The Packers positives are a lot more fun these days. In about a month, we’ve gone from which QB will the Packers take with their top 3-pick to Jordan Love is the future of the franchise and we’ll probably make the playoffs. If we beat the Chiefs next week, this article may turn into weekly Packers negatives, starting with the fact that if we make the playoffs the Packers can turn down Hard Knocks. Ugh.
- Let’s start with the obvious: over the past four games, Jordan Love has played like a top-five QB. He’s not only shown that he can make every throw, he’s shown that he’ll make the needed checkdowns and on schedule throws as well. The team has expressed confidence in Love over the past year or so and we’re finally getting to see how good he can be.
- Christian Watson had his breakout game replacing Luke Musgrave’s role in a lot of ways. Watson hasn’t been very successful this season running only clear-out routes where he has to go up and fight for 50/50 balls, in this game he was targeted a lot more on routes that got him the ball on the move in open space. Going forward, it will be interesting to see how the team uses him and Musgrave. You can argue that Musgrave is probably better at the clear-out routes (at least given who is usually covering him) and Watson is better with the ball in his hands on crossers or flat routes.
- It’s also worth noting that Malik Heath was very productive in limited snaps doing Dontayvion Wicks-type things. The Packers could quickly go from having the worst wide receiver room in the NFL, earlier this season, to one of the deepest next year.
- Sean Rhyan has had a few good games in limited snaps. Many are calling for him to Jon Runyan’s spot because of his obvious superiority in run blocking and, at worst, similar performance pass blocking.
- The defense has continued to play well and hasn’t given up over 24 points since the first Lions game two months ago. It still isn’t pretty some of the time and the run defense is almost ever good, but the defense has definitely improved this season.
- The most impressive riser over the past few months has been Karl Brooks. Brooks has taken over as the team’s second-best interior d-lineman and possibly the best pass rusher of the group. Brooks was a 300-pound edge rusher in college and uses the hand-fighting skills he developed as an edge rusher on the interior.
- Positive news going forward is that it looks like the team’s secondary will soon be full strength, we’ve yet to see what the defense can do with a full-strength secondary and pass rush.
Mike Price is a lifelong Packers fan currently living in Utah. You can follow him on twitter at @themikeprice.
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