This was a must-win game for the Green Bay Packers which ultimately they failed to do, scoring only 9 points against the NFL’s worst defense. Although, when watching the game sitting at 8-6 with the Packers having a chance to take the lead in the 4th quarter, I couldn’t help but cheer on the Detroit Lions. I felt like scraping a win would just brush all of the criticism under the carpet and would be another week of not facing the truth, which is that this team is really bad right now. Is the Superbowl window now closed with Aaron Rodgers? Is Matt LeFleur overrated? Is it time for Jordan Love? Let’s have a look.
Matt LeFleur
LeFleur is getting a lot of criticism again this week and rightly so. Against the Buffalo Bills last week the Packers played relatively well against a team who were heavy favourites. This is mostly due to Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon teaming up for 197 yards from 30 carries. To compare that to this week, the pair ran for 59 yards from 20 carries. Our top rusher was Aaron Rodgers with 40 yards. This is unacceptable. I think most fans expected a loss last week, but at least we left the game with some optimism. The Lions are the second worst team in the NFL in rushing yards per game and still there was no effort to establish the run game at all. This led to Aaron Rodgers trying to throw his way to victory, which resulted in him throwing 3 interceptions and only scoring 9 points. To be fair to Matt LeFleur in previous seasons, a pass heavy offense might have worked with Devonte Adadms as our WR1 but it’s not working this year, and hasn’t been working since week 1. To see this offense make the same mistakes every week makes you think, was LeFleur made to look good by having one of the best QB-WR duos of our generation?
Aaron Rodgers
I mentioned it earlier but Aaron Rodgers threw 3 interceptions last night. The first interception was unlucky but the other 2 were completely his fault. Along with this, there were multiple throws that landed in the middle of nowhere, nowhere near the targeted receiver, notably two end zone passes to Sammy Watkins. This might be an issue with route running, but this offense looks lost right now, and so does our back-to-back MVP. He only took one sack and had some good time in the pocket so it is hard to excuse our Hall of Fame QB.
Where do we go from here? I’m not sure. I definitely don’t think Jordan Love is the answer. Although the game plan could be more run-heavy due to Love’s limitations and inexperience so it might actually work. Although, these changes should be made now to suit the team, not just to suit Love if he was to come in.
These are honestly the biggest issues right now in my eyes. The Lions’ offense is talented, averaging 23.5 points per game which is in the top half of the league, so to only allow 15 points does not reflect badly on our defense. There have been defensive issues in previous weeks but this week, the only reason we lost was because of poor offensive play. The offense needs to at least look like they’re on the same page. Some of the time they look completely lost. This looks like a coaching issue. Losing Nathaniel Hackett (the former offensive coordinator) has proved to be costly and this new coaching team has failed to seamlessly transition from Devante Adams and co to this new, young wide receiver group. Let’s be honest, this season is practically over, with some very hard opponents coming up, so now is the time to work on next year. Get the young players experience, develop some sort of offensive identity and improve the team’s chemistry. Otherwise we will be stuck with Rodgers’ huge contract and no hope for any success in the near future.
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