Packers Report Card: Defense Delivers Special Win Over Buccaneers

The Green Bay Packers beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a Week 3 showdown. Here are the unit grades, with high marks for run defense and special teams.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers’ victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers wasn’t a work of art if only viewed from the Aaron Rodgers-centric prism of offensive greatness.

Yes, the offense went in the tank after Aaron Jones’ goal-line fumble. However, there’s more than one way to skin a cat – just like there’s more than one phase in football. A talented defense and a surging special teams stepped into the vacuum to provide the 14-12 victory. The win was secured by De’Vondre Campbell’s soaring breakup of Tom Brady’s two-point pass.

“We knew it was going to be a battle, a four-quarter battle,” coach Matt LaFleur said afterward. “And give the Bucs a ton of credit. They battled, they hung in there and it came down to that last play. One thing we always talk to our guys about is just how do you respond when adversity strikes, and I thought that, specifically, our defense to allow a touchdown there in the 2-minute drive and just to kind of reset themselves and play that final play, I just loved how we responded. I think it was a gritty team win.”

Generally, when the Packers haven’t scored points by the bushel over the years, they’ve lost. Since Rodgers took over at quarterback in 2008, the Packers were just 8-42 when scoring less than 20 points.

No matter how many style points you want to give it, the victory improved Green Bay’s record to 2-1.

“Every team is going to face adversity throughout the course of the season, and it really doesn’t matter,” LaFleur said. “Nobody really cares. It’s about finding ways to win a game and I was proud that we did that tonight. It’s never easy. I told our guys we’ll never apologize for winning. You’ve just got to find a way and we did.”

Here are this week’s unit grades.

Passing Offense

It was a tale of two halves. During the first half, Aaron Rodgers was 15-of-18 passing for 171 yards and two touchdowns. With a gaudy 9.5 yards per attempt, his passer rating was 143.3. During the second half, Rodgers was 12-of-17 passing for 84 yards with one interception. His yards per attempt dipped to a woeful 4.9; it was 3.6 without the 26-yard completion to Allen Lazard in the fourth quarter. His passer rating was 57.0.

Romeo Doubs was a bright spot. He caught all eight targets for 73 yards and one touchdown. After playing 60 snaps the first two games, he played 55 with Sammy Watkins and Christian Watson on the sideline. That needs to continue. He’s got an extra gear that everyone else (other than Watson) lacks. That was apparent on a third-and-8 completion on Green Bay’s second touchdown drive. Doubs caught the ball at the line of scrimmage and turned on the jets, running past the defender’s angle for a gain of 9 and a first down. Randall Cobb, sick all week, got only two targets but caught them both and ran like a 28-year-old who hadn't needed a tissue in weeks.

Tampa Bay’s defense dominated the second half. No matter the third-down situation, Rodgers threw the ball short and the pass-catcher was tackled on the wrong side of the sticks. Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon combined to catch five passes for 17 yards, with the Jones fumble being the obvious game-changer. Robert Tonyan caught six for 37. A harsh grader might give Dillon the only drop.

Helped by the return of David Bakhtiari, the pass protection was pretty good considering the quality of the opponent. Shaq Barrett, who led the NFL in sacks in 2019, was kept quiet. Logan Hall got the only sack, though that was as much coverage-related as a knock on right guard Royce Newman.

“The protection I thought was great,” Rodgers said. “I got hit maybe three or four times with one sack. That’s kind of a dream type of day, especially against that front on the road.”

Grade: C.

Rushing Offense

Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon helped the Packers top 200 rushing yards last week. They would have needed about 70 carries to reach 200 yards vs. Tampa Bay.

Jones carried 12 times for 36 yards (3.0 average; 10-yard long) and Dillon carried 12 times for 32 yards (2.7 average; 7-yard long). Of their 68 rushing yards, 53 came after contact, so there was not much daylight. A week after he broke 12 tackles by our count, Jones broke only two. Dillon didn’t break any. He just hasn’t had anywhere to go, no ability to pick up a head of steam.

The ballyhooed Jones-Dillon packages, the supposed lifeblood of an evolving offense, did next to nothing. Early in the fourth quarter, with the Packers needing a couple first downs for what might have been a clinching field goal, they faced a third-and-2. Dillon motioned left, with the hope that outside linebacker Joe Tryon-Shoyinka would take the bait and give Jones a crease. Nope. Unblocked, he dropped Jones for minus-2.

Grade: D.

Passing Defense

With Tom Brady lining up without receivers Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Julio Jones and left tackle Donovan Smith, the Packers had to win this matchup. And they did. Brady completed 31-of-42 passes but, like Rodgers, a lot of the completions were do-nothing fluff.

Until the final drive, the pass rush was strong. Defensive tackle Kenny Clark had two sacks, though fellow defensive lineman Jarran Reed did most of the work on one. Clark and Rashan Gary, who had the other sack, have been dominant through three games.

With the Buccaneers short-handed at receiver, Jaire Alexander went out with a groin injury on the opening series. That evened things a bit, but Rasul Douglas is a stud no matter where he lines up, Eric Stokes is a stud so long as he’s not lining up in Minneapolis and Keisean Nixon came off the bench to deliver a forced fumble and big-time pass breakup. Nixon played 273 defensive snaps in three seasons with the Raiders but is a more-than-competent next man up. He gave up a bunch of completions but nothing killer. His two big plays were of far greater importance.

The power of Tampa Bay’s defense is its inside linebackers, Devin White and Lavonte David. Green Bay has De’Vondre Campbell and Quay Walker. Campbell might have saved the victory with his two-point breakup and Walker forced a turnover. Is three games into a career too early to proclaim Walker a future star?

Oh, and remember all those missed tackles last week? By our count, the Packers missed only one. That was by Campbell on the play that Walker forced a fumble.

Grade: B.

Rushing Defense

Watching Leonard Fournette bottled up at the line of scrimmage, then finding a crease for a decent gain, you might have thought the Packers’ run defense struggled. Not so. Fournette carried 12 times for 35 yards. That’s a 2.9-yard average with a long gain of 6.

Given how proficient Tom Brady is in the play-action passing game, the Packers needed to stop Fournette. And they did. Kenny Clark stuffed Fournette on a third-and-1 on the opening series to help set the tone. Of the Bucs’ 19 first downs, only one came on a running play. What a luxury to have big T.J. Slaton as the No. 4 defensive lineman.

Grade: A.

Special Teams

Pat O’Donnell punted seven times. Officially, for stats purposes, five pinned the Buccaneers inside their 20. Actually, the five pinned the Bucs inside their 15. One of those was caught by Keisean Nixon at the 2. That should have been a huge play in the game, with the defense forcing a three-and-out punt, but Tipa Galeai was flagged for running into the punter. It was a horrendous call – infinitely worse than the stupid delay-of-game chatter on the Bucs’ final touchdown – and resulted in a 33-yard change of field position.

Amari Rodgers returned two punts for 21 yards. Without the phantom penalty on Galeai, he would have had three returns for 49 yards. He had an odd-ball fair catch in the fourth quarter in which he had acres of running room. Perhaps he was told to fair catch that one, no matter what.

After missing the final two days of the practice week due to illness, Mason Crosby made both extra points and produced touchbacks on two of his three kickoffs. He hasn’t missed a kick in three games, though there haven’t been any hugely challenging attempts, either.

Grade: B-plus.

Coaching

Matt LaFleur’s offensive game plan worked to perfection until Aaron Jones’ goal-line fumble. That turned the tide. Offensively, the Packers couldn’t recapture the momentum or solve the adjustments made by Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles. Receiver Amari Rodgers’ butt is Gorilla glued to the bench, which is a shame because of what he showed on some of those jet-sweep runs during the preseason. Maybe one of those, or at least the threat of one of those, would have helped.

Defensively, Joe Barry was more aggressive than in the first two games, a recognition of the Buccaneers’ injuries and the need to keep Tom Brady on his toes at least a little bit. He went soft on the final drive but was bailed out by De’Vondre Campbell.

This isn’t a coaching point, but give GM Brian Gutekunst major credit for the signings of Nixon, Rudy Ford, Dallin Leavitt and O’Donnell. Those weren’t sexy moves but those players have been huge assets on special teams (and Nixon on defense, too).

Grade: B-minus.

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