Good afternoon, everyone. On Sunday, the Green Bay Packers took on the New Orleans Saints at TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville, FL. The reason why the game was played there instead of at the SuperDome was because of Hurricane Ida. The crowd at the game was mostly Packers fans, who I feel really bad for after the 38-3 loss that Green Bay suffered. Without further delay, let’s get right into the game.
The Packers defense did not get into a good start at all. The Saints offense, led by head coach Sean Payton and quarterbacked by Jameis Winston, went on a 9-play drive that got them all the way to the Green Bay 26. During the drive, which ended in a field goal, the Saints got 3 first downs rather easily. After the field goal, it was time for the Packers offense to take the field. During the drive, the Packers faced a fourth and one from their own 34. Green Bay decided to go for it, and they got the first down with a three-yard pass connection from Aaron Rodgers to Marquez Valdes-Scantling. After that though, the Packers didn’t move the chains and were forced to punt. After the punt, the Saints offense went on a 15-play drive that took nearly 8 minutes off of the game clock. It was a drive where the Saints slowly went down the field with short-yardage plays. New Orleans was able to get 7 first downs on their way to the end zone. The drive ended with a three-yard touchdown pass from Winston to Alvin Kamara. That touchdown increased the Saints lead to 10-0 with 14:09 left in the second quarter. The next drive for the Packers ended up going nowhere after Aaron Rodgers took a sack for a loss of 11 yards. After Corey Bojorquez punted the ball away, the Saints went on yet another touchdown drive that took a long time. This drive was another meticulous one by New Orleans that had two goals in mind: take as much time off the clock as possible and keep Aaron Rodgers on the sidelines. The drive ended with another touchdown pass by Winston, this time to TE Juwan Johnson from 1 yard out. By the time the Packers got the ball back, there was only 1:07 left on the clock to get something on the board. With one timeout left in the first half, the Packers had to be careful when driving down the field. On the first play from the Green Bay 25, Rodgers hit Allen Lazard for a 14-yard pass connection. 3 plays later, the Packers faced a third and 6 from their own 43. Rodgers’ pass to MVS fell incomplete, but there was a penalty on New Orleans’ C.J. Gardner-Johnson for hands to the face. That penalty gave Green Bay a free first down. On the next play, Rodgers connected with Davante Adams for a 31-yard pass play that got Green Bay to the Saints 21 yard line. Rodgers signaled timeout to an official immediately after the play, but there was no whistle until 2 seconds were left on the clock. After the refs had a discussion, they decided to reset the game clock to 7 seconds. After that reset (plus a Saints timeout), the Packers ended up doing nothing with the extra seconds. Rodgers threw the ball away, setting up a 39-yard field goal attempt for Mason Crosby. Thankfully, he made the kick and got the Packers on the board at halftime. The 17-3 deficit was not ideal, but I hoped that the Packers would come back in the second half.
The Packers’ first drive of the second half started well. The offense was moving the ball down the field looking for their first touchdown. Unfortunately, there was an injury during this drive. Josiah Deguara was helping with run blocking when he got hit in the head and neck area. He was down for a few minutes before walking off the field with what was diagnosed as a concussion. The Packers were able to get all the way to the Saints 9 yard line before things went haywire. On second and 7 from that spot on the field, Aaron Rodgers made a terrible decision to throw to Davante Adams when he was double covered. The pass was intercepted by CB Paulson Adebo, who was an Elgton Jenkins tackle away from taking the pick all the way for a touchdown. The defense was able to force the Saints to punt, but then, on the next possession, Rodgers decided to throw (basically) an arm punt to the Saints defense. Saints CB Marcus Williams returned the interception all the way to the Green Bay 12 yard line. 3 plays later, the Saints added another touchdown to the scoreboard with a 10-yard scoring pass from Jameis Winston to Chris Hogan. On the next drive for the Packers offense, they went four and out as they failed a fourth down conversion. Rodgers’ pass to Davante Adams went incomplete on fourth and 1 from the Green Bay 22. From there the Saints took over possession of the ball. During the drive, it looked like the Packers finally got a turnover with an interception by Darnell Savage in the end zone. As he was returning the pick for a few yards, a flag was thrown on the field against the defense. Let me say this about the roughing the passer call against Za’Darius Smith: it was absolute garbage! He did not hit high or low on the quarterback, yet he got flagged for it. After that garbage call, the Saints scored yet another touchdown. The score was an 8-yard pass from Winston to Juwan Johnson. After a quick three-and-out by Green Bay, the Saints scored their final touchdown of the game: a 55-yard bomb from Winston to Deonte Harris. With 10:46 left in the game and the score 38-3 in favor of New Orleans, Jordan Love was brought in as quarterback for Green Bay. His first pass completion went to rookie WR Amari Rodgers for a gain of 19 on third and 7 from the Green Bay 28. After that though, the Packers did nothing and were forced to punt (again). After a quick three-and-out by the Saints, the Packers offense was given one more chance to score a touchdown before the game was over. During the drive, Randall Cobb got a catch in his return with the Green and Gold. The Packers got all the way to the Saints 5 yard line before Jordan Love lost a fumble that was recovered by New Orleans. 2 kneel-downs later, the game was over with the Packers losing 38-3.
The loss was the first opening week loss for Green Bay since 2014 against the Seattle Seahawks. It’s also the largest loss in any game started by Aaron Rodgers in his entire career. Speaking of Rodgers, he had an awful game on Sunday. He threw for only 133 yards while throwing two interceptions in the process. Both of those picks were bad decisions by him. The entire offense did not get much done on Sunday. The only scoring drive was at the end of the first half where they had to settle for a field goal. What did not help matters was the lack of balance. The Packers only had 43 rushing yards on 15 carries, despite the Saints defense having injuries on their interior defensive front. For most of the game, the offense was set in obvious passing formations. The receivers did not have much separation against the Saints secondary. From next week on, the Packers need to get the run game going in order for everything else to function better. Hopefully the game plan by Matt LaFleur involves more running than on Sunday.
I know that it’s been one week, but the defense did not look good on Sunday under Joe Barry. For most of the game, the players were a few yards away from the line of scrimmage. The hope was to avoid giving up chunk plays. The game plan by Sean Payton allowed the Saints offense to move the ball down the field slowly but surely. There was no adjustment at all by Joe Barry to stop this attack. It was short gain after short gain all throughout the game. The result was a tired defense and no turnovers for Jameis Winston, who threw for 5 touchdowns on the day. The Saints also ran for a total of 171 yards on the ground. The turnover that the Packers did force was called back due to the garbage roughing the passer call on Za’Darius Smith I talked about earlier. There wasn’t that much of a pass rush, though that was due to the game plan by Sean Payton. Both the offense and defense need to look hard at the tape and then move on to the next game.
Ironically, the Special Teams unit was the one upside for Green Bay. Corey Bojorquez punted a few balls that went near the 20 yard line on Sunday. Mason Crosby scored the only points for the Packers with his 39-yard field goal just before halftime. Another good thing that happened was that there were no turnovers or blocked kicks on Special Teams. There was a mistake on a kickoff return in the third quarter. Rookie RB Kylin Hill muffed the ball at the goal line and had to pick it up and run. He only got to the 13 yard line on that return. Hopefully that mistake doesn’t happen again for Green Bay, regardless of who is returning the kicks and punts. I just hope that Special Teams is not a reason for big losses this year.
Overall, it was not a good game for Green Bay on all sides of the football. If I can describe it in one word, it would be this: UGLY. There is a silver lining to this though. If the Packers suffer one loss like this in the regular season, I am glad that they got it out of the way in Week 1. With that said, it had to stink for every Packers fan that attended that game in Jacksonville to see that performance. Next up for Green Bay is a Monday Night Football matchup against the Detroit Lions (who also lost in Week 1, along with Chicago and Minnesota). Hopefully the Packers can give the Lambeau Field crowd a lot to cheer about. In the meantime, I wish you all a great week ahead. Go Pack Go.
(Here are the “lowlights” of the game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube page.)
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