Packers vs. Bills: Three Reasons to Worry

The Green Bay Packers will play at the Buffalo Bills on Sunday night. The Bills, led by quarterback Josh Allen, are a powerhouse that will present a lot of challenges.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers are 10.5-point underdogs for Sunday night’s game against the Buffalo Bills. For obvious reasons. These are two teams – and two franchises – headed in opposite directions.

The Packers, a cumulative 39-10 the past three seasons, are a disappointing 3-4 and losers of three straight. A supposedly strong defense hasn’t been good enough to offset the trade of Davante Adams.

The Bills, who failed to make the playoffs from 2000 through 2016, are a rising power. After reaching the AFC Championship Game in 2020 and losing in a shootout in the divisional round in 2021, they seem poised to take the next step that has eluded the Packers for so long. They have everything, including the star quarterback-receiver combination the Packers enjoyed throughout most of Aaron Rodgers’ spectacular run.

There are innumerable reasons to worry this week. Here are three.

Bills QB Josh Allen

Packers outside linebacker Preston Smith came up with a great one-liner to describe the challenge of going against quarterback Josh Allen.

“He’s like the hulk with an arm.”

Allen enters Sunday ranked first in passing yards per game and second in passer rating (109.1), yards per attempt (8.28) and touchdown percentage (7.1). With 17 passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns, his 19 total touchdowns trends to a season total of 55. Peyton Manning holds the NFL record with 56.

This stat perfectly encapsulates the state of the offenses: Allen is averaging 330.0 passing yards per game. The Packers are averaging 331.6 yards of total offense. He throws the deep ball better than perhaps any quarterback in the NFL. Aside from Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson, he runs the ball better than perhaps any quarterback, too.

And he’s got the weapons. Rodgers used to flourish with the all-around excellence of Davante Adams attracting all the defensive eyeballs and Marquez Valdes-Scantling stretching the defense vertically. The Bills have the equivalent of Adams with Stefon Diggs along with a vastly upgraded version of MVS with Gabe Davis. Of Davis’ 22 touchdowns between regular season and playoffs in his two-plus seasons, 11 have covered at least 20 yards. In Week 5 against Pittsburgh, he scored on plays of 98 and 62 yards.

“We have to play together and not allow him to have any good reads and make sure we don’t allow him to have a comfortable pocket,” Smith said. “We’ve got to create pressure and make him have to make decisions under pressure and make him have to make decisions he really don’t want to make and speed up his process.”

Bills LBs Matt Milano and Tre Edmunds

Where do you start on Buffalo’s defense? Is it the pass rush? Led by edge defenders Von Miller (six sacks) and Gregory Rousseau (four), the Bills are fourth in sack percentage. Is it the coverage? Led by safety Jordan Poyer (four), the Bills are first in interception percentage.

Offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich started his breakdown with the underrated linebacker duo of Matt Milano and Tre Edmunds.

“Their linebackers are extremely athletic and extremely physical, so they do a really good job playing the run and playing the pass,” he said. “They can cover that second-level space really well. So, that’s one thing you have to take into account when you’re trying to attack their defense. Up front, Von Miller, obviously, really good pass rusher, so you’ve got to be aware of him, where he’s at at all times, and then their interior guys are physical big guys. So, it’s going to be a challenge in all phases to really get after these guys.”

With DaQuan Jones, Ed Oliver and Jordan Phillips anchoring the middle of their defense and Edmunds and Milano doing their thing, the Bills rank No. 1 in the NFL with 3.52 yards allowed per rushing play. So, running the ball – should the Packers actually choose to run the ball – won’t be easy.

Defensively, Buffalo ranks seventh on first down (5.15 yards per play). Offensively, Green Bay ranks 22nd (5.24). That’s the formula for the Bills: Stop the opponent on first down and attack on third down.

The Packers are going to have to run the ball, period and better, than they have the past couple weeks to avoid those third-down challenges. The Packers are 25th on third down overall at 35.4 percent. They’ve faced third-and-7 to third-and-10 the third-most times in the league (31) and converted only 29.0. percent. They’re 0-for-8 on third downs requiring 11-plus yards.

The Second Half

We hit on this earlier in the week: The Packers have been awful during the second half, their minus-43 point differential being second-worst in the NFL entering Week 8. The Bills, on the other hand, are a league-best plus-67 in the second half. They are what Packers coach Matt LaFleur aspired to be: all gas and no brake. They are plus-44 in the third quarter (No. 1) and plus-23 in the fourth (No. 8).

For Green Bay’s offense, one problem has been the running game – or lack of it. The Packers have run the ball only 72 times in the second half, those 10.3 attempts per game being fifth-fewest. It’s not as if they’ve had to abandon the run because they’ve been in big-time catch-up mode. They’ve stopped running the ball by choice. And it hasn’t worked. Rodgers’ third-down passer rating is 79.6.

Defensively, during the second half of the loss to the Giants and in the losses to the Jets and Commanders, Green Bay has given up nine scores in 11 possessions.

“We’ve got to take advantage of the opps that we’ve had to get off the field,” defensive coordinator Joe Barry said this week. “We a couple brutal third-down losses in Washington last week. We had the third-and-11, we had the third-and-9. Great coverage, they made a play, we didn’t. We had another third down that we got a huge sack-fumble and then a scoop and score for a touchdown that was taken away. We’ve been pretty damn good on third down all year long but, for whatever reason in those games, when you’ve got to an opportunity to get off the field, you’ve got to cash in.”

Let’s put a bow on these notes. Green Bay has lost three consecutive games. During the second halves of those games, it’s converted 28.6 percent on third down (29th) and allowed 60.0 percent conversions (29th). On offense, the problem has been third down itself. Green Bay’s average required gain of 5.6 yards is eighth-shortest but it’s gained an incredibly feeble 1.8 yards on those plays. On defense, the problem has been the early downs. Opponents have needed 5.0 yards to move the chains, fourth-shortest, and have rushed for 17 first downs, tied for the most.

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