Packer Central

Three Overreactions From Packers’ Loss to Vikings

The Green Bay Packers lost 31-29 to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. Here are our three big takeaways from a key NFC North defeat.

Bill Huber

Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love throws a pass to Green Bay Packers wide receiver Romeo Doubs on Sunday.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love throws a pass to Green Bay Packers wide receiver Romeo Doubs on Sunday. / Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers lost 31-29 to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. It was 28-0 in the second quarter before the Packers started playing football at a competent level.

Ultimately, the defense was terrible in the first half, Jordan Love made too many mistakes and the comeback stalled.

Here are this week’s Overreactions.

1. Only Thing That Matters Is Jordan Love’s Fourth Quarter

The Packers trailed 28-7 when Love and the offense huddled up with 33 seconds left in the third quarter. With almost 45 minutes complete, Love was a woeful 17-of-35 passing for 167 yards. Along with two interceptions, he threw several passes that were too low for his receivers to handle.

“I just wasn’t playing well enough. I think ball placement was a little all over the place today,” Love said.

Love caught fire down the stretch, though. During the five possessions spanning those final seconds of the third quarter through his touchdown pass to Dontayvion Wicks with 56 seconds to play, Love was 15-of-19 passing for 222 yards.

Yes, he threw one terrible interception on an ill-advised bomb to Wicks against a first-down blitz by Harrison Smith. But, after a lackluster game against Philadelphia and a dismal return to the lineup against Minnesota, Love showed signs of being the quarterback who dominated down the stretch last year.

Too often, Love looked like the all-or-nothing quarterback that plagued the team during last year’s 3-6 start. According to Pro Football Focus, he threw 10 passes 20-plus yards downfield. That’s three more than any other quarterback. He also threw 14 passes between 10 and 19 yards downfield, tied with Houston’s C.J. Stroud for No. 1.

Added together, Love was 9-of-24 passing on throws of 10-plus yards. Stroud was next with 17 throws of 10-plus yards.

Of course, some of that was due to the situation. The Packers were so far behind that there wasn’t time to dink-and-dunk their way down the field. But Love was overly aggressive throughout the entire game.

The big takeaway, though, is how Love finished. Sure, Brian Flores’ defense probably let its guard down a bit with the game seemingly under control, but Love’s play during a furious comeback was encouraging.

“Jordan is Jordan, man,” receiver Jayden Reed said. “He’s Him, in my opinion. I’ve never had a different opinion. He showed week in, week out, what he can do.”

Up next: the Rams, who statistically have the worst pass defense in the NFL. Los Angeles is 32nd in yards allowed per attempt (8.62), 31st in opponent passer rating (122.7), 24th in interception percentage (0.98) and 22nd in sack percentage (6.86).

With Los Angeles ranking 31st with 28.8 points allowed per game, there’s a chance for Love to get rolling and the Packers to regain their contender status.

2. Secondary Changes Are Needed

Injures aren’t an excuse, of course, but the next man up is the next man up for a reason.

Especially when a star like Jaire Alexander is out of action.

Without Alexander and Carrington Valentine, the Packers really didn’t have much hope of slowing down a Vikings passing attack led by All-Pro receiver Justin Jefferson.

So, it’s not really a surprise that Sam Darnold went 20-of-28 passing for 275 yards and three touchdowns on Sunday. And it was no surprise that the Vikings drove to an insurance field goal after Love pulled the team within 28-22 with 10:16 remaining.

Whenever the Vikings needed a play, they could get Jefferson matched against Eric Stokes or Keisean Nixon and get a completion. So, with Minnesota on the ropes a bit, Darnold hit Jefferson for gains of 17 and 27 yards. That set up a field goal to boost the Vikings’ lead to 31-22.

One drive later, Darnold hit Jefferson for 13 yards on third-and-12 and Jordan Addison for 18 more on the next play as the Vikings burned half the remaining 4 minutes before stalling at the Packers’ 4.

Once Alexander and Valentine are healthy, defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley might want to consider focusing on Alexander and Valentine as the perimeter corners, rookie safety Javon Bullard in the slot and Xavier McKinney and Evan Williams as the safeties.

Going with two rookies as “starters” in the defensive backfield might come with some growing pains, but that unit probably has the most upside with an eye toward the playoffs.

3. Where Are Packers’ Big-Name Defenders?

The Packers handed Rashan Gary and Kenny Clark enormous contracts because they’ve been high-impact players. That impact has been missing through four games.

Clark has 10 tackles. By the official stats, he has no sacks, no quarterback hits and no tackles for losses. Of 75 interior defenders with at least 50 pass-rushing snaps, Clark is a mediocre 38th in PFF’s pass-rushing productivity, which measures sacks, hits and hurries per pass-rushing snap. He has nine pressures but no hits.

Gary has nine tackles. He has one sack, when he was unblocked against Philadelphia, and no other tackles for losses. His only two quarterback hits came against the Eagles, so he’s been missing in action the past three games. Of 82 edge defenders with 50 pass-rushing opportunities, Gary ranks 68th in PFF’s pass-rush metric. He tied for 56th with six pressures and is 79th in pass-rush win rate.

At least both players played good run defense against the Vikings, playing key roles in limiting Aaron Jones to 1.2 yards per carry less than his season mark.

By average annual salary, Clark ranks 11th among interior defensive linemen and Gary ranks eighth among edge defenders. For that kind of money, the Packers should expect them to be game-changers. They have not been anything of the sort.

Green Bay’s highest-paid defenders by average salary are Clark, Alexander, Preston Smith and Gary. Against the Vikings, Clark (four tackles), Gary (four tackles) and Smith (two tackles) combined for 10 tackles, zero tackles for losses and zero quarterback hits, and Alexander was inactive. Really, only safety Xavier McKinney has lived up to the hype among Green Bay’s high-priced veteran defenders.

“Crazy,” Gary said of the Packers going from trailing 28-0 to losing 31-29. “NFL game, that's what you expect: a full 60-minute battle. I feel like we started off slow and then we came out, third and fourth quarter and played how we supposed to play. If we would have played like that for the first and second quarter, the game would be the outcome that we wanted.”

That falls on Green Bay’s best players to get that done. Whether it’s a game-changing play when things are going off the rails or the game-winning play in the final moments of a big division game, those impact plays have been nonexistent. 

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packer Central, 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.