Packers Report Card After Losing to Giants in London

The Green Bay Packers lost to the New York Giants 27-22 in London on Sunday. Here are the weekly grades, which include two F’s.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers saw their three-game winning streak disappear like a pint of Guinness in London on Sunday, a 27-22 loss as dreary as the English weather in November.

The Packers ignored Aaron Jones in key moments and were beaten by a hobbled quarterback and his backup receivers. The plan of attack on both sides of the ball left plenty to be desired.

“Certainly, there’s been a lot of struggles. That is this league,” coach Matt LaFleur said afterward. “We’ve just got to be more consistent, because there’s some moments where we look pretty good, but we have yet to put together a complete game as a team. It’s like every game has been one good half. That’s not good enough in this league. You’ve got to play every play like it’s your last, and if you don’t, you get your ass whipped.”

The Packers are 3-2 but there’s a standard they’ve played at throughout LaFleur’s tenure. This team seemingly is nowhere near playing at that level with any consistency, which is how they went from winning 17-3 to trailing 27-20. How far are the Packers from playing quality football for 60 minutes?

“Oh, man, I don’t know. That’s a tough question,” Rodgers said. “The cliché question would be ‘really close,’ but the actual answer is ‘unknown,’ honestly. There’s a standard that we’ve played at for a long time, and just because the faces change doesn’t mean the standard changes. That’s a hard concept to grasp at times.

“But we hold ourselves to a really high standard, I hold myself to a high standard, and we’re just not quite there yet. We’re five weeks in and there’s a lot of football left. We can’t squander any more games like this, though, because the NFC’s going to be pretty tough.”

Here are this week’s grades.

Passing Offense

Aaron Rodgers was 25-of-39 passing for 222 yards. His two touchdowns vs. zero interceptions made for an acceptable passer rating of 96.3. The reality is the passing game is almost entirely dependent on quick flips to the receivers. About two-thirds of his yards came after the catch. That’s nice, but only Randall Cobb broke a tackle. Nine of Rodgers’ completions were behind the line of scrimmage. On passes 10-plus yards downfield, he was 4-of-10.

For years, Rodgers has practically begged defensive coordinators to blitz. The Giants blitzed a lot. According to PFF, he was 9-of-17 for 70 yards. At 4.1 yards per attempt, that’s just not enough to make a defensive coordinator change his ways.

Cobb was the main man with seven receptions for 99 yards on 13 targets. He was the only player to average at least 10 yards per catch. The veteran can still play, to be sure, but is it healthy to have the offense running through a 32-year-old slot receiver? While Romeo Doubs caught only 3-of-5 passes for 29 yards, the ball has to go more to the rookie. He’s open.

On the bad three-and-out after the Giants tied the score, two receivers collided on first down and Rodgers just missed Cobb on second down for what would have moved the chains.

There will be other things to focus on this week than the play of right tackle Elgton Jenkins and whether there should be some big switcheroo on the line. Jenkins was really good against the Giants. From a protection standpoint, only right guard Royce Newman gave up a sack.

Grade: D.

Rushing Offense

The Packers rushed 20 times for 94 yards. Eliminate a minus-3 for receiver Christian Watson, that’s 19 carries by Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon for 97 yards, a sharp 5.1-yard average. It wasn’t as if that average was inflated by a couple big runs. The Packers’ long run was for only 11; their shortest run (other than Watson) was for 2 yards. That’s high-quality football against an opponent determined to stop the run.

Some weeks, Jones and Dillon pick up a big chunk of the yards on their own via elusiveness or brute force. On Sunday, the blockers did most of the work. The Packers made a lot of hay running to the right behind Elgton Jenkins and Royce Newman. Romeo Doubs had an excellent day. These weren’t runs, per se, but it was Doubs who helped fuel the touchdown pass to Allen Lazard and a completion to Randall Cobb the 2 to set up the other touchdown.

Grade: A-minus.

Passing Defense

Awful. Daniel Jones – who most Giants fans would label as a bust – completed 21-of-27 passes for 217 yards. There are who’s-who receiver corps and then are who’s-that receiver corps. With their top three out with injuries, this was the latter. Darius Slayton, who had one catch all season, caught 6-of-7 targets for 79 yards. He was just too fast.

As was the story in Minnesota in Week 1, it wasn’t as if the Giants were making a bunch of outrageous catches. They were open, they caught the ball and they sprinted for more yards. Green Bay’s supposedly elite secondary was flagged for four penalties – three by Rasul Douglas – and didn’t break up a single pass. Safety Darnell Savage was guilty of a penalty and whiffed on Saquon Barkley to account for about half of the 41-yard gain.

Preston Smith had the only sack and three of the four quarterback hits; penalties wiped out sacks by Rashan Gary and Jarran Reed.

Grade: F.

Rushing Defense

Green Bay’s Aaron Jones ran 13 times for 63 yards, a 4.8-yard average. New York’s Saquon Barkley ran 13 times for 70 yards, a 5.4 average. So, who had the better day? By average, Barkley. But Barkley’s day was padded by a 40-yard run. His other 12 carries gained 30. A guy like Barkley is going to make his plays. So, this was a solid day at the office.

With the punter’s safety taken out of the equation, the Giants ran 30 times for 128 yards with touchdowns by Barkley, backup Gary Brightwell and tight end Daniel Bellinger.

Was it better than last week vs. New England? By miles, especially in terms of edge-setting. Defensive tackles Kenny Clark and TJ Slaton had good days, too. Was it good enough? No. There was only one run for 0 or negative yards.

Grade: C-plus.

Special Teams

Green Bay’s kickoff coverage was strong. On Mason Crosby’s four kickoffs, the Giants’ average starting point was the 22. Punter Pat O’Donnell punted three times, allowed 0 return yards, had a 41.3-yard net average and pinned the Giants at the 9 late in the third quarter.

On the other hand, Christian Watson looked tentative on his first chances as kickoff returner, Amari Rodgers fumbled his only punt return and Keisean Nixon failed to recover what might have been the game-turning muffed punt. With Watson’s latest hamstring injury and Rodgers’ fumble, the return game is a mess.

Grade: C.

Coaching

The only man who could stop Aaron Jones was coach Matt LaFleur. Jones is the team’s best offensive player. A total of 16 opportunities (13 runs, two receptions, one incompletion) just isn’t good enough given his production and what was at stake.

The only man who can turn Daniel Jones and Darius Slayton into Eli Manning and Hakeem Nicks is Joe Barry. If Jones can lead that injury-plagued offense to 27 points, how many points are Josh Allen and the mighty Bills going to score in three weeks?

The offense doesn’t have an identity and the defense doesn’t seem able to take advantage of its perceived personnel advantages.

These next two games, at home against the Jets (3-2) on Sunday and at the Commanders (1-4), are absolutely vital. They’re two winnable games. Then again, if you’re Jets coach Robert Saleh or Commanders coach Ron Rivera, you’re probably thinking the same. At least they’ll be at home to face the Jets so LaFleur won’t have to grumble about the travel.

Grade: F.

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