Thoughts on Week 10 (2025): Green Bay Packers vs. Philadelphia Eagles

This one was brutal to watch on Monday night. Heading into the game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lambeau Field, the Green Bay Packers were looking to bounce back from their 16-13 loss at home to the Carolina Panthers in Week 9. Granted, they were playing the defending Super Bowl champions on Monday night and had just lost their best tight end in Tucker Kraft to a season ending knee injury. Still, I was hoping that they would put up a good fight against Philadelphia in front of the Lambeau Field crowd. In the end, the defense played great as they gave up only 10 points. However, the offense only managed to score a single touchdown. That, and a shanked field goal as time expired, ultimately resulted in the Packers losing their second straight game. Let’s get this over with.

The Eagles won the toss, but they deferred to the second half. Therefore, the Packers started the game on offense. A nice kickoff return by Savion Williams set the offense up at their own 39 yard line. Josh Jacobs was the main guy on the first few plays of the drive, which were almost all run plays. During the drive, Jordan Love was able to execute a QB sneak on fourth and 1 from the Philadelphia 41 yard line (yes, they missed a false start on that play). Two plays after the QB sneak, Jordan Love took an 11 yard sack that forced the Packers to face a 3rd and 20 from the Philadelphia 49 yard line. Jordan Love tried to get a deep pass to Christian Watson, but couldn’t connect with him, forcing Daniel Whelan to be called upon to punt. His punt was fair caught at the Philadelphia 9 yard line. From there, the Eagles started their first drive of the game. On the third play of the drive, they did their “Tush Push” play (their only one of the night), which had some false starts that were not called. Eventually, they were able to get into Green Bay territory during the drive, which lasted nearly 9 minutes. However, the drive ended when Jalen Hurts was stripped of the ball by Edgerrin Cooper during a designed QB run. The fumble was recovered by Keisean Nixon, who returned the fumble to the 36 yard line of Green Bay. The Packers ended up wasting the opportunity as they essentially went three and out. Love scrambled for a gain of 12 yards to set up fourth and 1 from the 45 yard line. Aaron Banks got called for a false start penalty during the fourth down play, forcing the Packers to punt for the second time. After five more drives that ended in punts (3 by Philadelphia, 2 by Green Bay), the Packers had a chance with under two minutes left in the first half to get some points on the scoreboard. They were able to get into scoring position before things went wrong. Rather than take the sack on second and 10 from the Philadelphia 27, Love tried to do too much and lost the ball. The fumble was recovered by new Eagle Jaelan Phillips, who was traded to Philadelphia from Miami this past week. To make matters worse for the Packers, Elgton Jenkins’ leg got ran into on the previous play when Love was tackled for no gain. Sean Rhyan had to come in at center after that injury. Luckily, the Eagles didn’t score any points after the fumble and the score at halftime remained 0-0.

The Eagles got the ball first and were able to get into field goal range during their first third quarter drive. However, they were forced to settle for a field goal after a couple of great plays by the Packers defense and a delay of game penalty on the Eagles. The kick by Jake Elliott was good from 39 yards out, giving the Eagles a 3-0 lead with under 9 minutes left in the third quarter. After the kick return by Bo Melton, the Packers started their first second half drive at their own 27 yard line. Jordan Love found Christian Watson for a 20 yard pass completion. Three plays later, Love found Dontayvion Wicks for a 4 yard pass that converted a third and 3 from the Philadelphia 46. After that, the drive stalled and eventually resulted in a turnover on downs after Bo Melton dropped a pass on fourth and 9 from the 45. Thankfully, the defense forced the Eagles to go three and out on their next drive. The ensuing punt went into the end zone for a touchback, resulting in the Packers starting their next drive at the 20 yard line. Josh Jacobs opened the drive with an 11 yard run. Jordan Love then found Dontayvion Wicks for a 20 yard pass on that gave the Packers first and 10 at the Philadelphia 49. Wicks was able to catch another pass on third and 4 to give the Packers another first down. After that play, the drive stalled thanks to an illegal formation penalty and two straight incomplete passes. Rather than bring Brandon McManus out for a 57 yard field goal, the Packers decided to punt it back to Philadelphia. Unfortunately, the punt ended up being a touchback, giving the Eagles the ball at their own 20. On third and 7 from the 23, Saquon Barkley caught a short pass, broke a tackle, and ran for 41 yards to the Green Bay 36 yard line. On the next play, Jalen Hurts found Devonta Smith for a touchdown pass that, with the extra point kick by Jake Elliott, increased the Eagles’ lead to 10-0 with 10:35 left in the fourth quarter. Obviously, the Packers had to get a score to stay in the game. Starting from their own 25 yard line, the Packers offense was finally able to put points on the board during a drive that nearly lasted 5 minutes. The drive consisted of short pass plays and runs that were mostly successful. The Packers were gifted a first down when the Eagles were called for pass interference on a pass that went incomplete on second and 10 from the Philadelphia 34. 2 plays later, Josh Jacobs fought his way into the end zone for a 6 yard touchdown run. The extra point kick by Brandon McManus was good, cutting the lead to 10-7 with 5:49 left in the fourth quarter. The Packers defense, despite giving up a third and 12 conversion, was able to force the Eagles to punt back to Green Bay and give Jordan Love and the offense a chance at winning the game. After two straight incomplete passes to start the drive, the Packers faced a third and 10 from their own 10. Love found Christian Watson in a “gotta have it” play for a 25 yard pass completion. After that, there were two more incomplete passes, setting up third and 10 from the 35. Love found Luke Musgrave, who was unable to get the first down, setting up fourth and 1 from the 44. The Eagles defense was able to stuff the following play, which they called out as an “Inside Zone” run. Even with that failed fourth down play, the Packers had another chance to come back after the Eagles risked an interception on their last drive. The Packers got the ball back at their own 36 with 27 seconds left. After missing Christian Watson on the first play of the drive, Love found Bo Melton down the middle for an 18 yard pass completion. Due to the Packers having no timeouts left, they had to spike the ball, which they were able to do with 5 seconds left. Brandon McManus was initially brought out for a 64 yard field goal, which he missed. However, Nick Sirianni called timeout to ice the kicker. The offense was brought out onto the field only for the ensuing pass to be incomplete. It wasn’t even a Hail Mary attempt. It was a short pass that went incomplete. McManus was brought out again for the field goal. This time, he completely missed it to the left, resulting in the Packers losing by a score of 10-7. With this loss, the Packers are now 5-3-1 on the season.

(Here are the “lowlights” of this brutal game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube page. Click on “Watch on YouTube” if you’re curious.)

To change things up for this post, I’ll talk about the defense first. Even though the game didn’t end in a win, I have to give major kudos to Jeff Hafley’s unit for holding the Eagles offense to just 10 points on Monday night. Even though they were not able to get a single sack on Jalen Hurts, the pass rush was able to force him to throw away some passes. Micah Parsons was one of the players responsible for doing that to Hurts. Yes, there were times that the defense gave up chunk plays, including the 41-yard catch and run by Saquon Barkley and the Devonta Smith touchdown catch on back to back plays. Even though those plays happened, the Packers defense was able to keep the Eagles in check for the majority of the game. I give major kudos to Edgerrin Cooper for forcing the fumble on Jalen Hurts that denied the Eagles of any points on their first possession of the game. Carrington Valentine continues to play well for the Packers defense. He was so close to getting a pick six if Hurts threw a pass more accurately. It was a bummer that Lukas Van Ness missed another game due to his foot injury back in Week 6 against the Bengals. Hopefully he comes back at least before Thanksgiving. Nate Hobbs also missed the game, but I honestly think that he hasn’t played well enough to earn the deal that he got. Asante Samuel, Jr would have been a good option as a depth piece due to Hobbs’ injury, but that did not happen (now, he is with the Steelers practice squad). Overall, this defense is one that is able to play against championship caliber teams. Hopefully that great play continues as the weeks go by.

Offensively, this was probably the ugliest game I have ever seen the Packers play under head coach Matt LaFleur. There were tons of mistakes on Monday night, including bad play calls by LaFleur, Jordan Love taking unnecessary sacks, missing open guys, and fumbling the ball near halftime, receivers dropping passes, offensive linemen messing up their blocking assignments (especially Aaron Banks), and procedural penalties. Entering this game on Monday night, the Packers were without Tucker Kraft, Matthew Golden, and Jayden Reed. During the game, Romeo Doubs left with a chest issue. Even with these injuries to the receivers, there was no need to keep on trying to run the ball. 74 yards on 21 carries for Josh Jacobs is definitely not going to cut it. It didn’t help that the blocking was not great and, in the case of the fourth down stop late in the fourth quarter, the play was known by the Eagles defense and was stuffed right away. Elgton Jenkins was also lost for the game when he suffered a lower leg fracture. If he is not able to make it back for the playoffs, I wish him all the best in his recovery and future. This was an awful performance overall by the offense. In the past two games at Lambeau Field, the Packers have scored a combined 20 points (13 against Carolina, 7 against Philadelphia). Those numbers are unacceptable even with the injuries they have suffered on that side of the ball. If this awful performance continues on for the rest of the season and the Packers end up missing the playoffs, Matt LaFleur’s seat will be super hot. In the meantime, I hope that they score more than 13 points against the Giants.

On Special Teams, the Packers played a mostly solid game. Daniel Whelan averaged nearly 48 yards per punt on his 5 punts, with his longest being 59 yards. There were no kicks or punts that got blocked and there were also no turnovers on Special Teams. However, I need to address that “elephant in the room” once again. I’m beginning to wonder why they keep trotting out Brandon McManus out there when he is clearly not at 100 percent health. He even said it himself when talking with some folks who work for ESPN. He was not brought out for any kicks longer than extra point length until, for some crazy reason, they decided to bring him out for a 64 yard field goal that would have sent the game into overtime if he made it. Clearly, he missed it both times, with the first one waved off due to a timeout by Philadelphia. After that timeout, Jordan Love should have been brought out to attempt a Hail Mary. I think he would have done a better job than McManus kicking it from 64 yards out. After a pointless incomplete pass that was not a Hail Mary attempt, McManus was brought out again for the kick, which was horribly short (maybe it got blocked, but who knows). If the Packers were so hesitant on bringing out McManus out for any field goals, then they should do the right thing and put him on injured reserve and let Lucas Havrisik (who has been a healthy scratch for the past 3 weeks) kick for the Packers. I blame Rich Bisaccia and Matt LaFleur for this kicker controversy. Both coaches are definitely in danger of losing their jobs if things don’t improve drastically.

Overall, this loss was tough to watch on Monday night. The defense played their butts off only for the offense to muster only 7 points in front of their home fans. Because of this loss, they are now in third place in the NFC North behind the Lions and Bears, who won their respective games in Week 10. There are still 8 games left in the season, and the Packers need to get their act together quickly, especially on offense. Next up is a road matchup against the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium. Even though that team is broken and with an interim head coach after Brian Daboll got fired, anything can happen. The Packers need to be ready to play great for all 4 quarters. I’ll be back for the recap of that game next week. In the meantime, I hope the Packers get ready for the second half of the season. Have a great week, everyone. Go Pack Go.