Among the litany of issues that this Packers team is experiencing right now, Green Bay is now the most penalized team in the NFL through eight weeks.
According to NFL Ref Stats, the Packers have been flagged the most times in football and are averaging 7.43 penalties per game, the highest average in the Matt LaFleur era. Green Bay ranks in the top five in offensive holding, false start, and delay of game penalties. They are also in the top 10 for total pre-snap and unnecessary roughness penalties as well.
“Certainly the lack of discipline play, that’s paramount,” said LaFleur, “because it doesn’t matter what you’re doing if we’re getting called for things. We have to clean it up.”
Against Minnesota, the Packers were called for more penalties than points they were able to score on offense. Green Bay finished the day being flagged 11 times in all three phases and totaling 99 penalty yards. This is a group that just isn’t good enough to overcome the abundance of self-inflicted penalties that have occurred this season.
That Vikings’ game was a prime example of the impact that these penalties have on this team. On offense, flags either negated a positive play or put the offense in long down-and-distance situations, which have spelled doom for this unit. For a passing game that can’t get anything going, being in predictable situations repeatedly is not going to foster success. Matchup-wise, the defense has the advantage. The pass rush can pin its ears back, and there are only so many routes that can be dialed up.
The end result is a quick three-and-out followed by a punt. As LaFleur mentioned after the game, consistently being in second and third-and-longs, along with failing to move the chains, never allows the offense to find a rhythm or even get into the gameplan that they’ve constructed for the week.
Penalties on the defense extend drives for the opponent, and this is already a unit that struggles to get off the field, too often allowing long drives to take place. Then on special teams, penalties can flip the field position battle–a small but important aspect for a team that can’t move the ball on offense.
“We have holding penalties or whatever it is, false start penalties, it backs us up,” said LaFleur after the Vikings game. “We already know the ‘get back on track’ situations have been very tough for us. Defensively, there were a couple penalties. I know one was on a critical third down where we got called for roughing the passer. It’s never one person, it’s never one guy, it’s just collectively as a whole. We’ve got to look each other in the eye, and we’ve got to demand better, and we need to get better.”
Youth is not an excuse for the Packers, and you won’t hear LaFleur even talking about it with his team. At the end of the day, the opponent doesn’t care, and only the results matter. However, it’s also likely not a coincidence that the youngest team in the NFL is also the most penalized either.
Self-inflicted errors, whether it be penalties, drops, missed blocks, or whatever else is plaguing the Packers, have become the norm for the team this season. Until they get better in these areas, it doesn’t much matter what the opponent does; the Packers are beating themselves first. The discouraging part of it all is that many of the issues we saw on Sunday against the Vikings, including the penalties, have been problems for a month-plus now, and there isn’t anything to point to that says things are going to improve any time soon.
“We’re not even talking that game with young guys,” said LaFleur. “We’re focused on whoever is out there, the expectation is the same. We’ve played seven games now; I’m not interested in that. I think that’s an excuse. We’ll never do that. We’re just going to continue to find ways to try to keep improving, and it starts in practice. Get a good week of practice, then you go out and play well. I do think that the practices have been competitive and such like that, but we’re obviously not getting results that anybody wants.”