Good afternoon, everyone. On Sunday, the Green Bay Packers took on the New Orleans Saints at Lambeau Field. This was Jordan Love’s first home start and there was plenty of excitement for this game. What happened on Sunday looked bleak for the Packers during the first three quarters. However, similar to what happened 5 years ago against the Bears, the Packers came back from a 17-point deficit to win their home opener against the Saints. Let’s get into detail on how this game went down.
The Saints had the ball first, but they went three and out thanks to a sack of Derek Carr by Kenny Clark on third and 10 from the New Orleans 25 yard line. The ensuing punt gave the Packers a great starting field position at their own 48 yard line. Despite that great start, the Packers did nothing with it as they went four and out. The fourth down play would have been more disastrous had the fumble that Emanuel Wilson lost not been recovered by Jordan Love. Love ran to his left, almost hurt his knees, and threw a desperation pass to Dontayvion Wicks that went incomplete. As a result, the Saints took over on downs at their own 44 yard line. From there, the Saints offense went down the field in 9 plays, culminating in an 8-yard touchdown pass from Derek Carr to tight end Jimmy Graham. The extra point was good, giving New Orleans a 7-0 lead with 6:40 left in the first quarter. During the ensuing drive, the Packers got a couple of first downs: a 13-yard pass from Jordan Love to Romeo Doubs on first and 10 from the GB 25 and a 14-yard run by AJ Dillon on third and 10 from the GB 38. They had a chance to convert a third and 5 until a false start penalty on Zach Tom put them back 5 yards. The pass on third and 10 was broken up by New Orleans’ defense, forcing the Packers to punt the ball away. Daniel Whelon punted the ball to the New Orleans 10 yard line, where it was fair caught by Rashid Shaheed. The Saints tried to go down the field, but their drive ended when Derek Carr was sacked for a loss of 5 yards by Rashan Gary on third and 9 from the NO 22 yard line. The punt return by Jayden Reed went only 4 yards to the GB 38 yard line, but a holding penalty on Jonathan Owens pushed the Packers 10 yards back to the 26 yard line. The Packers’ ensuing drive was messed up when an offensive holding penalty on Jayden Reed messed up an Emanuel Wilson first down run. Both second and third down plays with 15 yards to the first down marker resulted in an incomplete pass, forcing Daniel Whelon to punt the ball back to New Orleans. To make things worse, Rashid Shaheed took the punt all the way for a 76-yard touchdown. The extra point was good, increasing the Saints’ lead to 14-0 with 10:30 left in the first half. Keisean Nixon didn’t respond with a touchdown of his own, but at least he didn’t fumble the ball as he returned the kickoff to the 24 yard line. From there, the Packers went down the field to hopefully score their first points of the game. They got all the way to the New Orleans 27 yard line before it went downhill. On third and 8 from the 27, Jordan Love got sacked for a loss of 14 yards. Because of that, the Packers were once again forced to punt the ball away. The punt was fair caught at the 11 yard line by Shaheed. With 4:30 left in the second quarter, the Saints had the ball with the chance to increase their lead before halftime. They took off all but 6 seconds during the drive, which ended in a field goal to increase the lead to 17-0 at halftime.
Green Bay’s first second half drive didn’t go well at all as Jordan Love threw a deep pass that was picked off by the Saints defense. Thankfully, the Packers defense didn’t allow the Saints to capitalize on the interception and forced them to punt back to Green Bay. Rashan Gary sacked Derek Carr on third and 9 from midfield. Carr injured his shoulder during the play, forcing New Orleans to put in Jameis Winston as QB. Green Bay started their next drive at the 10 yard line. Unfortunately, the Packers went nowhere as they went three and out again. The Saints did nothing on their drive, resulting in them punting back to Green Bay. The Packers then went on a long drive that got them to scoring range. During the drive, Jordan Love connected with Romeo Doubs, who made a fantastic sideline catch at the New Orleans 21 yard line. The bummer was that the drive ended with a turnover on downs. On 4th and 2 from the NO 13, Love threw a pass that was intended for RB Patrick Taylor. That pass fell incomplete, resulting in the Saints taking over. Thankfully, the defense forced a three and out, giving the Packers the ball back quickly. From their own 34 yard line, the Packers went on a drive that resulted in them finally scoring points. They got to the New Orleans 20 yard line during the drive, but two incomplete passes resulted in Green Bay settling for a field goal. The kick was good from 38 yards out by Anders Carlson, cutting the lead to 17-3 with 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter. The defense forced yet another stop, which was possible thanks to a Rashan Gary sack and a Corey Ballantine pass break up. The punt was downed at the Green Bay 20 yard line. Two straight defensive pass interference penalties put the Packers at the New Orleans 13 yard line. Three plays later, Jayden Reed caught a pass that gave the Packers a first and goal at the two yard line. Even with this, the Packers faced a fourth and goal. Jordan Love faked a handoff and ran it in himself from one yard out. After the touchdown, the Packers went for two. The conversion was good when Love connected with Samori Toure in the end zone. As a result, the lead was down to 6 points with 6:58 left in the game. The Packers defense forced another three and out, allowing Jordan Love and the offense to potentially take the lead. From their own 20, the Packers offense did just that. AJ Dillon ran for a first down on third and 1 from the 29 yard line, allowing the drive to continue. Jordan Love then ran for 24 yards while staying inbounds the whole time. 2 plays later, Love connected with Jayden Reed, who made a great diving catch to get Green Bay to the 15 yard line. 3 plays after that, on third and 3 from the New Orleans 8 yard line, Love connected with Romeo Doubs, who made a great spinning back shoulder catch for the touchdown that got the Lambeau Field crowd going wild. The extra point was good, giving the Packers an 18-17 lead with 2:56 left in the game. After the kickoff resulted in a touchback, the Saints went down the field to potentially take the lead back. They got all the way to the Green Bay 28 yard line before they had to settle for a field goal. Blake Grupe was prepared for a 46 yard field goal. Thankfully for the Packers, the kick went wide right, which made the crowd go wild. As the Packers offense was getting ready for the kneel down, Jordan Love allowed the crowd to get louder. Three kneel downs later, the game was over with the Packers winning 18-17 and improving to 2-1 on the season.
Offensively, the Packers were missing a few key players, including David Bakhtiari, Elgton Jenkins, Aaron Jones, and Christian Watson. In addition to that, Zach Tom hurt his knee during the game. For three quarters, the Packers could not get anything done on offense. One of the reasons reason was because of penalties that killed some drives. Another reason was because of the Saints defense playing well against Green Bay’s offense. However, in the fourth quarter, the Packers were able to move the ball down the field and finish drives with points. Even though he made some mistakes, including missing a few open receivers and throwing a deep ball that was intercepted, Jordan Love kept his poise as he led the Packers to the comeback victory. He made clutch throws to Romeo Doubs and Jayden Reed during that final drive. I give credit to Reed and Doubs for making those clutch catches during the drive. In that drive, he ran for 24 yards on a scramble that got Green Bay into New Orleans territory. That scramble helped Jordan Love lead the Packers in rushing, which is not great at all. AJ Dillon ran for 33 yards on 11 rushing attempts while Keisean Nixon ran for 11 yards in one play when he was on offense. The offense has a lot to clean up, especially the penalty part, and they need to do that quickly because the Packers play on Thursday night. I hope that the players that missed Sunday’s game come back to play against Detroit.
On defense, the Packers played much better than they did against the Falcons, even without Jaire Alexander (who suffered a back injury during practice this past week). For one thing, they kept the hybrid quarterback/running back/wide receiver Taysom Hill in check. Hill only ran for 12 yards and caught one pass for 9 yards. The running attack in general was kept in check by Green Bay’s defense. Tony Jones only ran for 31 yards while Kendre Miller ran for 33 yards. They did allow Chris Olave to go for 104 yards on 8 catches, but the defense allowed only one touchdown on Sunday. Weirdly, the TD was caught by Jimmy Graham, who only caught a couple of TDs as a Packer. The pass rush got plenty of sacks on Sunday, with Rashan Gary getting 3 of those sacks (and the game ball in the locker room). The defense made sure that the Packers were not trailing by over 20 points at halftime. In the second half, they shut the Saints out, which allowed the offense to come back to win the game. Like on offense, the defense suffered another injury during the game. Two defensive players got hurt during the game to be exact: De’Vondre Campbell with an ankle injury, and Carrington Valentine with a biceps injury. Hopefully those two injuries are not too serious, in addition to Zach Tom’s knee injury. Joe Barry and his unit don’t have much time to recover as the next game is on Thursday night. Hopefully they can play great in that game.
On Special Teams, the Packers made the biggest mistake on Sunday. They allowed a huge punt return for a touchdown to New Orleans in the first half. Other than that, the Packers didn’t do anything as bad as that afterwards. Anders Carlson made each kick once again, and Daniel Whelon punted two balls inside the New Orleans 20 yard line. There were no blocked kicks that messed up Green Bay, so thank goodness for that. The Packers were not able to block any kicks, but thankfully the Saints kicker missed the field goal in the final minute to keep the Packers as the winner of the game. No returner went all the way for a touchdown, but at least there was no fumble during any of those returns. What did happen were a few penalties that pushed the Packers back some yards, even a holding penalty on a punt that went out of bounds. Hopefully the Packers clean up the penalties and the punt return coverage problem from here on out.
Overall, I was happy that the Packers overcame a lot of obstacles and won this game. I hope that this comeback victory is the start of a special season for the Packers. They don’t have that much time to celebrate or recover as they play against the Lions at Lambeau Field on Thursday night. I’ll talk about that game on Wednesday. In the meantime, I’ll be celebrating a Victory Monday. Go Pack Go!
(Here are the highlights of the Packers' comeback win, provided by the NFL's YouTube page. Click on "Watch on YouTube" if you want to.)
Comments