Win or Lose, It Was Same Old Packers Against Giants

The Green Bay Packers won a football game on Sunday.

A 27-20 victory over the New York Giants snapped a two-game losing streak and kept them in position to accomplish all their goals.

That’s the good news.

The bad news?

Just about everything else.

Outside of Sunday’s game being played at MetLife Stadium, every other conceivable advantage was in Green Bay’s favor.

The Packers were facing a third-string quarterback with Jameis Winston coming off the bench to start with Jaxson Dart sidelined. They were facing an interim coach with Brian Daboll getting the boot after the Giants blew a 10-point fourth quarter lead the prior Sunday against the Bears.

They were facing a bad defense that had struggled to stop the run and pass. They were facing an offense with only one receiver with more than three catches.

This should have been an easy victory for a team that is set to be a Super Bowl contender, right?

It was anything but easy.

The same mistakes piled up. The lack of big plays on both sides of the ball stacked themselves. Missed opportunities plagued the Packers, and it all added up to a 20-19 deficit in the fourth quarter.

Ultimately, Jordan Love saved the day when he found Christian Watson in the right corner of the end zone to give the Packers a 27-20 lead. The defense did its job slamming the door shut with Evan Williams picking off Winston with less than 40 seconds to play.

The end was a 27-20 victory against an inferior team, and it looked pretty familiar.

The Packers started the season 2-0, with big wins over the Detroit Lions and Washington Commanders. Combined with the buzz surrounding the acquisition of Micah Parsons, it felt like the Packers were destined to run roughshod over the NFC en route to their first Super Bowl appearance in 15 years.

Since that 27-18 win over the Commanders on Sept. 11, the Packers are 4-3-1. Outside of a 35-19 win over the Steelers that was powered by an excellent second half, none of the four wins were particularly impressive.

They survived against the Bengals. They came back to beat the last-place Cardinals. Those games looked a lot like Sunday’s win over the Giants. The Packers make a lot of mistakes and rely on making a play at the end of the game.

When the game ends, they utter the same cliches.

They repeated a lot of those cliches on Sunday.

“It’s exactly what we needed,” Love told reporters. “We came in with the mindset that it’s going to be a game, whatever it takes, we’ve got to find a way to go get a win and get us back on track.”

Love is right, the Packers needed to win. What he said next was where he went into cliché-mode.

“So, it’s never going to be pretty. It’s the NFL. You’ve got to find ways to go win these games and, obviously, was a close one, came down to the end, but we stayed together and guys just found ways to keep making plays all the way to the fourth quarter. But it’s something that I think is going to help us, propel us into next week.”

Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love (10) recovers a fumbled snap during the second quarter against the Giants. | Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images

Sometimes cliches are cliches because they are true.

It is hard to win in the NFL, but the Packers make every win feel like a root canal.

The storyline following the Arizona game was the Cardinals were a tough team to beat. That did not matter to the Seahawks, who blew the doors off the Cardinals two weeks ago.

The Bengals on Sunday were blown out by the Steelers, who were missing Aaron Rodgers for a portion of the game.

The Giants trailed the Eagles by 25 in the fourth quarter a few weeks ago.

What do all those teams have in common?

The Seahawks, Steelers and Eagles are leading their divisions. Seattle and Philadelphia, in particular, are considered Super Bowl contenders.

The Packers are not leading their division. They’ll have a chance to change that in the coming weeks with their next three games coming against Minnesota, Detroit, and Chicago.

Are they contenders? Can you be considered contenders if you’re prone to big mistakes, no matter who you’re playing?

Perhaps some hard truths were given by one of Sunday’s heroes after the game.

“Definitely being able to walk away and have a dub definitely feels good, but we also understand a win is not going to mask all our problems,” said safety Evan Williams, who finally caught an interception after the Packers had dropped four previous opportunities.

Their problems are starting to become more pronounced as the season goes on.

Their defensive backs don’t make enough plays on the ball. Williams’ interception was his second on the season and the team’s fourth. Two from Williams, two from Xavier McKinney.

That is it.

The cornerback group, which was highly questioned coming into the season, has not done much to quiet those concerns.

The Packers’ corners have zero interceptions. While Keisean Nixon is tied for the NFL lead in passes defensed after adding two more, he was beaten pretty soundly by the Giants’ makeshift receiving corps on Sunday. Isaiah Hodgins had two catches in 2024 and hadn’t even played in a game in 2025 but caught 5-of-6 targets for 57 yards.

Their pass rush, which was supposed to be their superpower, has turned into a one-man band.

If Micah Parsons is not hitting the quarterback, then nobody is.

Devonte Wyatt has gone silent after a hot start. The same is true of Rashan Gary. Lukas Van Ness is injured, and the role players are not making the most of all the attention Parsons garners.

They don’t create enough negative plays, so making a stop is almost up to the opposing offense to screw something up.

On the offensive side of the ball, Green Bay’s running game is anemic and the passing game is inconsistent.

Jordan Love has not been protected this season, which continued the last two games. Compounding matters, his receivers are letting him down. After only eight drops in the first eight games, they dropped two against the Eagles and four against the Giants, according to PFF.

They don’t have a consistent target in the passing game on a weekly basis and, without Tucker Kraft, the team’s run-after-catch prowess has disappeared.

In addition, the style of the offense Green Bay wants to play plays right into the hands of inferior opponents.

According to Sharp Stats, the Packers are 22nd in the NFL in offensive pace. Playing slow on offense while making mistakes, and not making any big plays on defense, is a recipe for playing in the games the Packers typically find themselves in.

Can a team change its play style so late in the season? Are they willing to?

Just a week ago, Matt LaFleur told the Monday Night Football broadcast it wanted to muck up the game as much as possible.

That was against the Eagles. If he thought shortening the game against the defending champions, who have a better track record of executing than his own does, it makes sense why they have continued to play at such a slow pace.

If the Packers are going to play this way, they have to execute much better on both sides of the ball and make plays when they are available to them.

So far, those plays have not been made.

That might be good enough against the Cardinals and Giants of the world. Those games are not on the schedule anymore. The “easiest” game remaining for Green Bay over the next month is a home game on Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings.

With the way these Packers have lived all season, expect another nail-biter, with a lot of the same songs being played once the game is over.

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