National Football League

Why They Won: Green Bay Outlasts Jacksonville's Heat

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

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Hey, Packers fans – what a way to begin the season, eh?

After having struggles for much of last season, the team had to be hoping to come out strong and show those issues were just a blip rather than the new reality.

The game didn’t go off without a hitch, but there was enough shown in the 27-23 victory to give fans a positive glimpse of what the 2016 version of this team might be able to become.

What stood out as the biggest reasons for the eventual win?

Let’s take a look.

Sep 11, 2016; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (12) scrambles from the pocket during the first half of a football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars at EverBank Field. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

Pass protection

There was plenty of reason to worry about this area going into the game.

First off, Green Bay unceremoniously released their long-time stalwart at guard in Josh Sitton during the final round of cuts (apparently after trying to trade him; the fact that nobody would apparently give up anything worthwhile is still perplexing me).

We’re talking about undoubted the best player on this offensive line; by Pro Football Focus’s grades, he ended all six of the past seasons with at least an 84.4 overall rating — including at least a 87.2 grade in the past three.

With this line struggling with health and consistency last season (with Sitton being the only one of the original starters to not miss time, even filling in at LT in the season finale), it would appear he’d be the last choice to be given the boot.

In his place is Lane Taylor, who’s best-rated season so far was last year, where he started twice due to injuries and graded out at … 68.5.

Then you look on the other side and see the talents Jacksonville has added in recent years. Dante Fowler Jr. was an intriguing potential star pass rusher coming into last season before he lost the year immediately to a torn ACL — and still could be.

Malik Jackson came in on a massive contract off perhaps the best performance of anyone on Denver’s stifling defense in the Super Bowl. Sen’derrick Marks is a nice option in his own right on the line too.

The pieces are in place to at least on paper look pretty threatening, and with a line that has to replace its best player on the fly this looked like it could be a potential problem spot.

No such luck for Jacksonville.

While it wasn’t a flawless performance by any means (at least once they let pressure right up the middle, and the run blocking needs work), the protection was mostly on point by these guys.

T.J. Lang led the way (85.7 pass block grade; zero pressures in 41 pass blocking snaps), with Bryan Bulaga (84.6) David Bakhtiari (84.3) and J.C. Tretter (80.0) all reaching at least an 80.0 in PFF’s pass blocking grading.

The weakest spot was their newest member in Taylor (72.7), but outside of the one play I mentioned before he was for the most part unnoticed — something that has a tendency to bode well for offensive linemen.

As the year continues and these guys gel more as a unit, it’s easy to see these guys allowing their skill position counterparts to have the time they need to make their desired impact on a more consistent basis.

Sep 11, 2016; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Green Bay Packers strong safety Morgan Burnett (42) tackles Jacksonville Jaguars running back T.J. Yeldon (24) in the first quarter at EverBank Field. Green Bay Packers won 27-23. Mandatory Credit: Logan Bowles-USA TODAY Sports

Bottling up the run

Jacksonville has been a team routinely in the gutters of the NFL standings for what seems like forever, and it’s easy to understand why: they lacked talent.

That is finally changing, however.

Though it has yet to be reflected in their record, Jacksonville has managed to accumulate an abundance of young talent across their roster, especially on offense.

They have their young QB of the present and future in Blake Bortles, two excellent receivers in Allen Robinson and Allen Hurns, a big-bodied weapon in tight end Julius Thomas, and a nice 1-2 running back combo in Chris Ivory and T.J. Yeldon.

The passing game was the more consistent and explosive part of their attack last year, but the hope was Ivory and Yeldon could bring balance to the offense and force defenses to pick their poison.

Green Bay may not have done a great job most of the game against the passing attack, but they did an excellent job overall in stalling out the Jacksonville rushing attack.

The Jaguars ran the ball 26 different times on the afternoon, but on those runs they accumulated just 48 total yards. They did score a TD early, but for the most part that part of their offense was dead on arrival.

Per Pro Football Focus’ grading, many of the defensive players for the Packers with 10+ snaps graded out at least a 75.0 (on a 0-100 scale) against the run, though it may not be the players you would expect.

While big names like Clay Matthews and Julius Peppers seem to have struggled in that regard, less heralded names all across the defense such as Morgan Burnett, Damarious Randall, Mike Daniels (he’s on the path to getting proper recognition, but isn’t quite a household name yet beyond Green Bay), Letroy Guion, and Datone Jones all did more than enough to pick up whatever slack was there and prevent Jacksonville from getting anything going on the ground.

It must be noted that Ivory wasn’t able to play after an emergency visit to the hospital prior to the game — backs with power have tended to be more of an issue than their speed-based counterparts for the Packers defense in recent years — but with so many guys stepping up in this facet for Green Bay it may not have mattered in this one anyway.

This is a great sign for the upcoming matchup against their annual nemesis Adrian Peterson; though it’ll definitely make things easier if the marquee names step up, having a litany of guys ready to make stops can only be good.

Sep 11, 2016; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (12) throws a touchdown pass to wide receiver Davante Adams (not pictured) against the Jacksonville Jaguars in the second quarter at Everbank Field. Mandatory Credit: Rick Wood/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via USA TODAY NETWORK

Driving before half

In the first half, the Packers were in the middle of their struggles to get anything going.

There wasn’t any rhythm between Aaron Rodgers and his receivers, while the running game couldn’t get off the ground. Toward the end of the second quarter, however, they started to find themselves.

They began with a nice drive to take the lead 14-10 with 3:05 remaining, but it was their second drive of the quarter that really showed us the exciting potential of this offense if they bring everything together in 2016.

After the defense allowed Jacksonville to take the lead back 17-14 with just 1:09 in the quarter, Rodgers got his guys going immediately.

The first play gave us what we’ve missed since Jermichael Finley’s days in green & gold, a long toss right up the seam; it was incomplete, but Jared Cook drew a pass interference call, giving Green Bay 30 yards right off the bat.

Then Rodgers found James Starks for a solid 6-yard pickup, followed by a 10-yarder to Randall Cobb.

After a spike and an incompletion to Cook, we saw the kind of amazingness this offense missed outside of Hail Marys for most of 2015.

Rodgers was being pulled to the ground…
But that was NOT stopping him.

Crazy throw. Crazy catch. @Packers TD! https://t.co/fAEcLqELri

— NFL (@NFL) September 11, 2016

On 3rd and 10 with 25 ticks on the clock, Rodgers drops back to pass. The line does a mostly strong job at first, with Rodgers seeing a pretty clean pocket.

But then, Jalen Ramsey of Jacksonville comes in on a blitz from being aligned in coverage slightly inside of Cobb; he’s completely free, and barreling toward Rodgers with nothing in his way. Rodgers sees him in time and makes a move to his left, preventing Ramsey from blowing him up immediately, but he isn’t out of the woods yet.

Rodgers’ movement lets him step up to keep searching for a target, but Ramsey is right on his back. Rodgers has found a target, but Ramsey has a hand on his jersey, pulling him back while he goes to release the ball.

Somehow, despite having a guy pulling on him, the pass is placed perfectly for Davante Adams, who made just enough movement to get back inside on former Packer Davon House and make an the kind of impressive catch many wouldn’t think he had a prayer at coming down with after the struggles he’s experienced in the past year.

That drive put the Packers 21-17 going into the half, with the added bonus of receiving the ball again right after halftime.

You couldn’t script a more impressive and exciting drive, and Green Bay needed every bit of those theatrics with the way this game eventually came down to the wire.

Sep 11, 2016; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson (87) runs with the ball as Jacksonville Jaguars middle linebacker Paul Posluszny (51) defends during the first half at EverBank Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Getting Jordy Involved

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times: the biggest reason Green Bay struggled in 2015 was due to not being able to make up for the loss of Jordy Nelson in the preseason.

While quarterbacks are the single most important players out on the field by a wide margin, they cannot do it alone no matter how great they are, and high-quality players at the skill positions carry massive value in any game.

Looking back to 2014, Nelson was a top-5 receiver in the entire league.

He was targeted 151 times (4th in NFL), accumulating 98 catches (7th), 1,519 receiving yards (4th), and 13 TDs (tied-2nd).

More than that, his presence is what truly opened up the Green Bay offense; he accounted for 19 plays of 20+ yards (tied-10th) and 8 plays of 40+ yards (2nd) as part of 59 (tied-4th) and 15 (tied-1st) total for Rodgers on the year, and he piled up 481 yards after the catch as well (10th).

Without Nelson in 2015, Rodgers’ numbers on these explosive plays may not have plummeted much overall (55 20+ plays; 6 40+ plays), but the consistency of them took a dramatic hit — and with it, Green Bay’s ability to inherently strike fear into opposing defenses suffered.

Without the constant threat of Nelson blowing them open, defensive coordinators went with a much more aggressive game plan, lining their guys up one-on-one with Packers receivers and forcing them to win their matchups.

As we know, that ended poorly for the offense far too often, and was key in why Green Bay dropped from a 6-0 start to a 4-6 finish.

So of course, the team was eager to have their best wideout take the field again. The only question would be how long until he is able to get back to those play-making ways?

It was a slow start to the game for Jordy, and the rust was showing throughout multiple moments of this first game — especially early.

His ethereal timing with Rodgers wasn’t quite there yet, and the offense kept struggling against a Jacksonville defense that has talent but much to prove in terms of performance.

As the game progressed though, there were signs of what is hopefully to come.

In the drive preceding the one I discussed previously, Green Bay made it a point to try getting Nelson going — and for the most part, it worked.

On that 9-play/75-yard drive, three of the final four plays went to Nelson and he delivered: 3 targets, 3 catches, 18 yards, and the eventual TD.

That TD was especially nice to see — it was one of those routine Rodgers plays where he buys time while waiting for a coverage breakdown, and he found Nelson in a pocket in the end zone — and it gave Nelson his first TD of the year.

All in all, the day wasn’t spectacular (9 targets, 6 catches, 32 yards, 1 TD, 68.6 PFF grade; noticeably no successful deep plays his way), but it was the first step in the right direction.

Just having him out there helped the offense open up to a degree (Rodgers completed 3 20+ passes; it took until an improbable Week 9 comeback attempt versus Carolina for him to reach that many in a game in 2015), and as he continues to re-acclimate to being on the field he should become closer to the weapon we remember.

Sep 11, 2016; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Green Bay Packers defensive end Letroy Guion (98) picks up inside linebacker Clay Matthews (52) as they celebrate after they beat 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

Fourth down stop

This game had many twists and turns, helping it to be one of the (in my opinion at least) more exciting games in a weekend chock full of them.

Even with the success Green Bay had at times with their rediscovered passing game, they couldn’t do enough to put the game away themselves, and following a bad punt by Tim Masthay’s surprise replacement Jake Schum the Jaguars took over with a chance to pull the upset on the game’s final drive.

Starting at their own 37, the Jaguars started moving the ball as they had much of the game: somewhat erratic, but capitalizing just enough on matchup advantages and good timing to keep moving forward.

A completion to Marcedes Lewis — matched on the much smaller LaDarius Gunter — started things off.

After a couple misses, stops, and small gains, penalties hit: first, Bortles scrambled for a first down on fourth down, only to see holding called on tackle-turned-guard Luke Joeckel take it back; then, what seemed like a game-sealing pick by Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix, Burnett was called for a defensive hold, gifting Jacksonville a first down.

Bortles immediately hits Yeldon and then Robinson to get the ball to the Green Bay 23. After two incompletions sandwich a 9-yard gain, we come to the final play.

I must say, I was not feeling too confident on this foruth and 1;

after all, the Jaguars had already successfully completed multiple fourth downs to this point, and the Packers’ defense has shown an unseemly (if somewhat overblown) propensity under Dom Capers’ leadership to not be able to make the key stops necessary at the most important moments of games.

My nerves were on edge, waiting for that ball to snap.

Sep 11, 2016; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Green Bay Packers strong safety Micah Hyde (33) tackles Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Allen Hurns (88) on forth down during the fourth quarter at EverBank Field. Green Bay Packers defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 27-23. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

But, against seemingly all the odds, they stepped up.

Jacksonville decided to call a wide receiver screen; a pretty safe decision it would seem, giving one of their best playmakers (Hurns) the ball quickly.

He had Micah Hyde lined up on him, with his teammate Robinson to his outside and Randall in off coverage; based on the play design, this could have worked as planned.

Once it’s snapped, Hyde gets taken on by Robinson immediately, leaving Randall as the only guy capable of making a stop, but being multiple yards behind the first down marker.

Fortunately for Randall, Hurns isn’t given the ball in stride; he has to stop to gather it, giving Randall time to recover.

Hurns is able to evade the initial tackle attempt by Randall, but he was funneled slightly inside by Randall’s position — right into Hyde. He’s held up for a moment, but that’s all that was needed; a cavalcade of other Packers converge upon them, swallowing Hurns up behind the line of scrimmage for a one-yard loss and finally sealing the victory for Green Bay.

The defense — especially the young secondary players outside of Randall (his 87.8 PFF overall grade was by far the best of anyone on the team) — showed their inexperience far too often throughout the game and definitely must do better going forward, but the grit they showed to hang tough and finish out strong in a game featuring sweltering conditions and top-quality receiving talent is undoubtedly heartening.