If the Green Bay Packers offense is unable to find some form of sustained success against the Denver Broncos defense this week, it’s possible it may not happen again this season.
Denver currently ranks last in points per game allowed, yards per pass attempt, defensive DVOA, yards per carry allowed, and ESPN’s run stop rate. They also rank 31st in pass rush win rate, overall pressure rate, and have been torn up by opposing running backs, both on the ground and in the passing game.
You get the idea–basically pick a meaningful defensive category, and there is a good chance that Denver is last or close to it.
Not much has gone right for the Packers on offense over the majority of their last three games. Outside of an impressive fourth quarter against New Orleans, things have been borderline disastrous. During that span, Green Bay is averaging only 17 points per game, which ranks 26th, and includes just six first half points. Jordan Love has thrown two touchdowns to six interceptions during that stretch as well.
When Matt LaFleur is at the podium and says all 11 players need to be better and on the same page, and he needs to do a better job as a play caller, that can sound like coach speak. And, to a degree, it is. But what he’s saying is also very true. There isn’t one or two things that have contributed to the Packers’ offensive woes. It’s, unfortunately, many.
“I think it all starts with the detail,” said Matt LaFleur following the Raiders game. “We had a really long team meeting today and laid out everything for our guys, areas where we have plays dialed up against the premier looks that’s exactly what you want them for, and we are getting the bare minimum, and sometimes not even getting a positive play at all.
“There are other times you’ve got to give credit to the Raiders where we’ve got plays dialed up that are horrible looks, and you’re like, how can you take a bad play and not make it worse? I think a lot of it comes down to our detail. Where are we putting our eyes? What are we doing? Are we using the correct technique?”
Love has to be more accurate, and his decision-making as of late has to improve. But with that said, it’s not as if he is operating in perfect conditions. In fact, everything around him has been chaotic, to say the least.
The timing and precision of the receivers’ and tight ends’ routes are off, throwing off entire pass plays—not to mention that they’ve struggled to make contested catches. There isn’t a run game to lean on, and in the last two weeks in particular, the offensive line has struggled in pass protection.
Schematically, Matt LaFleur is somewhat limited, given that defenses do not fear the Packers run game or their downfield passing game, which results in opponents shrinking the field and providing less space to operate in over the middle and on short to intermediate routes. With a young offense, LaFleur also has to strike a balance between what he needs these inexperienced players to do within the offense versus what they can do at this time.
The combination of these issues have far too often put the Packers in a hole following early downs that they’ve been unable to dig themselves out of. The lack of a run game, an inconsistent passing game, a sack, or a penalty has put the offense behind the sticks and in second and third-and-long situations. This then puts Love and an already inconsistent offense in predictable passing situations where the defense now has the advantage, both from a matchup standpoint and in terms of the front being able to get after the quarterback.
“I think a lot of our inability to be successful offensively is we’ve had negative plays, or we’ve had a penalty,” added LaFleur. “We’ve been in these get-back-on-track situations, and we’ve had a hard time recovering from that. We have not had success in those second and 10 or 11-plus situations. Then you’re stuck in third and long, or we had a second and 17 yesterday where we threw an interception. We just got to do a better job of trying to avoid those situations and staying on schedule.”
The bye week perhaps came at an opportune time for the Packers, allowing them to hit pause and, ideally, go back to the basics offensively. For a team that is struggling to execute the routine details on a given play, they need to take a step back and get back to the core of what the LaFleur offense wants to accomplish, which includes utilizing motion, inside zone and outside zone runs, play-action, and in LaFleur’s words, the illusion of complexity. Running like-plays or a variety of concepts from a few personnel packages can keep things relatively simple for the offense while also creating mismatches and keeping the defense off balanced.
This game is going to tell us quite a bit about where this Packers team is at. Winning against this Broncos team and finding success on offense won’t mean that everything is fixed, and they are about to go on a run–but it’s a step in the right direction. However, losing while continuing to struggle on offense will shine a light on just how much of an uphill battle this team has to face.