The main positive in Packers positives this week is that we won. Sometimes you have to remind everyone that you play the game to win – any bad turnovers, bad coaching decisions, bad refereeing, and simple bad luck are washed away by a 1 in the win column. There’s plenty of other things to be happy about as well.
• The WR corps basically all performed well. Romeo Dobbs had several holy s*** catches, Dontayvion Wicks had no drops, LaFleur said Watson was wide open for some big plays and, of course, Jayden Reed is Jayden Reed. Everyone of these receivers has number 1 WR upside and the better they all play the better Jordan Love will be.
• That doesn’t even include Tucker Kraft, Kraft YAC n cheese, who had a huge 50+ yard catch and a TD. Kraft is becoming a top tight end before our eyes and, along with Sean Rhyan, has officially blasted the third-round pick curse into the Sun.
• The QB room held their own as well. Jordan Love’s interception could be explained by his injury and it was quickly erased by Xavier McKinney. Malik Willis had a successful scramble and a 51-yard pass in huge spots.
• McKinney had his sixth (!) pick of the year in just eight games. I can’t even remember the last time a Packer had six picks in a season. McKinney has changed this defense single handedly. There really isn’t that much more to say about it at this point.
• It’s hard to point out a lot of positives with the defense when they gave up 27 points to the Jaguars. But, and I’ve written about this a lot this year, this defense just looks different and feels different. A lot of the Jaguars ability to move the ball came after Evan Williams was hurt targeting the weak links in the Packers secondary with no pressure. When the Packers rushed four, Lawrence had all day to find who had been beaten by Brian Thomas. When they blitzed, Lawrence knew the Packers backups wouldn’t hold up in coverage and meanwhile Tank Bigsby was getting whatever yards he wanted all day. It may seem like I’m going in circles here but there are positives to be found in the creativity in the pressures and in how good the offense was prior to Evan Williams’ injury. And when defensive breakdowns are a talent problem, that’s fixable. It’s fixable when the superior players come back from injury, and as far as the pass rush goes, it might be fixable at the trade deadline. For now, we need to focus on the fact that we’re not even halfway through Jeff Hafley’s first season as defensive coordinator. Aaron Glenn is four years in and the Lions’ defense sucks half the time. It will take time for the team to learn his scheme and potentially for Gutekunst to switch out some players.
Mike Price is a lifelong Packers fan currently living in Utah. You can follow him on twitter at @themikeprice.
——————
