After flying into the bye week at 4-0, the Green Bay Packers came crashing back to earth on Sunday in Tampa Bay, suffering a humbling 38-10 defeat to the Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium.
The NFL’s best offense through the first four weeks sputtered, crushed by the weight of a fast and swarming Buccaneers defense. Matt LaFleur’s team couldn’t survive a 28-point second quarter onslaught that began with an Aaron Rodgers pick-six and ended with the once-great Patriots connection of Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski creating a soul-crushing touchdown right before the half.
The shell-shocked Packers were unable to get up off the mat and swing a counterpunch or muster a second-half rally.
Packers Wire’s Jack Wepfer and Zach Kruse talked through the loss in our first of a new post-game conversation series:
Jack Wepfer: Whew. That was embarrassing. I’ll let you get to your thoughts but I just want to preface this conversation that we shouldn’t overreact. It’s one game and this team wasn’t going to go undefeated. That said, let’s overreact: this game could sort of be looked at as an indictment against all the vulnerabilities we knew the Packers had going into the season. For starters, they were fairly thin along the offensive line, and their playmakers outside of Davante Adams and Aaron Jones didn’t scream dangerous. We also knew it was slim pickings behind Kevin King and Jaire Alexander. The offense couldn’t respond to the speed of the Bucs’ defense. Josh Jackson played admirably in spots but struggles in coverage and can become a liability because of his grabbiness. A lot of these issues had been papered over because of the team’s overwhelming success, but my theory is that it’s a well-oiled machine that has a lot of moving parts and, like many complicated machines, small failures can lead to catastrophic ones quickly.
In my view, they’re still a contender. They’re also still very much a work-in-progress. I guess, for me, the most disappointing thing to what I perceived to be a complete cratering of energy and morale after adversity struck. I just didn’t see a belief in them at the end of the second quarter that they could find a way to win. I think it’s what separates them from, say, Seattle, who far all their faults (and there are many, including an inferior defense), find ways to tread water when the storm winds are blowing. I’d like to hope a loss like this creates some resolve.
Zach Kruse: EVERYBODY PANIC. Kidding, of course. I think if we look at the first five games, cumulatively, there’s still a lot to like about this team and fans should be optimistic about the Packers as legitimate contenders. However, Sunday revealed a couple of worrying things for me, and I’m not even including your point about responding to adversity, which is somewhat of a trend for Matt LaFleur’s Packers in these blowout losses.
My concerns: the requirements of the passing game, and the identity of the defense. The Packers made throwing the ball look so easy during those first four games. Aaron Rodgers threw on time, receivers were open and the protection was great. It all worked together. The Bucs short-circuited the whole damn operation on Sunday. Do the Packers need perfect conditions to operate in the passing game? The tape will be interesting. Were receivers not open? Rodgers lacking decisiveness? The offensive line just overmatched? All of the above? The defense is starting to worry me, too. What does Mike Pettine’s group do well? They’re struggling to pressure the quarterback, force turnovers, stop the run, tackle consistently and create stops in the red zone. They did a lot of those things well last year. The 2020 Packers defense looks to me like a group without a true identity.
One other thing, Jack. I really wonder how the Packers would match up with the Bucs in a rematch. Did the Packers just have a really, really bad day, or are the Bucs a possible reincarnation of the 2019 49ers?
Jack: First of all: did you just call me a jive turkey? Second: I hate to have to answer that question, Zach, so I’m going to filibuster by addressing a point you made about Pettine and the defense first. Increasingly, it feels like this is a really expensive average unit. Provided the free agency and draft capital investments Brian Gutekunst has made, the overall return has floundered in year three with Mike Pettine. Investments do not guarantee returns, but the organization sure as heck would like to see something, anything that lets us believe the arrow is trending upward this season. They’re fine in games where there’s a clear positional advantage – against Minnesota Vikings’ offensive line, for example – but in games where the Packers may need to rope-a-dope their way to the finish line, the defense doesn’t seem to have the mettle. LaFleur gave Pettine the vote of confidence at the end of last season, but I have to think the seat will only get warmer until some better trends emerge. You say it looks like a team without an identity. I think that’s fair. I’d add that it’s a team without an edge.
Now, to answer your question, I think it’s the former with the dash of the latter. It was indeed a really bad day. Rodgers and LaFleur both said the team had a bad week of practice. They looked flat and defeated. Maybe it was the Florida humidity, but this game started to take on the look of one of the two losses to the 49ers’ last year. Even so, I still think this was more of an anomaly than the norm. The offense as a system looked incoherent without Tyler Ervin doing a lot of the pre-snap motion dirty work. Ervin has the speed and quickness to adequately perform the vital function in LaFleur’s offense of stretching the defense horizontally. The Packers got caught with their pants down sans Ervin; for what it’s worth, I don’t think they’ll be that unprepared again.
In my opinion, the biggest difference between Tampa Bay and the other four teams Green Bay beat was the play and talent of the Buccaneers inside linebackers. One hill I’ve always been willing to die on is the vital role elite inside linebackers play in having a good defense. Although many people, including the Packers apparently, undervalue the off-ball linebacker position, having Devin White and Lavonte David made the difference for Tampa Bay. The Buccaneers have good players on the front seven, sure, but White and David really helped to neutralize Aaron Jones, which had a negative domino effect on the Packers’ entire passing game. They also terrorized Rodgers on the blitz. Basically, the Packers’ success – on the offense line, in the running game, and through the air – which is a careful orchestra of moving parts and misdirection that must be working in unison, was sabotaged by Tampa Bay’s speed led by their linebackers. When a defense has athletic answers to some of the problems your offense creates, you’re going to have to win more one-on-ones, which means Rodgers has to be more accurate and the receivers have to make a few more catches. They were neither today.
Zach, you wrote that the offense may have “short-circuited” in less-than-ideal conditions: is this offense that delicate that an unfavorable match up all but shuts it down? And can we attribute that to a lack of depth at the skill positions? Poor game plan? Injuries? How does an ostensibly contending team get KO’d by halftime?
Zach: I think there might have been a cascading effect in play. Aaron Rodgers said he didn’t like the efficiency of the offense early, but at least Matt LaFleur was dialing up some man-beater concepts for easy completions on the first couple of drives. Tampa Bay adjusted and those went away pretty quick. Once the easy stuff disappeared, Rodgers had to hold the ball longer, and when the Packers weren’t up to the task in pass protection, he took some big hits early. I do think some of those early knockdowns added up, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the tape shows Rodgers missing some open receivers after he really started feeling and seeing the rush. He looked so uncomfortable in the pocket at times. His accuracy disappeared. The deep shots looked more like prayers than calculated aggressiveness. The run game got shut down early, and I’m not sure the Bucs even really respected it to begin with, so the run action game was a bust.
I think we’ve seen what this offense can look like when all the conditions are perfect; and now we’ve seen what it looks like when just about everything goes wrong. Other teams will attempt to replicate what the Bucs pulled off but I’m not sure every defense has the individual pass-rushers and speed at linebacker to do it.
My last thought: I do wonder if the Packers got caught up in the destruction created by a talented team playing a near-perfect game once the momentum swung their way. The Bucs got the pick-six, gained a bunch of confidence and energy and then hit the Packers with an avalanche of pressure. Bruce Arians’ team didn’t have a penalty or a turnover. Tom Brady wasn’t sacked. I’m also very interested in how the Packers respond this week. Both the quarterback and coach called out the team’s practice performance in a public setting. That was done on purpose. Last year, the Packers got whacked in San Francisco and then got whacked again in Los Angeles. The Texans are 1-5 but talented. Growth for the Packers would be going to Houston and taking care of business.
Jack: Yep, I think that’s a good point to leave off on. The Packers have to mitigate a second disaster. At this point, there are plenty of plausible rationalizations that even a butt-whooping like this one is more exception than the rule. If it happens again, or if this loss creates a blueprint that Rodgers and LaFleur cannot solve, then the early hot start will be for naught. The team is good, but it cannot rest on its laurels. The game humbling you is only a good thing if the team isn’t too stubborn to look inward to improve. Let’s see how this team adjusts.