Packer Central

Three Overreactions From Packers’ Latest Loss to Vikings

Call this the “The Sky Is Falling” edition of our weekly Overreactions following the Green Bay Packers’ loss to the Minnesota Vikings. Plus, you must check out these Edgerrin Cooper stats.

Bill Huber

Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love (10) leaves the field after the game against Minnesota Vikings.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love (10) leaves the field after the game against Minnesota Vikings. / Brad Rempel-Imagn Images
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers lost to the Minnesota Vikings 27-25 on Sunday. The Packers are 11-5 but the sky is falling.

Here are this week’s Overreactions.

1. Yes, the Sky Is Falling

The Packers will wrap up the regular season against the Chicago Bears on Sunday.

Packers fans are resigned to another season without going to the Super Bowl. For many, a 12-win season will be met with a shrug of the shoulders.

If the Bears had a chance to win 12 games, they’d throw a parade. Instead, they’ve lost 10 in a row to fall to 4-12. They went 12-4 in 2018, their only winning season since 2012.

I’m not saying Packers fans should be excited. I feel like I need to trademark the phrase because I’ve used it a lot over the years, but this is Titletown. This isn’t Wildcardville. The Packers have won a lot of games since winning the Super Bowl in 2010. They just haven’t won enough big games.

This year, they haven’t won any big games.

Just look at the NFC North sweeps by the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings.

Week 4: Vikings 31, Packers 29

Week 9: Lions 24, Packers 14

Week 14: Lions 34, Packers 31

Week 17: Vikings 27, Packers 25

The record will reflect Green Bay went 0-4 by a total of 17 points. One call, one bounce, one play that was almost made could have changed those games.

Or so it seems. These were the halftime scores of those games:

Week 4: Vikings 28, Packers 7

Week 9: Lions 17, Packers 3

Week 14: Lions 17, Packers 7

Week 17: Vikings 13, Packers 3

That’s an average deficit of about 14 points.

The Packers have a big-game problem. Thanks Capt. Obvious, right?

Yeah, the Packers are young, but that’s such an excuse. Green Bay went to the playoffs last year, added two big-time players in free agency and have a zillion-dollar quarterback who’s started two full seasons. The Washington Commanders, who have won four in a row, went from 4-13 to 11-5 with a rookie quarterback.

Jordan Love hasn’t taken that second-year jump as a starter. Jeff Hafley’s defense has done a lot of good things but the losses at Detroit and Minnesota the last four weeks were a case of the same old, same old. Only George Seifert won more games in his first six seasons than Matt LaFleur, but he’s 0-5 this year against the NFC’s heavyweights.

LaFleur, Love and many of the players sang the same stale tune after Sunday’s game.

“It’s hard when you put yourself in a hole and are down early and just kind of shooting yourself in the foot,” Love said.

He’s right, actually, but great teams have healthy feet and more wins. At this point, it’s excuse-making because who wants to admit the other teams are better?

Safety Xavier McKinney gets it. There’s nothing good that comes from a narrow loss against a division rival.

“We already felt this feeling,” he said. “We’re 1-4 (against the NFC North). It ain’t like we haven’t lost a division game already. Me personally, we already felt this. So, we got to take it upon ourselves to change that narrative. We can’t just sit up here and talk about, ‘Oh well, we don’t want…’

“Like, we already went through this feeling. Either we change it or we don’t. If we don’t, it’s not going to be good for us. We got to take initiative.”

Who will take that initiative? Not for this coming week against Chicago or the playoffs against Philadelphia. But in the big picture.

Love isn’t going anywhere. LaFleur isn’t going anywhere. Generally speaking, the heart of the defense isn’t going anywhere.

Somehow, something’s got to change, though, because why should 2025 be any different than 2024 or 2023 or 2022? The Packers aren’t in danger of becoming the Bears, but they aren’t striking any fear into the Packers or Vikings anytime soon.

2. Edgerrin Cooper Takes Next Step

The Packers’ defense was generally decent under Joe Barry. It’s been pretty good in Year 1 under Jeff Hafley.

If there’s reason to believe the Packers could really have a great defense – the kind of defense that can win a championship – it’s because they might have a great linebacker.

Edgerrin Cooper, the two-time NFC Defensive Player of the Week, won’t win the award this week, but he was productive again with 10 tackles, including four tackles for losses.

Cooper has 12 tackles for losses this season, most among all players in this year’s rookie class and No. 1 among all off-the-ball linebackers, regardless of experience.

Among rookie off-the-ball linebackers, he has more TFLs than anyone since Tampa Bay Buccaneers star Lavonte David had 20 in 2012. David went on to become a first-or second-team All-Pro three times.

On Monday, coach Matt LaFleur was a little critical of Cooper’s play against the Vikings – not in a bad way but in an acknowledgement of his prodigious potential.

“I thought he made a lot of splash plays, but there was a lot of plays that we’ve got to make that really hurt us, as well. So, I’d say it was a mixed bag,” LaFleur said.

“I think he’s so talented and I think the sky’s the limit for him and I love having him. But it’s just the consistency of which you play. You’ve got to make sure you’re dialed in. We know he’s an incredible talent and he’s going to make some splash plays, and he did, but I think there’s another level there that I think he can continue to take his game to.”

Another level could be scary good: Cooper is the only player in the NFL with at least 80 tackles (including special teams) and 12 tackles for losses.

3. The Biggest Coaching Failure

The Packers don’t have Justin Jefferson. But they do have Jayden Reed.

Reed leads the team with 53 receptions and 809 receiving yards. During the first half of the season, he had three big games: four catches for 138 yards and one touchdown against Philadelphia, seven catches for 139 yards and one touchdown at home against Minnesota and five catches for 113 yards at home against Detroit.

The Packers lost all three of those games, but he was their best offensive player and showed signs of becoming the team’s next star receiver.

And then he disappeared. In the loss at Detroit three weeks ago, he caught zero passes and was targeted only once. Against Minnesota on Sunday, he caught 1-of-4 targets for 6 yards. Over the last seven games, he has 17 receptions for 189 yards. Six times, he had less than 35 yards.

“Every game is a little bit different in terms of it’s easy to get a guy involved if you’re doing end-arounds and all of that stuff, because it’s just like getting a running back involved: you can turn around and hand him the ball,” coach Matt LaFleur said.

“It’s much more difficult in the passing game. Some of it’s coming down to when we get one-on-one opps, we’ve got to win, and other times, yeah, I think that you can put him at the focal point at the point of attack, and there were certainly some instances where we tried to do that.”

LaFleur said it would have been “feast or famine” running end-arounds against the Vikings’ “style of defense.” Nonetheless, Reed is too talented to not get the ball in some fashion, whether it’s in the screen game or crossing routes.

All of Green Bay’s passing-game targets bring something to the party, so that naturally limits opportunities. But Reed has that “it” factor. Instead of being a featured part of the game plan, he’s been all but invisible down the stretch.

For the Packers to have any chance to make some noise in the playoffs, Reed must be a much larger focal point of the passing attack.

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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.