Heading into the bye week the Packers offensive struggles are one thing that will be on their minds.
Jordan Love and company failed to reach over 20 points in their loss against the Detroit Lions Sunday.
Furthermore there were some noticeable flaws that the offense had.
Mistakes and Penalties
The offense was able to move the ball down the field in the first half.
Helped by a strong running game lead by Josh Jacobs, the Packers first two drives went into Lions territory.
But that is where the mistakes started.
When you play against the Lions, you have to score touchdowns.
That is one thing the Packers didn’t do.
While they settled for a field goal on the first drive, the second drive ended in a punt after penalties pushed the Packers back.
The next drive the Packers drove inside Lions territory.
Helped by Brian Branch’s personal foul penalties, the offense weren’t able to move the ball.
Brandon McManus, who had been perfect as a Packer, missed a 46 yard field goal.
Penalties hurt the Packers as well.
From pre snap penalties, the holding penalties, the Packers were seemingly “shooting them selves in the foot.”
Furthermore the Packers ended the day with 10 penalties for 67 yards.
You cannot win games with that many penalties and mistakes.
The most costly mistake
With the Packers down 10-3 with under 2 minutes in the game, the offense had a chance to put some points up before halftime.
But that is when the turning point of the game happened.
With Love trying to direct a scoring drive, he threw a costly, errant pick to Kirby Joseph.
Leading to a pick six and a 24-3 lead for the Lions heading into halftime.
Love, who leads the league in interceptions, said after the game that he was trying to check the ball down to Jacobs but didn’t see Joseph on the play.
Sloppy play
If the turnovers and penalties weren’t enough, the ball handling was abysmal.
Lets start off with the QB-center exchange.
Most of the time Love was working out of shotgun.
But he was working with a new center with Elton Jenkins moving over from guard with Josh Meyers out with an injury.
There was multiple snaps that were bad and cost the Packers yardage.
Then there were the dropped passes.
It didn’t matter who is was, the Packers receivers seemed to struggled catching the ball.
Wether it would’ve been a first down or a touchdown, the Packers receivers wern’t able to reel one in when it was needed.
Conclusion
The Packers offense had probably one of it’s worst performances.
While the numbers show the Packers out gained the Lions in yardage (rushing and passing), the score doesn’t reflect that.
Because of costly mistake and penalties, the Packers wern’t able to outscore the Lions on the scoreboard.
The Packers offense will have the bye week to fix those offensive struggles and hopefully fix the offense before they face the Chicago Bears.
