Good afternoon, everyone. On Monday night, the Green Bay Packers looked to get to 3-2 on the season against the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium (aka: a giant Roomba). This game was supposed to be a get-right game for the Packers after 10 days off. Instead, the Packers were not able to win on Monday night due to a number of factors, which I will get to eventually. With that introduction out of the way, let’s get into detail on how this game went down.
The Packers were on offense to start this game. After the kickoff went out of the end zone for a touchback, the drive began at their own 25 yard line. AJ Dillon kicked things off with three straight runs to get a first down for Green Bay. Dillon ran for another first down two plays later. Three plays later, on third and 3 from the Raiders 47 yard line, Jordan Love threw a deep pass intended for Jayden Reed that went incomplete. It looked like the Packers were going to go for it on fourth down, but Love was trying to do the hard count stuff instead, which failed. After a delay of game penalty, the Packers punted the ball away to Las Vegas. The punt was fair caught at the Raiders’ 13 yard line. From there, the Raiders started their first drive of the night. After a couple of quick first downs, the Raiders’ drive ended when Jimmy Garoppolo was sacked by Kenny Clark on third and 6 from the Las Vegas 47 yard line. The punt went out of bounds at the Green Bay 7 yard line. From there, the Packers went on a drive that almost went for a touchdown. Once again, a couple of good AJ Dillon runs started the drive, plus an unnecessary roughness penalty on Maxx Crosby (to be fair, Zach Tom flopped on the play). After the penalty, Jordan Love scrambled for a 26 yard gain, which would have been more had he not got tripped up. The next play was a 19-yard catch and run by tight end Josiah Deguara that got the Packers into the red zone. Then, the drive stalled for Green Bay. A handoff to Christian Watson that went for negative 5 yards was a bad start to the red zone drive. Jayden Reed caught the second down pass for 7 yards to make it third and 8 from the LV 18 yard line. The third down pass went incomplete, and there was also an illegal man downfield penalty (which was declined). That resulted in Green Bay settling for a field goal from 37 yards out. The kick was made by Anders Carlson, giving Green Bay a 3-0 lead with 2:38 left in the first quarter. The Packers defense was able to force the Raiders to punt after a sack of Garoppolo by Preston Smith on third and 5 from the Green Bay 40 yard line, which got them out of field goal range. The punt was fair caught by Jayden Reed at the Green Bay 10 yard line to start the second quarter. The drive started with a 12-yard pass from Jordan Love to Ben Sims, but it stalled out after that. An incomplete pass on third and 11 from the GB 21 forced the Packers to punt back to the Raiders, who started their drive at their own 38. The defense did get another sack of Garoppolo thanks to Kingsley Enagbare, but the Raiders were able to recover from that and moved the ball down the field. They had the ball for 8 minutes during the drive, which concluded with a touchdown pass in which Jakobi Meyers had no problem getting to the end zone thanks to Rudy Ford being set up at the goal line instead of near the receiver. The extra point was good by Daniel Carlson, giving Las Vegas a 7-3 lead with 4:09 left in the half. Jordan Love then threw an awful interception that got the Raiders in scoring range. Thankfully, the defense kept the Raiders from scoring a touchdown after the pick. The field goal was good, increasing the Raiders’ lead to 10-3 with 2 and a half minutes remaining. The Packers did with the opportunity to tie and went three and out. The Raiders then went down the field to potentially get more points before halftime. They got into field goal range, but Daniel Carlson’s kick got blocked by Yosh Nijman, keeping the score at 10-3 as the half ends.
The Packers defense got to a great start as Rudy Ford picked off Jimmy Garoppolo on the first possession of the second half. From the Raiders 37 yard line, the Packers went on a drive that mainly consisted of AJ Dillon running the ball down the defense’s throat. The drive ended with a 5-yard touchdown run by Dillon that, with the extra point, tied the game at 10-10 with 8:27 left in the third quarter. After the defense forced Las Vegas to go three and out, the Packers got an opportunity to take the lead. On the first play from the Green Bay 17 yard line, Jordan Love found Christian Watson for a deep connection. After Watson caught the pass, he was running to the end zone until he was horse-collar tackled by Marcus Peters at the Las Vegas 6 yard line. With the penalty (which could have been a serious neck injury for Watson), the Packers had a goal-to-go situation at the three yard line. Three bad plays later, including a roll-out pass to the left that went out of bounds, the Packers had to settle for a field goal. The kick was good, giving Green Bay a 3-point lead with 5:16 left in the third quarter. All the defense had to do was keep the Raiders from scoring any points. Instead, Las Vegas was allowed to go the distance on a 10-play drive that covered 75 yards. During this drive, Preston Smith was covering Davante Adams on a play that resulted in Adams catching a pass for a 21-yard gain. That is inexcusable, and that pass completion helped continue the drive for Las Vegas. The drive ended right at the start of the fourth quarter with a 2-yard touchdown run by Josh Jacobs, which gave the Raiders the lead back. The Packers got the ball back with plenty of time to retake the lead. Unfortunately, the drive ended when a pass that was intended for Christian Watson was tipped and intercepted by the Raiders’ defense. Luckily, the defense kept the Raiders from doing anything on the drive and forced them to punt. On third and 3 from the Las Vegas 49 yard line, Rashan Gary sacked Jimmy Garoppolo for a 5 yard loss. The punt was fair caught by Jayden Reed at the 17 yard line of Green Bay. From there, the Packers could not get anything going after a holding penalty negated a Jordan Love scramble. A deep pass to Christian Watson went incomplete on third and 10 from the Green Bay 17. The punt was fair caught at the Raiders 33 yard line. From there, the Raiders were able to go down to Packers territory to potentially ice the game. They had a fourth and 2 situation from the Green Bay 34 yard line. Instead of going for it, it was decided that Daniel Carlson would kick the field goal from 52 yards out. The kick had the distance, but it hit the right upright and bounced backwards, keeping the score at 17-13 with 1:56 left in the game. The Packers were given an opportunity to win this ugly game, but they couldn’t get it done. There were a couple of dropped passes, including one by Romeo Doubs, and there was a third interception by Jordan Love. Love had Watson open, but he under threw it, allowing the pass to be picked off (an alternative choice would have been to run for the first down and continue the drive). That interception was followed by two kneel downs, ending the game. With the loss, the Packers enter their bye week at 2-3 with a lot of work to be done.
I’m going to cover the defense first. They played well at points, sacking Jimmy Garoppolo 4 times and picking him off once (with another pick opportunity messed up in the second half). They also forced the Raiders to go three and out on a few occasions, which should have helped the offense (which I will talk about later). The run defense did much better, only allowing Josh Jacobs to run for 69 yards on 20 attempts. As for the passing game, Garoppolo was mostly able to dink and dunk the Packers defense to death. The worst defensive plays happened during the Raiders’ touchdown drives. On the first touchdown that the Raiders scored, Jakobi Meyers was basically given a free score when Rudy Ford was lined up at the goal line rather than closer to the receiver. On the second touchdown drive, Davante Adams was covered by none other than Preston Smith, who should not be covering top wideouts at all, let alone one of the best receivers in Packers history. Before that play happened, he should have taken the offside penalty for the defense to reset itself and not allow that to happen. Plenty of players, including Quay Walker, Rasul Douglas, Kenny Clark, and Rashan Gary, played their hearts out on Monday night to help the Packers keep the Raiders to only 17 points. Stuff like allowing too many open receivers and covering receivers with pass rushers need to end after the bye week.
On offense, the Packers played an awful game. There were a number of factors that led to the offense’s bad play on Monday night. The first was supposedly a strength: the O-Line. Even with Elgton Jenkins back and Royce Newman on the bench, the line was pressured all night long by one guy: Maxx Crosby. Crosby only sacked Jordan Love once, but he was a constant menace to the O-Line all night. It was not a good night at the office for the most part, but at least they paved the way for AJ Dillon to run for the most yards in a single game so far this year: 76 (plus a touchdown). Outside of that, the run game didn’t do well without Aaron Jones, who I thought was going to play until he was listed as inactive. Jordan Love did not have a good day at all, throwing three interceptions, including an awful one to a linebacker and one in the end zone in which he had Christian Watson open in the final minute. Watson could have fought for the ball better on the end zone INT since he had a height advantage on the defensive back. There should have been a couple of penalties called on the Raiders defense during deep passes to Watson. Finally, I want to talk about the bad play calling by head coach Matt LaFleur. There are too many plays that took place behind the line of scrimmage and went absolutely nowhere. One of these plays included an end-around to Christian Watson that went for negative 5 yards and messed up a potential touchdown drive for Green Bay in the first quarter. He keeps calling for short plays, yet the offensive line got pressured, which forced some of those plays to backfire. Another play was a potential screen pass to AJ Dillon that Love was forced to throw awkwardly. As a result, the ball fell incomplete at Dillon’s fingertips. Not only that, but there were instances where the offense forgot that Romeo Doubs existed. He only got one catch while dropping a crucial catch during the last drive. The most infuriating play calling sequence was after the 77-yard catch and run by Christian Watson that was interrupted by a horse collar tackle. Instead of giving Watson a chance to finish the drive with a touchdown, the play calls were two AJ Dillon runs up the middle that were stuffed and a roll-out pass to the left that went out of bounds. Those plays failed and the Packers had to settle for a field goal. LaFleur and the coaching staff have a lot of self-scouting to do in terms of play calling and getting everyone ready to go regardless of who is out due to injury.
Thankfully, the Special Teams unit kept the mistakes to a minimum. There were no bone-headed penalties that messed up a big return and there were no turnovers. There were no kick returns at all thanks to both Carlson brothers (Anders and Daniel) booting each ball in the end zone for a touchback. Other than a couple of small punt returns, every punt combined was either fair caught or went out of bounds. Anders Carlson was perfect once again with his kicks, which his brother Daniel had one kick that was blocked by Yosh Nijman and the other that resulted in a doink. Even though there were no big splash plays outside of the blocked kick, I’m glad that the Special Teams unit played well on Monday night in Rich Bisaccia’s return to Las Vegas.
Overall, this game was an awful loss for the Packers against one of the worst teams in football. There were so many missed chances to win this game. Everyone on the coaching staff need to figure things out during the bye week so mistakes that happened during the first 5 games don’t happen as often. I was not expecting a world champion team, but they should have played better than they did on Monday night. After their bye week, they play the Denver Broncos in Denver on Sunday October 22nd. Until then, I hope that everyone gets healed up and the coaching staff gets their act together. Go Pack Go.
(Here are the “lowlights” of the game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube page. Click on “Watch on YouTube” if you’re curious.)
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