Good evening, everyone. On Monday night, the Green Bay Packers took on the Los Angeles Rams at Lambeau Field. Entering this contest, the Packers were coming out of their bye week and still alive for a playoff berth. A good thing was that the team was mostly healthy thanks in part to the bye week. The end result was a win that was ugly at times. All that matters is a W in the W/L column. Let’s get into detail on what happened in this game.
The Packers defense was able to stop the Rams on their first drive. Three plays after allowing a third and 15 to get converted, Preston Smith sacked QB Baker Mayfield for a loss of 8 yards on a third and 9 from the Rams 48. The punt was returned for 19 yards to the Green Bay 32 by Keisean Nixon. From there, the Packers started their first drive of the night. They had no problem going down the field with a mix of run and pass. Romeo Doubs was able to catch two 11-yard passes during this drive that went for first downs. AJ Dillon and Aaron Jones ran well during the drive. All was going well until they got to the Rams 5 yard line. On second and goal from the 5, Aaron Rodgers threw incomplete to Christian Watson, who was held and tripped by CB Jalen Ramsey (that should’ve been a penalty). On third down, Rodgers was sacked for an 11-yard loss, forcing the Packers to settle for a field goal. The kick by Mason Crosby was good from 34 yards out, giving Green Bay a 3-0 lead with 4:25 left in the first quarter. The Packers defense forced the Rams to go three and out on their ensuing possession, giving the Packers a chance to increase their lead to double digits. Unfortunately, the Packers didn’t get that done due to Aaron Rodgers throwing an awful interception to Taylor Rapp. The Rams were able to take advantage of the interception by going down the field for a score. It didn’t help for the Packers defense that Rudy Ford was called for unnecessary roughness after pushing Cam Akers when he was already out of bounds. Thankfully, the defense made sure that the Rams only got a field goal in the red zone. The kick was good from 33 yards out, tying the game at 3-3 with 10:41 left in the second quarter. The ensuing kickoff was returned to the Green Bay 26 by Keisean Nixon. From there, the Packers went on their second scoring drive. During this drive, Aaron Rodgers connected with Randall Cobb on two passes. After the second Rodgers-to-Cobb pass, AJ Dillon finished the drive with three straight runs through the Rams defense. Dillon scored on an 8-yard touchdown run that (with the extra point) gave the Packers a 10-3 lead with 4:26 left before halftime. The Packers defense nearly got a turnover when Quay Walker strip-sacked Baker Mayfield. It was a bummer that the fumble was recovered by the offense, keeping the drive alive. Even more frustrating was that the defense allowed yet another long third down conversion immediately afterwards. Thankfully, the defense kept the Rams to another field goal. I give credit to Matt Gay for making it from 55 yards out with 46 seconds left in the half. On the ensuing kickoff, Keisean Nixon returned it all the way to the Rams 47 yard line, which would’ve given the Packers a great start to their last drive of the half. Frustratingly, there was a holding penalty during the return that backed Green Bay to their own 13 yard line. They were still able to get close enough for a Hail Mary attempt, but chaos ensued. Rodgers ran all over the field to get a good spot to throw the ball. Instead of throwing the pass, he got sacked for a loss of 4 yards, ending the half in anticlimactic fashion with Green Bay up 10-6.
After the kick return by Keisean Nixon, the Packers started their first second half drive at their own 32 yard line. On the second play of the game, a defensive holding penalty called against the Rams nullified a sack that would’ve forced the Packers to be in a third and 17. After that penalty, the Packers were able to go all the way down the field for a touchdown. Once again, it was a good mix of run and pass that culminated in a 1-yard touchdown run by AJ Dillon. Before that TD, Jalen Ramsey was called for illegal contact that negated an incomplete pass by Aaron Rodgers. With the TD and extra point, the Packers increased their lead to 17-6 with 8:04 left in the third quarter. The Packers were able to increase their lead to 24-6 after a three and out by the Rams offense, a facemask penalty that gave the Packers possession of the ball at the Rams 35, and a 7-yard touchdown pass from Rodgers to Aaron Jones (plus an extra point). The Rams were able to go down the field for a touchdown on their next drive. It didn’t help the defense that Jaire Alexander was called for a low block penalty that was added to an 18 yard catch and run by Cam Akers. A few plays later, Baker Mayfield connected with tight end Tyler Higbee for an 8-yard touchdown pass that cut the lead to 24-12. The extra point kick was wide right, keeping the Packers’ lead at 12 points. Keisean Nixon had yet another kickoff return that went into opposing territory. He got to the Rams 47 before being pushed out of bounds. Unfortunately, the Packers did next to nothing with it as they were forced to punt after Aaron Rodgers was sacked out of field goal range. After the punt, the Rams gave the ball back with a Baker Mayfield interception to Rasul Douglas. Douglas, for no sane reason, decided to lateral the ball to Adrian Amos, who went nowhere with the ball. The Packers offense did nothing with it as Aaron Jones was stripped of the ball by Jalen Ramsey. That play should have stopped with Jones’ forward progress, but the turnover counted. Thankfully, the defense was able to keep the Rams from getting anything out of the turnover. After the punt to Randall Cobb, who was able to fair catch the ball cleanly, the Packers took over at their own 14 with 8:51 left in the game. Because AJ Dillon left the game with a concussion, Patrick Taylor was brought in to run a couple of times during this drive. The biggest plays were a 23-yard pass completion to Romeo Doubs, a 13-yard completion to Christian Watson, and a 14-yard run by Aaron Jones. These plays contributed to the Packers getting to the Rams 12. A weird thing that happened was that the Packers used a timeout 6 seconds before the two minute warning. After the two minute warning, on a third and 2 from the Rams 4, Rodgers threw a pass that went into the dirt. Rather than kick the field goal, the Packers went for it on fourth down. Aaron Jones got the first down just short of the goal line. As an example of good sportsmanship, the Packers went to victory formation rather than score a touchdown. After three kneel-downs, the game was over with the Packers winning 24-12. With this win, the Packers are now 6-8 and still alive for a playoff spot.
(Here are the highlights of the game, provided by the NFL's YouTube page. Click on "Watch on YouTube.)
On offense, the Packers were a mixed bag of good and bad. Aaron Rodgers threw for 229 yards while completing 22 of 30 pass attempts. He threw an awful interception when he had a wide open Allen Lazard late in the first quarter. AJ Dillon scored two of the three touchdowns for Green Bay while combining for 71 yards on the night before a concussion sidelined him in the second half. Aaron Jones led the Packers with 90 rushing yards and 36 receiving yards and a touchdown catch. Christian Watson didn’t score a touchdown this time, but he contributed well thanks to his blocking efforts all night long. Romeo Doubs caught 5 passes for 55 yards in his return from injury. The offensive line performed ok without David Bakhtiari. There were times when run plays were shut down by the Rams defense. The sacks that Rodgers took were all because of him holding the ball too long and (in the end of the second quarter) running all around the field for a good Hail Mary spot. The two turnovers and other wasted drives only kept the Packers to only 24 points against a Rams defense that was injured to heck and back. At least they were able to run out the rest of the clock in the fourth quarter as snow was falling from the sky. Hopefully the offense performs better all around next week.
On defense, the Packers played well for most of the game. They were able to sack Baker Mayfield 5 times on Monday night, including a strip sack by Quay Walker that should’ve been a turnover in Green Bay’s favor. Speaking of Quay Walker, he had himself a game against the Rams, stopping a couple of run plays for losses. Kingsley Enegbare was able to get one of the sacks for Green Bay on Monday night. Rasul Douglas got another interception of Baker Mayfield, but I give him negative points for doing that weird lateral after the pick. The defense was able to force the Rams to a couple of three and out possessions. With that being said, there were still times where the defense gave up a long third down and a touchdown because of the defensive backs playing too far off the line of scrimmage. It’s obvious that Joe Barry’s job will be gone as soon as the season ends. I hope that the defense is ready for a better offense next week in Miami.
On Special Teams, the Packers played well on Monday night. The star was Keisean Nixon, who accumulated 131 combined return yards on kickoffs and punts. I really wanted Nixon to return a kickoff for a touchdown on Monday night. If it wasn’t for him being pushed out of bounds, he would’ve scored on one in the second half. It was a bummer that the big return before halftime got called back due to a holding penalty. On the other side, no big returns were allowed to the Rams in this game. I have to give a shoutout to Mason Crosby, who tied Brett Favre for the most games started in a Green Bay Packers uniform with 255. He’ll be breaking that mark next week at Miami on Christmas Day. On Monday night, he made each kick (one field goal and 3 extra points). I don’t take his consistency for granted, and it will be sad when he retires. Pat O’Donnell did his job on field goal/extra point attempts and punted the Rams inside their 20 on his only kick of the night. The line didn’t allow any kicks to be blocked, which was another good thing. I’m confident that the Special Teams unit will finish in the top 15-20 this year. Considering how bad they were before Rich Bisaccia came to town, I think that’s a major W for Green Bay.
Overall, it was not the prettiest win, especially on offense, but the Packers were able to hold fort at home and keep their postseason hopes alive. It will be a short week for them as they go to Hard Rock Stadium to take on the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. Hopefully that’s a happy Christmas for Green Bay. In the meantime, it’s a Victory Tuesday. Have a great rest of your week, everyone. Go Pack Go!
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