay Packers tight end Tucker Kraft is carted off the field after suffering a knee injury against the Panthers on Sunday. | Tork Mason / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

And finally, the coup de grace was tight end Tucker Kraft’s season-ending knee injury. Kraft was perhaps the most irreplaceable player on the roster not named Jordan Love. Maybe belatedly, but he had become the go-to receiver. At some point, Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks will return. Maybe Luke Musgrave will step up. But Kraft is a great player in a league in which great players win games.

“It’s tough. It’s a tough pill to swallow,” LaFleur said. “I don’t think it was for a lack of effort or anything like that. I thought our guys competed and battled, but the only way I know how to do it is we have to get back to making sure that we have a solid week of practice. And I know that’s probably not the sexiest answer that everybody wants to here, but that’s a reality.

“You lose, you’ve got to go back to the drawing board and you’ve got to go back to work. I know our guys are extremely disappointed, but all you can do is you better be man enough to watch the tape, be critical and make any necessary adjustments that we need to make in order for us to become the team that we all want to become. But today, it was just extremely disappointing.”

2. … Unless Talk Isn’t Cheap

The only way to salvage a championship season is for the defense to go from good to great. That’s the side of the ball where the majority of Green Bay’s best players line up.

“Games like this, if you want to be great, you got to find ways to win, especially as a defense,” defensive end Rashan Gary said. “We got greatness in our unit. We just got to find a way to get off the field and that’s just being consistent on top of everything, understanding how they wanted to manage the game. When plays come our way, just got to make them.”

Safety Xavier McKinney, who had the only sack and only takeaway, sounds like a broken record.

“I got to look at the film, but we all didn’t do our job,” he said. “It wasn’t just on one person. We play this game as a unit, as a team. We play our defense as a unit, as a whole 11 people, and we just didn’t have all 11 doing the right thing at all times.

“We got to clean it up, man. It’s that simple. I don’t think it’s very complicated. I think this was another game where we got the better team. We just didn’t go out there and execute. When you don’t execute in this league, what happens is you lose.”

The Packers had the better team at Cleveland and lost. They had the better team at Dallas and tied. They had the better team against the Panthers and lost.

Better team on paper, maybe. But not in reality.

Packers defensive backs Xavier McKinney (29), Nate Hobbs (21) and Keisean Nixon (25) celebrate McKinney's interception. | William Glasheen / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

That’s obviously not all on the defense. On Sunday, it gave up 265 yards, including only 102 through the air, and 16 points. That should be enough to win with a competent offense. But that’s not what the Packers have, and they might not have considering the injuries and the state of their offensive line.

For the Packers to do something special is going to require the defense to be special.

“We stop the passing, but if they run the ball and we can’t stop it, you see what happens,” McKinney said. “You got to be able to defend both things. You got to be able to defend the ball in the air and you got to be able to defend the ball on the ground. We weren’t able to do that. Like I said, we got to clean it up.

“We can’t keep thinking this is cool and this is OK and thinking we’re going to get away with it because we got a good team, we got good players on our roster, because we’re going to play better teams than what we’ve played today and that’s not going to cut it. It didn’t even cut it against this team and they got a good team. Got to give credit to them but we did not play to our standard today.”

If the defense starts playing to that standard, there is a chance to reset and make a run during the second half of the season.

3. What’s Ed Policy Thinking?

In six-and-a-half seasons on the job, Packers coach Matt LaFleur’s winning percentage is .671. That is 13th-best in NFL history. Eight of the 12 coaches ahead of him are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Those are incredible credentials, especially given how he navigated the transition from Aaron Rodgers to Jordan Love. However, there are some obvious signs of trouble with this year’s team.

This week, LaFleur dismissed the idea of the Carolina game being a “trap game.” However, it’s interesting to note that the Buffalo Bills, with a game coming up against the Kansas City Chiefs, went into Carolina and destroyed the Panthers last week. The Packers, with a game coming up against the Philadelphia Eagles, were upset by those same Panthers.

In a bizarre decision, LaFleur kept the offense on the field on fourth-and-8 from the 13 with 11 minutes to go in a 13-6 game. The defense would need a stop to win the game, regardless of what happened on fourth down. After a timeout because the operation was “messed up” and there was “a lot of chaos,” in the words of quarterback Jordan Love, LaFleur kept the offense on the field.

The play didn’t have a chance of succeeding.

It was a “bad decision” and a “bad play call,” LaFleur said.

Also bad was the pass protection provided by the line coached by Luke Butkus. That group, which was crushed in last year’s playoff loss to the Eagles, has underperformed all season.

LaFleur and general manager Brian Gutekunst are under contract through the 2026 season. Just before taking over as team president, Ed Policy said he was not inclined to extend their contracts before this season – which he didn’t do – but also didn’t want either to be lame ducks entering next season.

With the pressure ratcheted up on this year’s team and his own talk about urgency, Gutekunst made a huge trade for Micah Parsons. It was an organizational decision, and one that probably wouldn’t have been made had it not believed it was close to a Super Bowl. While that move generally has paid dividends, the on-the-field product led by LaFleur has been shaky since a red-hot start.

The Packers started the week as the No. 1 team in the jam-packed NFC. Following Sunday’s loss, they remain in first place in the NFC North but are fourth in the conference standings. If they lose on Monday night to the Eagles, they’ll probably fall out of the playoff race altogether.

The pressure is on. As the saying goes, if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. At the midpoint of the season, the Packers certainly aren’t getting better.

The Packers have a franchise quarterback but seem reluctant to turn him loose. They have a franchise pass rusher but seem reluctant to challenge opposing receivers at the line of scrimmage.

The Packers’ remaining strength of schedule is the fourth-most difficult. This season could head south if it doesn’t find solutions in a hurry.

If so, the Packers should be looking at major changes in a couple months.

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1. The Season Is Over …

2. … Unless Talk Isn’t Cheap

3. What’s Ed Policy Thinking?

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