Good afternoon, everyone. On Sunday afternoon, the Green Bay Packers took on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Lambeau Field. Entering this game, the Packers were 6-7 and looking to keep their playoff hopes alive. The good news was that they were at home. The bad news was that the Packers lost at home to the Bucs in a frustrating way. Let’s get started going over this game.
The Packers started this game on the defensive side of the football. Things didn’t start well as the defense allowed the Bucs to go right down the field for a score. The Bucs were able to convert a third and 4 at the Green Bay 31 with a 19-yard pass completion from Baker Mayfield to Chris Godwin. Thankfully, the Bucs were held to a field goal after Baker was sacked by Kenny Clark on third and 6 from the Green Bay 15 yard line. The kick by Chase McLaughlin was good from 39 yards away, giving the Bucs a 3-0 lead with 9:02 left in the first quarter. After the kickoff resulted in a touchback, the Packers started their first offensive drive at their own 25 yard line. Aaron Jones got a few carries in this drive as he helped the Packers get into scoring range. Jordan Love completed a pass to Jayden Reed that went for 20 yards on third and 6 from the Tampa Bay 44 yard line. Aaron Jones was able to get Green Bay to the 4 yard line. Facing a fourth and 2, the Packers decided to go for the touchdown. Jordan Love got happy feet and threw a bad pass that was intended for Jayden Reed that went incomplete, resulting in a turnover on downs. Thankfully, the defense got the offense the ball back after Baker Mayfield was strip-sacked by Kingsley Enegbare, who also recovered the fumble at the Tampa Bay 4 yard line. 2 plays later, Love found Tucker Kraft for a 5-yard TD pass that (with the extra point) gave the Packers a 7-3 lead with 49 seconds left in the first quarter (no Lambeau Leap by Kraft due to weather concerns). After the touchback, the Bucs took over at their own 25. They only needed 7 plays to get a touchdown and take the lead. The drive ended when Mike Evans was wide open for a 19-yard touchdown on third and 6. The extra point was good, giving Tampa Bay a 10-7 lead with 12:21 left in the second quarter. After another touchback, the Packers started their next drive at the 25 yard line. After converting a third and 2 with a short pass completion to Tucker Kraft that went for 8 yards, Jordan Love found Kraft for a big play that got the Packers into Bucs territory. During that play, which went for 36 yards to the Tampa Bay 23, Kraft tried to hurdle over a defender and got hurt in his “Private area” in the process. The bummer was that the Packers were not able to score a touchdown on this drive after that big play. Two plays that went basically nowhere resulted in a third and 9 from the 22 yard line. Aaron Jones only got 4 yards on a short pass from Love, resulting in the Packers settling for a field goal from 36 yards out. Anders Carlson made the kick, tying the game at 10-10 with 7:09 left in the second quarter. After the Packers defense forced a three and out, the offense got the ball back at their own 4 with 5:31 left in the half, which should be plenty of time to get a score. The Packers got out of that bad field position thanks to a defensive pass interference penalty. After that and an 11 yard pass completion to Romeo Doubs, the drive stalled due to bad execution and a delay of game penalty on third and 6 (which is unacceptable at home). After a failed third down conversion, the Packers punted the ball back to Tampa Bay with 2:13 left in the half. The Packers had a chance to keep the Bucs from scoring points before halftime. After the Bucs got to the Green Bay 33 yard line, it looked like the defense did its job. First, Baker Mayfield was sacked for a 9 yard loss by Lukas Van Ness. Second, there was a holding penalty that pushed the Bucs back another 10 yards. Now, Tampa Bay faced a second and 29 from their own 48 yard line. Rather than keep the pressure on, the Packers allowed Baker to complete a 24-yard pass to Chris Godwin that helped Tampa Bay score points before halftime. After an incomplete pass on third and 5, Chase McLaughlin was called upon to attempt a 46 yard field goal. He made the kick, giving Tampa Bay a 13-10 lead at halftime.
The Packers did basically nothing on their first second half drive and punted back to Tampa Bay, who then proceeded to just go down the field and added to their lead. During the Bucs’ drive, they converted a third and 12 with a 15-yard completion from Baker Mayfield to Chris Godwin. Two plays later, Mayfield found RB Rachaad White, who took a short pass 26 yards for a touchdown. The extra point was good, increasing the Bucs’ lead to 20-10 with 10:55 left in the third quarter. After a touchback on the kickoff, the Packers started their next drive at their own 25 yard line. Despite a couple of penalties and a fumble scare, the Packers were able to go down the field and score a touchdown. During this drive, Dontayvion Wicks caught a 21-yard pass that got Green Bay into scoring range. Bo Melton helped on this drive as well, getting a first down on a second and 5 play. The drive ended when Jordan Love escaped the pressure, ran forward and launched a pass to the back left corner of the end zone, where Jayden Reed made a great tip-toe catch for the 17-yard touchdown. The extra point was good, cutting the lead to 20-17 with 4:18 left in the third quarter. The one thing that the defense needed to do was to get a stop and get the ball back to Jordan Love and the offense. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, as they once again allowed the Bucs to drive down the field for a touchdown. During this drive, a second and 18 (which was the result of a sack by Kenny Clark) was converted with a 21-yard pass completion to Chris Godwin. A third and 8 pass later in the drive went incomplete, but Corey Ballantine was called for defensive pass interference, resulting in a free first down for the Bucs. The drive concluded with a two-yard touchdown pass to Ko Kieft that (with the extra point) got the lead back up to 10 points with 20 seconds left in the third quarter. The Packers did their best to get another score on their next drive, getting all the way to the Tampa Bay 15 yard line. Unfortunately, they had to settle for a field goal after an incomplete pass on third and 4. The kick was good by Anders Carlson, cutting the lead to 27-20 with 10:04 left in the game. Once again, the defense was not able to get a stop as the Bucs scored another touchdown. The Bucs’ drive ended when Baker Mayfield completed a short pass to David Moore. Thanks to a poor tackling effort by De’Vondre Campbell, Moore was able to take the pass all the way for a 52-yard TD. The extra point was good, increasing the Bucs’ lead to 34-20 with 6 and a half minutes left in the game. The Packers did their best to get some points in “garbage time”, but Jordan Love lost a fumble in Tampa Bay territory. After that, the Bucs were able to run out the rest do the clock and seal the win. Rachaad White would have scored a touchdown had he not fell down to bleed the clock. With the loss, the Packers are now 6-8 on the season.
I’ll save the defense for last. For now, I’ll talk about the offense. They performed well enough to win, with Jordan Love completing 29 of 39 passes for 284 yards and 2 touchdowns. He made some great throws, including a no-look pass to Dontayvion Wicks (who finished with 97 yards on 6 catches) and the touchdown pass to Jayden Reed in the third quarter. Not only was the throw great there, but the catch by Reed was great as well. Reed and Wicks have been great receivers so far for the Packers, and I hope that they have bright futures in Green Bay. Yes, there were mistakes along the way on offense, including a bad pass near the goal line in the first quarter, a lost fumble in the fourth quarter, and some dumb delay of game penalties. Even with those mistakes, Jordan Love played well on Sunday against Tampa Bay’s defense. Aaron Jones also got some good moments on Sunday, but mostly during the first drive and that’s it. Tucker Kraft had 4 catches for 57 yards, including his second career touchdown. All in all, the offense did enough to potentially win a game had it not been for a certain side of the ball messing up constantly (more on that later). For Special Teams, the Packers did not allow any big plays. No big returns were allowed, and there were no blocked kicks at all. Everything was kinda normal on Special Teams, with every kick made by Anders Carlson and no weird penalties. That’s all I need to say about Special Teams.
I want to say this first and foremost: Joe Barry needs to be gone from Green Bay. Ever since he has come to Green Bay in 2021, his defensive schemes have been awful, allowing easy completions to a bevy of receivers and letting certain teams run all over the Packers, regardless of the talent on the roster. The best chance that the Packers had to win a Super Bowl with Joe Barry was in 2021, when the Packers were 4 minutes away from taking down the 49ers in a snowy defensive struggle. Granted, the Special Teams unit was the culprit that year, but the defense still allowed the Niners to get into field goal range and win that game. In 2022 and this year, the defense got worse in terms of those easy completions and getting run over by teams. It doesn’t matter who the quarterback is for the opposing team. Almost every time, the defense allowed big chunks of yards while trying to “keep everything in front” of them. On Sunday against the Bucs, they allowed Baker Mayfield of all quarterbacks to be the first opposing passer at Lambeau Field ever to have a perfect passer rating of 158.3. He completed 22 of 28 passes for 381 yards and 4 touchdowns, with Chris Godwin leading the receiving corps with 155 yards on 10 receptions. Mike Evans, Ko Keift, David Moore, and Rachaad White were the recipients of Baker’s four touchdowns, with the most maddening of them being the one where Moore caught a short pass and evaded a poor tackling attempt by De’Vondre Campbell (who has not played well since coming back from injury) and ran 52 yards for the score. Granted, there are times that the players mess up on their duties. Ultimately, they always keep being put in bad positions by the coordinator. Every time that Baker wasn’t sacked (he was sacked 5 times overall), he was always able to find an open man. There were multiple occasions where the Bucs were behind the sticks only to get to a better situation afterwards. Two egregious ones were the second and 29 where Chris Godwin caught a 24-yard pass and the second and 18 that Chris Godwin converted with a 21-yard catch. After the game, there was a moment where Rashan Gary sat by himself on the bench. I feel awful for him. He is giving his all every game, yet the Packers defense keeps messing up due to bad coaching. If Joe Barry is not gone after this season, then I think that Matt LaFleur will have a red hot seat. Luckily, Barry’s contract expires and he may do the last three games, regardless of win or loss. After that, Joe should be relieved of his duties as defensive coordinator.
Overall, it was another frustrating loss for the Packers. This last stretch of games should have been the easy games, but that hasn’t been the case so far mainly due to Joe Barry’s awful defensive schemes. I am not guaranteeing anything for the next game against the Carolina Panthers other than a lot of Packers fans being there in Charlotte on Christmas Eve. I’ll talk about that game after the fact. Have a great week, everyone. Go Pack Go.
(Here are the highlights of this game, provided by the NFL's YouTube page. Click on "Watch on YouTube" if you're curious.)
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