Good afternoon, everyone. On Sunday afternoon, the Green Bay Packers took on the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High. Coming out of their bye week, the Packers should have been ready to get the win against arguably the worst team in football. Instead, the opposite outcome happened and they lost in frustrating fashion. Let’s get into detail on how this game went down.
The Packers started this game on defense. Things didn’t start well as they gave up a big pass completion from Russell Wilson to Courtland Sutton that got the Broncos into scoring range (kudos to Sutton for the catch). A few plays later, the Broncos were able to score a touchdown, but the score was nullified due to an offensive holding penalty. Because of that, plus a play that went nowhere on the following play, Denver has to settle for a field goal to take a 3-0 lead with 8:27 left in the first quarter. The next three drives (two by Green Bay, one by Denver) mostly went nowhere and resulted in punts (though the officials missed a defensive pass interference penalty when Jayden Reed was tackled before trying to catch a ball). After the second punt by Daniel Whelon went in the end zone for a touchback, the Broncos started at their own 20 with 2:31 left in the first quarter. Denver was once again able to get into field goal range, but the Packers defense was able to keep them from scoring a touchdown. The field goal from 29 yards away by Wil Lutz was good, giving the Broncos a 6-0 lead with 13:14 left in the second quarter. The ensuing drive for the Packers only went 20 yards before they were forced to punt the ball away due to an incomplete pass on third and 4 from the Green Bay 45. On that particular play, Christian Watson and Jayden Reed ran into each other, causing the pass to fall incomplete. The Broncos’ next drive resulted in a punt, but not before they were able to get 23 yards on a second and 31 (yikes at that play). After the return by Keisean Nixon, the Packers started their next drive at their own 28 yard line. This time, Green Bay’s offense was able to get into scoring range. However, their drive stalled when a false start penalty causes a third and 4 to turn into a third and 9. The pass only went 5 yards, which wasn’t enough for the first down. It looked like they were going to go for it, but the only reason the offense was out there was in the hope that they would draw the defense offsides, which didn’t work. After wasting a timeout, Anders Carlson was called upon to attempt a 43-yard field goal. Unfortunately, that kick went wide left, which kept the score at 6-0 in Denver’s favor. The Broncos were able to get into field goal range, with Wil Lutz making his kick from 35 yards out. That field goal gave Denver a 9-0 lead over Green Bay at halftime.
The Packers started the second half on offense. During this drive, the Packers were able to pull off a trick play. On second and 2 from the Denver 31 yard line, Jordan Love pitched the ball to Dontayvion Wicks, who then threw a pass to Aaron Jones that went for 14 yards and a first down. The bummer was that the Packers were not able to score a touchdown on this drive. The field goal was at least made this time by Anders Carlson, finally putting the Packers on the scoreboard with 10:24 left in the third quarter. The Packers defense then allowed the Broncos to score a touchdown on their next drive. The drive, which lasted 7 plays, culminated in an 18-yard touchdown pass from Russell Wilson to Courtland Sutton that increased the lead to 16-3 with 6:17 left in the third quarter. Luckily, the Packers offense was able to answer back with a touchdown of their own. It helped that there was a defensive holding penalty that nullified an incompletion on third and 7 from the Denver 48 yard line (which was almost picked off). The drive ended in a touchdown, which Romeo Doubs had to fight for in the end zone with a Broncos defender (Patrick Surtain). It was the same situation that happened against the Packers back in 2012 at Seattle (the Fail Mary game). Basically, when there is simultaneous possession by the receiver and a defender, the officials rule it in favor of the offense. As a result, the play was ruled a touchdown for the Packers. The extra point was good, cutting the Broncos lead to 6 points with 1:45 left in the quarter. The Packers defense then forced Denver to go three and out, giving the offense a chance to score a touchdown and take the lead in the fourth quarter. An 11-play drive that took over 6 minutes followed, with the Packers moving the ball down the field. On the second play of the drive, Jordan Love found tight end Luke Musgrave for a big completion that got the Packers into Denver territory. Musgrave got hit hard by Kareem Jackson, who was ejected after the cheap shot hit. That penalty added 15 yards to the end of the play. Later on in the drive, the Packers faced a fourth and 2 from the Denver 4 yard line. Jordan Love threw the ball low to Romeo Doubs. The ball bounced off of Doubs’ hands and thankfully into the hands of Jayden Reed for the touchdown. With the extra point, the Packers finally took a lead: 17-16. With 8:31 left, all that the Packers defense had to do was keep the Broncos from scoring any points. Instead, the defense basically allowed the Broncos to do just that while using up over 4 and a half minutes of the game clock. The field goal was good from 52 yards out, giving Denver a 19-17 lead with 3:50 left in the game. For the Packers, the goal was simple: get into scoring range and give Anders Carlson a chance to win the game for Green Bay. During the drive, Jordan Love found AJ Dillon underneath for a pass that went 29 yards to the Denver 44 yard line. A couple of plays later, Christian Watson (who was wide open during the AJ Dillon catch) got injured after an incomplete pass. The Packers faced a third and 20 with 1:52 left in the game. Rather than hit Dillon underneath once again, Jordan Love forced a pass downfield to Samori Toure, who was double teamed. The pass was intercepted by PJ Locke, effectively ending the game. Nothing happened, besides a pointless deep pass by Russell Wilson that wasted time. The game resulted in a 19-17 loss for the Packers. With this loss, the Packers are now 2-4 on the season.
A lot of things went wrong for the Packers on offense. Even after a bye week, the Packers looked lifeless on offense. A major reason is that the game plan consisted of too many short passes that went nowhere or lost yardage. The execution of the game plan had some issues thanks to the offensive line being iffy on terms of run blocking and pass protection. There was also a situation in which two receivers basically ran into each other on a pass that went incomplete. I did like that AJ Dillon played well on Sunday. He got a combined total of 95 yards (61 rushing and 34 receiving) while Aaron Jones got a total of 57 yards on Sunday in his return from injury. Jones only got 11 touches on Sunday, but I understood that given that he was coming back from a hamstring injury, which can hinder a player all season depending on how serious it is. Jordan Love made some clutch throws on third downs and threw for two touchdowns (though one of those was a lucky one), but he missed a couple of wide open receivers, threw some passes that went nowhere, and (for the second game in a row) threw an interception despite there being plenty of time left to win the game. There is plenty of blame to go around for the woes on offense against one of the worst defenses in football. In my opinion, Matt LaFleur’s seat is incredibly hot right now. The Packers had two weeks to prepare for this game, and they come out flat early on. In the first half of the past 4 games, the Packers have only scored 6 points on offense. That number is awful considering that the past two games have been against awful teams. The upcoming schedule is only going to get tougher from here for the Packers.
On defense, the Packers allowed less than 20 points once again. However, there were times that they played soft. For example, on the goal line situation during Denver’s first drive, the Packers only had two defensive linemen even though the Broncos were in their goal line offense. The touchdown was nullified, but that defensive setup was inexcusable at the goal line. What was also inexcusable was only sacking Russell Wilson once on Sunday and not forcing any turnovers. A second and 31 was turned into a third and 8 during one of Denver’s drives, which thankfully ended in a three and out. Even with that, giving up that many yards was awful for the defense. After the touchdown that gave the Packers the lead, the defense basically allowed the Broncos to get into scoring range and take the lead right back. What also didn’t help was that Jaire Alexander missed the game due to a back issue. In addition to that, Eric Stokes pulled his hamstring during a punt and Devonte Wyatt hurt his knee on Sunday. The unfortunate thing is that there is no extra bye week for the Packers (or any team for that matter) to help with these injuries. It has to be next man up from this point forward. The Packers allowed over 100 rushing yards on Sunday, including 82 to Javonte Williams, 45 to Jaleel McLaughlin, and 21 to a scrambling Russell Wilson. Courtland Sutton was allowed to score a touchdown thanks to him being wide open. Even with the mess ups, the Packers defense played well enough to allow the offense to have some scoring opportunities (only for the offense to mess up on their own).
At least the Special Teams unit made the least amount of mistakes on Sunday. Unfortunately, that mistake was Anders Carlson missing his first field goal attempt of the season. Just before the kick, the announcer (Kevin Harlan) mentioned that he hasn’t missed a kick at all. That jinxed Carlson into missing that kick wide left near the end of the first half. Thankfully, he made every other field goal and extra point attempt on Sunday. If the offense would have gotten to field goal range in the final minutes, I would have had faith in Carlson to make the kick. Hopefully that happens in a future game. No big returns were allowed on either side, with most kickoffs resulting in a touchback and a couple of punts going deep into teams’ own territory. With some of the chaos that happened in this game, I was relieved that no chaos happened on the Special Teams unit that would have hurt the Packers.
Overall, this game was an awful loss. Instead of being a get right game for the Packers, they came out flat against a Broncos team that has been bad all season. Coaching was the main reason why they lost, but it also comes down to execution by the players. To make matters worse, some guys got banged up on Sunday, including Christian Watson, Eric Stokes, and Devonte Wyatt. It’s going to be a long season, with the next game being at Lambeau Field against the Minnesota Vikings. I do hope that the home atmosphere can help the Packers end the losing streak. I’ll talk more on that game later. In the meantime, I hope you all have a great week ahead. 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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