The Green Bay Packers offense looked masterful for the first three drives of Saturday’s game. Running 27 plays, scoring 21 points, and gaining 203 yards created an impressive start against the Carolina Panthers. However, the offense would sputter, scoring only three points in the second half. The harsh reality is Green Bay has yet to have a complete performance.
“Tonight was definitely a stinker for the offense,” as eloquently stated by Aaron Rodgers in his postgame interview.
“I’m not a big believer in teams lightening it up or losing focus. This comes down to execution, and we didn’t execute to start the second half. That’s why they got back in the game.”
At halftime, the Packers held a 21-3 lead and also received the second-half kickoff. However, in the third quarter alone, they would punt the ball three times and pick up only 21 yards of offense. There was no rhythm in the play calling, throws weren’t on time, and there was no sense of urgency like viewers saw in the first half.
“It wasn’t the best performance, more specifically on the offensive side of the ball,” said coach Matt LaFleur.
Green Bay ran the ball very efficiently through the first two quarters. Aaron Jones finished the game with 20 carries for 145 yards, however, 114 of those came in the first half. Rodgers also pointed to the offense struggling to get the ball to wide receiver Davante Adams as the game progressed. Rodgers completed just one pass to Adams in the second half for two yards.
To their credit, the Panthers did a lot of things well defensively in the third and fourth quarter, with the main one being their focus to take away Adams. According to Rodgers, Carolina was able to mitigate looks to Adams by playing a lot of soft coverage. Adams also rarely saw single coverage.
“But we gotta keep finding ways to get him the ball,” said Rodgers.
Adams has been the focal point of Green Bay’s offense for the entire season. If teams limit his production, naturally the Packers will have to adjust much better than they did. In this case, they faced an inferior team, and the defense put forth a strong performance.
By the end of the third quarter, the Panthers had scored one touchdown but were on their way toward another scoring drive. Luckily, Green Bay’s defense hung tough for most of the night. A huge forced fumble on the one-yard line in the second quarter helped prevent a scoring drive for Carolina.
It was the only turnover forced all game, but the defense had a solid outing, allowing just one touchdown on five sequences in the red zone. Then, the Panthers’ final drive of the game ended with three incompletions. Carolina quarterback Teddy Bridgewater completed just 60 percent of his passes after coming into the game second in the league with a completion percentage of 70.7.
Even though the defense offered up an encouraging performance, the offense has a lot to clean up before they face the Tennessee Titans next Sunday. The defense hasn’t broken yet, but the offense is designed to carry this team. It’s discouraging how during some stretches the offense will operate with utter brilliance, but in others, moving the ball is seemingly impossible.
There’s a reason for concern seeing that the Packers’ offense has gone through such profound lulls in 2020. However, it’s encouraging that one of the NFL’s top offenses could have more out there for them. Right now, though, it’s hard to get excited about an unforeseen improvement with so little time remaining before the games taking on a whole new meaning. Rodgers knows that another incomplete performance could end their season.
“We know that type of football in the second half isn’t going to get it done in the playoffs,” he said.
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