Packers Remain Near Bottom of Aikman Efficiency Rankings

Due in large part to the Week 1 debacle against the New Orleans Saints, the Packers are 29th in the Hall of Famer's stats-based rankings.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – What do the Green Bay Packers have in common with the winless Indianapolis Colts, New York Jets and Jacksonville Jaguars?

They’re near the bottom of The Aikman Efficiency Ratings, which are published weekly by The33rdTeam.com.

Due in large part to the Week 1 debacle against the New Orleans Saints, the Packers rank 29th – a few spots behind No. 26 Indianapolis and just ahead of No. 30 New York and No. 31 Jacksonville.

The Buffalo Bills are first and the Miami Dolphins are last. The Packers’ opponent this week, the Pittsburgh Steelers, are 24th.

The Aikman Efficiency Ratings measure seven categories of performance on offense and defense. Devised by Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman in 2005 and compiled by Sportsradar, “they provide a better measure of the qualities that win football games than simply total yards gained, the method used by the NFL to rank offenses and defenses.”

Despite back-to-back games of 30-plus points, Green Bay ranks only 23rd on offense with 81.0 points. The league average is 84.8. Two big factors are its rushing attack and third-down performance. The Packers are 29th in yards per carry and 21st on third down after finishing seventh and second, respectively, in those departments last season. Based on last week's performance alone, Green Bay was 12th.

Having played two good quarters in Week 2 against Detroit and two good quarters last week against San Francisco, Green Bay is 31st on defense with 51.0 points. The league average is 65.4. The Packers are underperforming in every phase of Aikman’s ratings, but third down (30th) and red zone (tied for last) are the most critical factors. In fact, the Packers are one of only three teams to not have a single red-zone stop. Green Bay's performance vs. the 49ers ranked 25th.


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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.