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Why they lost: Green Bay Packers stall out at Minnesota
National Football League

Why they lost: Green Bay Packers stall out at Minnesota

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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OK, Green Bay Packers fans … that didn’t quite turn out how we we hoping, eh?

After an exciting win to begin the season down in Jacksonville, this week was about as far on the other end of the spectrum as it gets for the Green Bay Packers in their eventual 17-14 loss to the Minnesota Vikings.

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For every bit of excitement the Jacksonville game provided, this matchup brought bundles of ugliness, face palms, and sighs.

What in the world happened out there Sunday night?

Let’s just dive right in.

Sep 18, 2016; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Stefon Diggs (14) catches a touchdown pass against Green Bay Packers cornerback Damarious Randall (23) during the third quarter at U.S. Bank Stadium. The Vikings defeated the Packers 17-14. Mandatory Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

Randall Gets Dominated

In Week 1, the defense proved itself as a whole to be on the upswing. They held a talented and explosive offense to 23 points while making them wholly unbalanced, including a clutch 4th down stop to end the Jaguars’ final drive.

Leading that charge was Damarious Randall, who ended up as Pro Football Focus’ highest-graded CB across the league for Week 1. The other secondary players around him were routinely picked on — especially Quinten Rollins — but he was a rock for the group.

Wow, things sure change fast.

Stefon Diggs put Randall to work all night. On five targets with Rollins covering him, Diggs caught five passes for 134 yards.

One of those catches was a touchdown where Diggs literally got Randall turned around;  while having Randall on his outside shoulder, he subtly stepped around him without losing speed, causing Randall to spin all the way around, which gave Diggs an extra little step to be open for the reception.

Even had the TD not connected, Rollins also grabbed onto Diggs during his pirouette (and in the endzone as well) so there would have been a free 1st down tossed in regardless.

Speaking of penalties, it was another one on Randall that essentially sealed the game: Rollins played Diggs extremely close on that particular 3rd down, doing enough to prevent an actual catch but doing enough to draw a pass interference flag from the ref.

At the end of the night, Rollins finished with a PFF grade of 22.1 — the lowest of any player for the entire week (excluding Monday night). In a game where the defense as a whole played excellent (constant pressure and multiple hits/sacks on Bradford, shutting down Adrian Peterson, only 17 points allowed), he was the weak link that gave Minnesota its only needed point of attack; with the Green Bay offense faltering, it was all the Vikings needed to eventually win the game.

Sep 18, 2016; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Green Bay Packers wide receiver Davante Adams (17) loses the ball to the Minnesota Vikings but the Packers recover a subsequent fumble on the same play in the first quarter at U.S. Bank Stadium. The Vikings win 17-14. Mandatory Credit: Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports

Field Position Is A Problem

This is a frustrating trend with the Packers; whenever the offense gets the ball, they seem to be trapped deep in their own territory. This has a multitude of long-reaching issues attached to it.

First, we can look at the struggles of the offense; the team has not found their rhythm there, and pinning them deep forcing them to have practically a full field to traverse if they are to score.

When the offense does falter, that means the punting unit must go out pinned deep; Jacob Schum is proving so far to be here more for his directional punting skills than leg strength, so long distance tries provide the opposition with not only decent field position, but even better than we might see with other teams.

From there the defense is forced to defend a short field, and one of two things is likely to happen from there:

    The former is obviously bad, but the latter has the unfortunate effect of just restarting the process; a punt from near midfield is decently likely to get downed deep in Green Bay territory, meaning the offense is pinned again, another punt has a good chance of coming, and we just keep going in a circle of ineptitude until either the defense forces some kind of turnover, the opposing special teams falters, or the offense actually finds a rhythm and produces a decent drive.

    In this game specifically, all we need to see is the numbers from the punt return game to see how spot-on that idea is. Minnesota had 7 punts on the night, 5 of which trapped Green Bay within their own 15 yard line. Those 5 drives ended with 2 fumbles, 1 interception, 1 punt, and the eventual drive that ended on 4th down; for comparison’s sake, on the blocked punt that put Green Bay around midfield, they scored their first TD.

    Field position is something that gets discussed in individual games, but is routinely forgotten in the broader conversation of how well an offense and/or defense end up producing; when it becomes a consistent problem game after game (like it has with the Packers), it can really hold back a team.

    Until Green Bay manages to find some way to either force themselves into better field position (examples: getting more quick three & outs on defense, making something happen in the return game, or getting longer distance kicks out of Schum) or find a more reliable offensive rhythm, the team is unlikely to do much better than we’ve seen through two weeks.

    Sep 11, 2016; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy looks on against the Jacksonville Jaguars during the second half at EverBank Field. Green Bay Packers defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 27-23. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

    Wrongfully Aggressive

    In the past few years, the aggressiveness of coach Mike McCarthy has come under intense criticism, and it probably seems like it comes up most during the most important games.

    Think back to the 2014 NFC Championship Game, when the Packers relented on early short-yardage chances to try punching in TDs, instead choosing to go for FGs in the eventual loss.

    Or last season against Arizona in the NFC Divisional Round playoffs, where instead of capitalizing on the “momentum” of the moment after converting basically two Hail Mary tosses to Jeff Janis to tie things up and going for two to potentially win the game (and prevent the opportunity for the Cardinals to hit Larry Fitzgerald on the huge play that pretty much sealed the game in overtime) we saw Green Bay take the PAT.

    It isn’t nearly as simple as the conversation would make it out to be, and McCarthy does have instances where he has gone for it. The only problem is that too often those instances have been somewhat questionable and ended poorly for the Packers, and this one was a perfect example.

    In this case, Green Bay was down 10-7, but they had just driven the length of the field to be in great position for a score. Taking a field goal ties things up in a close game, but McCarthy decided his team was better-suited going for more.

    Situationally, the analytics came out almost even on the decision: the field goal was determined to be less than half of a percentage point better for win probability, but in close situations like that on paper you can’t really fault a team for trying to get more points. The matchup must be factored in, and the intangible “feel” of the game plays a part.

    For whatever reason (in my mind: a combination of his offense not doing well overall to that point (which would make scoring much more across the game unlikely), the defense both having a highly-exploitable weak point in Randall but overall doing pretty well, and having Minnesota pinned back should the play fail) McCarthy decided to go for it, and it didn’t work out.

    A handoff to James Starks up the middle got a somewhat-debatable spot, giving Minnesota the ball.

    There are a lot of issues here. The call to go for it is debatable at best (I probably would not have done so; points were at a premium in a slugfest, and there wasn’t enough being shown offensively to inspire much belief that it would be converted).

    More than anything was the playcall itself, however. The offense was not running well all night, and a pass let’s the talents of the entire offense get on the field.

    IF they were going to run though (defensible on it’s own, despite the point I just brought up), picking Starks over Eddie Lacy to run up the middle in a short-yardage situation just screams of out-thinking yourself. Give the power back the chance to bulldoze; if he took on the amount of contact Starks did, it’s quite likely he finds a way to get just a little bit more — and that’s all that was needed for the first down.

    A questionable decision to go for it, compounded with a faulty personnel choice for the playcall, kept Green Bay from putting up the points that eventually were their margin of defeat.

    I hope this kind of outcome doesn’t cause McCarthy to put away his aggressiveness for awhile, but I also would hope the next time this sort of situation appears his decision-making is more conducive to winning the game.

    Sep 18, 2016; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Vikings defensive end Everson Griffen (97) forces a fumble on Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (12) during the third quarter at U.S. Bank Stadium. The Vikings defeated the Packers 17-14. Mandatory Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

    Fumble-itis

    During the tenure of Aaron Rodgers as the Packers’ starting quarterback, Green Bay has been among the league’s best pretty much every season in not turning the ball over. He are there totals and rankings for every year in that time:

      As you can see, every year outside of 2013 (when Rodgers missed part of the year due to his collarbone injury) the Packers have been at least in the top-10 for not giving the ball away.

      That didn’t happen on Sunday night.

      The team was careless with the ball from the start, with Davante Adams putting the ball on the ground right on the first couple plays. That was followed up by three other fumbles on the night.

      Luckily for the team, most of the times they put the ball on the ground they got it back. The Adams fumble was somehow gotten back by Randall Cobb forcing his own, and the first two that Rodgers put on the ground had fortuitous bounces right back into Packer hands.

      The final fumble finally saw that luck run out, and short-circuited one of the final two drives that saw some life from Green Bay’s offense die out before they could capitalize on what little positive progress they had begun to make.

      These guys — Rodgers especially — will have to make a conscious effort to hold onto the ball better going forward, especially with how disjointed the offense has remained even with the return of Jordy Nelson.

      Sep 18, 2016; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (12) reacts during the third quarter against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. The Vikings defeated the Packers 17-14. Mandatory Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

      Not The Rodgers We Remember

      We may be witnessing a serious problem here.

      Last year we saw Green Bay’s star QB struggle somewhat in a year where all the guys around him were dropping like flies due to injuries.

      At the time, we could chalk it up to the guys around him not being prepared (those who could actually stay on the field), but two games into 2016 we may have a disturbing trend on our hands. Either that, or Mike Zimmer really has this offense’s number.

      Sep 18, 2016; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (12) is sacked by Minnesota Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks (54) and defensive end Danielle Hunter (99) during the first quarter at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

      Start with the game itself. Rodgers finished Sunday night with a middling-at-best statline: 20/36, 213 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 3 Fumbles (1 lost), was sacked 5 times, and had a passer rating of 70.7 (his 14th-straight game under 100 in that metric). By QBR, he came out at a 52.5; going by PFF’s grading, he ended with a 33.0 grade — by far the lowest he’s had within their grading system.

      Dive further into what happened out there, and it is even more concerning what those areas exemplify.

      On throws of 10+ yards, Rodgers completed just 4 of 14 passes; this shows he wasn’t connecting on deeper passes. On dropbacks that lasted beyond 2.5 seconds (a good indicator of an offense flowing quickly), he was only 2 of 9; this shows that he wasn’t able to make anything happen when attempting to extend plays. He put the ball on the ground three times, while throwing a pick as well; this showed he got careless at times out there, something he has rarely ever done across his career. The Vikings blitzed on almost half of the Packers’ dropbacks (20 times in 44 plays), forcing Rodgers to complete under 40% of those attempts while taking 2 of his 5 sacks; this showed he isn’t able to dominate in a facet defenses used to dread risking against him (for example: in 2014, he was the least blitzed QB in the league, and was the 5th-best against it, per PFF).

      He was throwing high on numerous passes and totally out-of-sync with his receivers, sloppy with the ball, couldn’t make positive things happen extending plays, and could not beat the blitz.

      I have been one of the staunchest defenders of Rodgers during his subpar play the past couple years, routinely calling out others for heaping blame on him for the struggles of the offense, but at some point it has to be admitted that he just has not been the same guy we remember.

      Whether that is a permanent outcome or just a long-term slump of sorts, we can’t be sure of right now. He has definitely been at a lower level than previous years, but his offensive mates have also not been playing well either in that time.

      The Ringer’s Kevin Clark brought up an interesting idea in The Ringer NFL Show podcast this week that could make some sense. After the way the 2014 NFC Championship Game ended up going, it may have left some level of psychological impact on the team; the play-calling changed, and even with McCarthy taking back over at midseason, the looks the offense gives are not the same.

      Now, it seems all the offense does out there (outside of a few rub routes thrown in every now and then) is call one-vs-one matchups for their guys on the outside with simplistic routes, expecting the receivers to win in isolation each time they hit the field.

      Rodgers has been so good for so long that the team could get away with this for stretches, but if his guys are not breaking away from the coverage (something that has been issue #1 since early last season), it doesn’t matter how long he extends a play he won’t be able to find a target.

      Rodgers is still capable of being great, but for him to do so in any consistent manner, he needs more help from everyone around him than he ever did before; his receivers must break away more often, his play-caller must change up something in the scheme around him to help those guys find space on a more consistent basis, and his line must block well (of note, I can’t put much blame on them for yesterday; overall, they held up about as well as could be hoped versus an extremely talented and well-coached Minnesota defensive unit, and most of the sacks & pressures came more from the lack of plays from Rodgers and his receivers while he tried to extend things than the blocking provided around him).

      When those factors don’t weigh in his favor, as it stands the game is going to end up looking disjointed far too often, and we’ll need some fortunate breaks to come out on top.

      Unfortunately, unless we see changes happen around him, this kind of game may be our new normal, and that would be a horrible shame.

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