Packers Report Card: Grades From Victory Over Seahawks

The Packers’ commanding victory over the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday night was highlighted by the play of Jeff Hafley’s defense, which received the top grades in our report card.

Green Bay Packers cornerback Carrington Valentine (24) intercepts a pass against Seattle Seahawks tight end Noah Fant. / Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

Yes, the Green Bay Packers can beat good teams.

All four of Green Bay’s losses had come against teams ahead of them in the playoff chase.

This week, they faced a healthy team that had won four straight games.

The result? A tone-setting drive from Josh Jacobs and final haymakers thrown by Romeo Doubs and Edgerrin Cooper.

Here are the grades from what was a dominant 30-13 win over the Seattle Seahawks.

Pass Offense

Romeo Doubs welcomed himself back to the lineup, scoring two touchdowns, including the knockout punch late in the fourth quarter.

Pass protection was mostly good against a Seattle front that threw everything at the Packers. They seemingly had an answer anytime Love was asked to drop back to pass.

Christian Watson and Jayden Reed were more involved in the offense, with Watson making a nifty toe-tapping grab deep down the sideline for a gain of 36 in the first half.

The story, however, was Jordan Love. He was excellent again, finishing 20-of-27 passing with two touchdown passes. He was not sacked. He did not turn the ball over.

He looks as healthy as he has all season.

There was clearly an emphasis in the run game and a possession-style passing game, but Love is as capable as any quarterback in dialing up a big play when the team needs one.

It’s hard to win in the postseason without a great quarterback. The Packers certainly have one. They have to feel good about their chances against any team in any environment.

Grade: B-plus

Rush Offense

Green Bay’s offense had a clear theme to start the night.

Get the ball to Josh Jacobs.

Jacobs touched the ball nine times on the team’s first 10 plays, including a touchdown run to kick off the scoring.

Green Bay’s offense imposed its will in the first half. Jacobs was excellent in the first half, carrying the load for the offense.

The second half was different. Seattle clearly made adjustments.

After a big first half of 14 carries for 73 yards, Jacobs had 12 rushes for 21 yards in the second half. He fumbled early in the fourth quarter and was stuffed on a fourth-down attempt with about 5 minutes to play when the Packers were trying to salt away the game.

With the Packers mere inches from clinching a playoff spot, one has to wonder if they should consider limiting Jacobs’ workload in the final three regular-season games.

Jacobs touched the ball 30 times to move his total to 296 for the season, and they’ll want to have him fresh for what they hope is a deep postseason run.

High marks for setting the tone for the night, but not as high as they could have been due to a quiet second half.

Grade: B

Pass Defense

The challenge for the pass rush was pretty pronounced.

With the trio of receivers that Seattle boasts, the pass rush was going to need to do some yeoman’s work with Green Bay’s secondary playing shorthanded.

Just like the Packers had to count on the run game when Malik Willis had to start at quarterback against the Colts, the plan against the Seahawks had to include a big night from a pass rush that has plenty of investment but not enough results.

Against the Seahawks, they answered the bell.

Quarterbacks Geno Smith and Sam Howell were under duress from the moment the game started.

Green Bay had seven sacks from six players.

Carrington Valentine took points off the board with an interception in the end zone. That was the first of his career.

Edgerrin Cooper was a force in the passing game, with a sack in the first quarter, the hit that ended Smith’s night in the third quarter and an interception in the fourth quarter that ended any hopes Seattle might have had for an improbable comeback.

Jeff Hafley and this defensive line were the biggest stars of the game.

Considering how shorthanded they were, this game went as well as they could have hoped.

Grade: A

Rush Defense

This assignment for Green Bay’s defense did get a little easier when Kenneth Walker was ruled out, giving way to the Zach Charbonnet Show.

Charbonnet had one big play, a 24-yard touchdown run that pulled the Seahawks within 10.

Apart from that, it was tough sledding for Seattle’s rushing offense against this rejuvenated run defense in Green Bay. With that one long run out of the equation, Green Bay allowed just 3.7 yards per carry.

Seattle had 16 carries for 80 yards.

This group has answered the bell all season, which might be the biggest surprise, considering the history of the Packers’ ability, or lack thereof, to stop the run.

Grade: A

Special Teams

This group was solid if unspectacular with a couple of warts showing up at the wrong time.

Jaelon Darden had a 37-yard kickoff return to open the second half for the Seahawks

Jayden Reed avoided disaster when he recovered a punt that he muffed.

Daniel Whelan had an awful punt out of his own end  zone that gave the Seahawks great field position.

Brandon McManus continued his solid run. He made all of his kicks, including all three field goals. In seven games, he’s missed only one off his 32 kicks. Keisean Nixon averaged 32.7 yards per kickoff return.

It was not a great game for Green Bay’s special teams, but it could have been worse.

Grade: C

Coaching

Matt LaFleur gets credit for having his team ready to play in a big spot on the road in a primetime game.

There was one thing, however, that was the most head-scratching moment of the night.

After a 26-yard completion to Tucker Kraft got the Packers in business before the 2-minute warning, Josh Jacobs ran the ball twice and Jayden Reed caught a short pass. The Packers went from 2:00 on the clock to 16 seconds while running only three plays.

LaFleur and Jordan Love’s Matt Eberflus-esque clock management was bailed out by pass interference on Seahawks cornerback Tariq Woolen that gave Green Bay the ball at Seattle’s 4 with 4 seconds left in the half.

Had the Packers not wasted so much time by not calling either of their two timeouts, they would have had an opportunity to punch the ball into the end zone.

Instead, a short field goal gave the Packers a 20-3 lead at halftime.

“It was a moment where I was indecisive and then didn’t want to call timeout because too much time had ticked off the clock, and then I should have called timeout and didn’t,” he explained. “It was just poor management and something that can’t happen.”

It’s hard to have too many complaints when a team is leading by 17 points on the road at halftime, but this is certainly something that was odd, to say the least.

That carried over to the second half.

LaFleur, learning nothing from his predecessor’s mistakes in Seattle 10 years ago, went into a shell.

Perhaps LaFleur was simply trying to get out of Seattle after his team built a 23-6 lead, knowing that Sam Howell was going to be taking a majority of the snaps.

LaFleur’s lack of aggressiveness was met with another odd challenge in the fourth quarter. He is 0-for-6 on challenges this season.

Green Bay was good enough to win with their head coach having one of the more baffling games in recent memory.

They’ll need him to be much better in two weeks against Minnesota.

The star of the game was defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley.

Hafley came into the game short-handed at cornerback and staring a good wide receiver trio in the face.

He sent pressure. He sent as few as two guys.

He played man coverage. He played zone.

The Seahawks did not score a touchdown until the fourth quarter. Their pass rush was all over the field, and seemingly had an answer each time Seattle had built any momentum.

A gold star from Hafley saves a brutal night from his boss.

Grade: B 

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A big win by the #Packers, a big shakeup in the NFC playoff race, a big change in the potential playoff opponent.https://t.co/oCtgEinthz

— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) December 16, 2024

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