In Week 1, the Green Bay Packers put together a complete game of football, decimating the Chicago Bears 38-20. In the subsequent two games, they have failed to put together four quarters of good football, which has led to mixed results.
In Week 2, the Packers played well enough to build a 12-point lead, which they took into the fourth quarter. But, they couldn’t close the deal and ended up losing the game 25-24. This past weekend against the New Orleans Saints, that poor fourth-quarter performance carried over as the team couldn’t get out of their own way.
“We hurt ourselves more than we helped ourselves,” said Jordan Love after the game.
There were a lot of miscues for the Packers early on against the Saints. All in all, Green Bay was called for 11 penalties in the game, costing them 90 yards.
Penalties were someone that head coach Matt LaFleur has touched on earlier in the season as something the team has to clean up. It didn’t cost them against the Bears and ultimately didn’t cost them against the Saints, but it was dangerously close to doing so.
In the first half, Kenny Clark was called for an unsportsmanlike that gave the Saints 15 yards and helped them get into the end zone. A lot of calls on the offensive side of the ball stalled out drives, attributing to the team getting shut out.
“We went into the locker room at halftime and we knew it wasn’t good,” said Love, “but at the same time we knew we were putting some drives together, but penalties and different things – not converting some third downs – were hurting us.”
To make matters worse, the Packers gave up a quick-strike touchdown in the second quarter when Rashid Shaheed went 76 yards to the house on a punt return. It wasn’t the only area that the team lacked execution, as the offense was out of rhythm most of the afternoon as well.
“I think I just missed a couple of those throws,” added Love. “I think the biggest one was the one down the middle to (Luke) Musgrave, but I can’t credit it to anything. I think it’s just me being able to stay calm at the beginning of the game and just make those throws. I can’t really credit it to anything, but it’s something that we’ve got to clean up going into next week.”
Part of the reason for that could be all of the talent that the unit was missing. Wide receiver Christian Watson hasn’t played yet this season while running back Aaron Jones and left tackle David Bakhtiari missed their second straight games. Left guard Elgton Jenkins suffered a knee injury in Week 2 and was sidelined as well.
The Packers were able to overcome those shortcomings with a marvelous fourth quarter, winning the game 18-17. Alas, that isn’t how they want to live week in and week out. Green Bay put themselves behind the eight-ball with miscues and penalties and those things will need to be cleaned up if they want to find sustained success this season.
