Good afternoon, everyone. On Sunday afternoon, the Green Bay Packers took on the Minnesota Vikings at Lambeau Field. This was the Packers’ first home game in over a month, but the friendly confines of Lambeau Field didn’t help them win the game. Once again, they struggled on offense in the first half as they ultimately lost to the Vikings by double digits. Let’s get the details out of the way now.
After the kickoff return by Keisean Nixon, which didn’t go far at all, the Packers started this game on offense at their own 19 yard line. The drive didn’t go far as they went three and out. A crazy play on third and one from the 28 yard line in which Jordan Love escaped pressure and threw a pass completion to Romeo Doubs was nullified due to an illegal man downfield penalty. A third and 5 incomplete pass was nullified thanks to a defensive offside against Minnesota. The Packers again faced third and one from the 28 yard line. AJ Dillon was stuffed on the run thanks to the offensive line not blocking well and the defense getting to him in the backfield. After that run stuff plus a false start penalty, Daniel Whelon punted to the Vikings, who started their first drive at their own 34 yard line. The Vikings were able to get to field goal range during their drive (thanks to Packers LB Quay Walker dropping an interception), but it resulted in no points when the field goal attempt by Greg Joseph went wide right. The Packers didn’t do anything with that momentum as they went three and out for a second time. It didn’t help that Aaron Jones and Luke Musgrave dropped a catch on back to back plays. After the punt, the Vikings started their second drive at their own 23 yard line. Minnesota’s offense were able to go down the field. During the drive, a catch by Jordan Addison was ruled incomplete thanks to a challenge by Matt LaFleur. On that play, however, Jonathan Owens was called for unnecessary roughness, giving the Vikings a free first down anyway. On the next play, Kingsley Enegbare was called for roughing the passer, giving Minnesota another free first down. 3 plays later, the Vikings got a first and goal thanks to TJ Hockenson catching a pass and going all the way to the Green Bay 4 yard line. A couple of plays later, Cam Akers scored the Vikings’ first rushing touchdown of the season from 6 yards out. The extra point was good, giving Minnesota a 7-0 lead with 1:34 left in the first quarter. The Packers were not able to respond with their own score as they went three and out for a third straight time. On the second play of the drive, Jordan Love was sacked for a loss of 12 yards. A delay of game changed a third and 17 to a third and 22. Love scrambled for 9 yards on third down, but that didn’t change the fact that the Packers went three and out and punted back to Minnesota. Once again, the Vikings were able to get into field goal range and get more points on the board. However, the Packers defense kept them to only a field goal in the red zone. The kick was good from 25 yards out, increasing the Vikings lead to 10-0 with 10:13 left in the second quarter. The next drive for the Packers started good with two runs by Aaron Jones, but the second run (which would’ve set up a third and one) was called back due to a holding penalty against Jon Runyan Jr. The next two plays didn’t get enough for a first down and the Packers went three and out for a fourth straight time. After the punt, the Vikings started their next drive at their own 25 yard line. This time, the Vikings were not able to get to scoring range and were forced to punt back to Green Bay thanks to Keisean Nixon breaking up a third and three pass. From their own 15 yard line, the Packers finally went on a drive that lasted more than three plays. Even though they had a couple of mishaps in the forms of a dropped pass and an offensive pass interference penalty, the Packers were able to get a field goal on the board before halftime. The first attempt by Anders Carlson hit the right upright, but there was an offsides penalty that gave the Packers another shot. The kick was good from 30 yards out, cutting the lead to 10-3 at halftime.
Unfortunately, the Packers defense was unable to keep the Vikings from scoring a touchdown on their first possession of the second half. The drive lasted 5 and a half minutes as the Vikings had no problem going down the field. The drive ended with a 2-yard touchdown pass from Kirk Cousins to TJ Hockenson that, with the extra point, increased the lead to 17-3 with 9:25 left in the third quarter. The Vikings almost immediately got the ball back thanks to a deep pass that was in the hands of Jayden Reed. Reed couldn’t hold on to the ball, which was picked off by Josh Metellus. Metellus took the pick all the way to the Green Bay 20 yard line. From there, Jordan Addison caught a pass that went for a touchdown. The extra point was good, increasing the lead to 24-3 with 7:48 left in the quarter. The Packers were finally able to get to the end zone on their next drive, but they had to get the touchdown on fourth and goal from the one yard line. Romeo Doubs caught the touchdown for Green Bay, but he didn’t do a Lambeau Leap afterwards. The extra point by Anders Carlson was good, cutting the lead to 24-10 with 2:39 left in the third quarter. The Vikings returned the kickoff for a touchdown, but it was nullified due to a holding penalty. Minnesota’s offense was still able to get into field goal range during the drive. The drive resulted in no points thanks to the kick being blocked by Karl Brooks. The ball was recovered by Jonathan Owens, who ran with it to the Green Bay 44 yard line. The Packers offense used that momentum to get into scoring range for a potential touchdown to cut the lead to one possession. They got to the Minnesota 10 yard line before three straight incomplete passes (2 drops and a pass break up) resulted in a turnover on downs. Thankfully, the Packers got another shot when Preston Smith strip-sacked QB Jaren Hall (Kirk Cousins exited the game earlier with an Achilles injury, which will sideline him for the rest of the season) and the fumble was recovered by Devonte Wyatt at the Minnesota 15 yard line. Even with the momentum on their side, the Packers didn’t score any points on this drive. It didn’t help that Jordan Love was sacked on the second play and the next play resulted in yet another incomplete pass. On fourth and 16, Jordan Love scrambled for the first down, but he came up one yard short, resulting in a turnover on downs. The Packers defense was able to force the Vikings to punt, with Keisean Nixon having a decent return. Unfortunately, that return was called back due to a holding penalty. From their own 20 with 2:41 left, the Packers desperately did their best to get that touchdown to cut the lead to double digits. They got to the Minnesota 34 yard line during the drive. On first and 10 from the 34, Christian Watson dropped a potential touchdown pass. Three plays later, the drive was over thanks to a pass break up on fourth and 20 from the 44 yard line. After two kneel downs, the game was over with the Packers losing their fourth game in a row by a score of 24-10. With this loss, the Packers are 2-5 on the season.
Once again, the Packers didn’t play well on offense in the first half. There were a number of problems on Sunday, including the offensive line not blocking well (which led to a couple of sacks) and the receivers dropping a lot of passes. Some of those drops were during the 4 three and outs in the first half, and others were during the fourth quarter when the Packers were trying to come back in the second half. In addition to that, the Packers were 0 for 7 in contested catch situations on Sunday, including Jayden Reed dropping a pass that ended up being an interception. The running game was bad for Green Bay on Sunday. It didn’t help that Aaron Jones, who should be the main ball carrier for Green Bay, only ran 7 times for a total of 29 yards. Jordan Love actually led the running game with 4 scrambles for 34 yards. The offensive line did not help matters either, with some run plays going for nothing due to missed blocks or guys getting beat. The two worst O-Linemen on Sunday were Rasheed Walker and Josh Myers. Starting next week, Walker should give up his spot to Yosh Nijman and Zach Tom should take the center position for Myers. That could help the line a bit more for the rest of the season. Another problem was the penalties that messed up a few drives. For example, that big play where Jordan Love escaped the pressure and threw a 20-yard pass completion to Romeo Doubs was ruined due to a holding penalty. There were also false start and delay of game penalties on Sunday against Green Bay that were frustrating. A lot of things went wrong on offense, including penalties, drops, and missed opportunities to score in the red zone. Jordan Love made some mistakes, but he was far from the main problem on Sunday. A lot of things need to be cleaned up offensively, but I am not sure if they’ll be cleaned up right away. They at least should have a new O-Line set up and have Aaron Jones carry the load. Hopefully they play better at Lambeau Field and not get booed off the field.
On defense, the Packers at least didn’t allow the Vikings to score over 30 points on Sunday. They did, however, allow plenty of easy pass completions that allowed the Vikings to convert some third downs and were the first team to give up a rushing touchdown to Minnesota. It didn’t help that Quay Walker dropped an interception and there were a few penalties (including two questionable roughing the passer penalties) that gave the Vikings free first downs during certain drives. Kirk Cousins was allowed to complete 23 of his 31 pass attempts for 274 yards and two touchdowns before he had to leave the game with a torn Achilles. I wish Cousins well in his recovery, even though he is a Viking. The Packers did shut down the running game, allowing less than 70 rushing yards. The defense also gave the offense opportunities to come back in the fourth quarter, including a strip sack. But the offense couldn’t capitalize on those opportunities. Even though the defense wasn’t all bad, there were times that they let the Vikings go down the field easily. Joe Barry once again should be counting his weeks as D-Coordinator. He should be gone at season’s end.
At least Rich Bisaccia should keep his job, although the Special Teams unit wasn’t mistake-free. There were a couple of penalties on Special Teams, including one that nullified a nice punt return by Keisean Nixon that would have set up the Packers at a good field position in their last drive. They did allow a huge kickoff return for a touchdown, but that was nullified due to a holding penalty. Even with that penalty, allowing a touchdown like that is unacceptable. A penalty thankfully allowed Anders Carlson to redo his field goal after the first attempt hit the right upright just before halftime. I was surprised to see the Packers block a field goal during the second half. I just wished that the offense did anything with that momentum. There was no repeat of last season’s Packers-Vikings game at Lambeau Field as Keisean Nixon did not get a touchdown on a kickoff return. At least Daniel Whelon punted well when he was called upon and the Packers didn’t allow a kick to get blocked. I can at least hope that the Special Teams unit will play well for the rest of the season.
Overall, it was another bad loss for the Packers. Even worse was that there were a lot of Vikings fans invading Lambeau Field that were happy at the end of the game. Right now, it’s tough to be a Packers fan, but I’ll still be here covering the games win, lose or draw. Next week will be another game at Lambeau Field. The opponent for Week 9 will be the Los Angeles Rams. I’ll talk about that game later. Have a great week, everyone. Go Pack Go.
(Here are the “lowlights” of the game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube page. Click on “Watch on YouTube” if you are curious.)
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