The first 4 weeks of this Green Bay Packers season have been about as wild as anyone could have expected. We’ve seen the team look like an absolute juggernaut at times. I thought this was the best Packers team I’d seen since 2014 through two weeks. But, then we’ve also seen them snatch defeat right out of the jaws of victory and then stumble into a lame tie in back to back weeks. In the last two weeks we’ve seen it all, special teams gaffes, clock mismanagement, questionable play calling, and missed blocks galore!
At this point in the season, I don’t blame you if you are confused as a Green Bay Packers fan. The only thing we’ve seen consistently so far is inconsistency. So, let’s reset our expectations for this team in 2025. Here’s 3 thoughts I have regarding the inconsistency we’ve seen so far.
- 1. The interior of the offensive line can be better than what we’ve seen so far
This has been the biggest disappointment of the season for me. The interior of this offensive line has been wholly unable to create any running room for Josh Jacobs. Once again he ranks near the bottom of the league in rush yards before contact, a stat that measures how well an offensive line is able to create space for their running back. The sad thing is it’s been everybody too. Sean Rhyan, Elgton Jenkins, Aaron Banks and Jordan Morgan have all individually had disappointing starts to this season.
Let’s use an early play in the Dallas game as an example. Rhyan was asked to execute a pulling trap block back to the left side. It was a misdirection run to the left side for Jacobs and everything had actually been blocked up pretty nicely so far. Rhyan was 1v1 with the severely undersized Cowboys DE Donovan Ezeiruaku. Even with a running start on the play, Rhyan wasn’t able to move Ezeiruaku at all! Ezeiruaku bounced right off of his block, discarded Rhyan easily and made the play on Jacobs in the backfield.
It’s frustrating because we’ve seen Rhyan execute this type of play flawlessly hundreds of times. I’ve long been a fan of his. He plays mean and has often been able to move people in the run game, but we’re just not seeing that at all right now.
The extra sad thing is that it’s even worse when it comes to pass blocking. Sean Rhyan and Aaron Banks are the 84th and 85th ranked pass blocking guards this season. That is laughably bad! In a league where there’s only 64 starting guards on the field each week, the Packers don’t have a single guard that even cracked the top 64.
The fix: I have faith that each player will regress to their personal means, and play better individually. Zach Tom and Aaron Banks getting healthy will fix some problems as well. For Sean Rhyan, this may have been the worst 3 week stretch of his career. I don’t doubt his ability to improve, and I’d look for that to correct after the bye.
Then my last wish, can we PLEASE let Kinnard/Belton cross train and take some of the backup guard reps and stop force feeding those all to Jordan Morgan! Jordan Morgan is a tackle! I hope they let him focus on that position going forward.
If they improve and start giving Love more clean pockets…ohh boy watch out NFC!
- 2. The Packers secondary may be inconsistent, but they are good enough
Last Sunday was rough for the Green Bay Packers secondary. In my opinion, most of that should be credited to Dak Prescott. Dak played one of the best games I’ve seen from a quarterback recently. As the saying goes, great offense beats great defense. That was so true on Sunday night.
One thing I’ve said since this summer is that Nate Hobbs should be the nickel corner. Yes, the Packers see Hobbs as a guy who has inside/outside versatility, but he’s also been best when he’s in the slot. We saw that on Sunday. The Cowboys picked on Hobbs early and often.
If Carrington Valentine could defend the run and screen game it would be so easy to move Hobbs inside and start Valentine outside. But physicality remains a struggle for Valentine, hence the dilemma. If the Packers find a way to get Valentine on the field for obvious passing downs and leave Hobbs out there for early downs, then I’d be a very happy camper.
Long story short, the Packers secondary has been legit great for ¾ games this year. They have an elite safety room, Nixon is playing out of his mind, and Hobbs/Valentine make up good depth in the corner room. The Packers had one rough game against a borderline elite QB who was playing with his very best stuff on Sunday. The secondary is going to be just fine going forward.
- 3. The Packers interior D line depth is a problem
We thought this would be the case when Kenny Clark was included in the Parsons trade. Thankfully, it wasn’t actually too bad right from the start. Colby Wooden and Karl Brooks looked like they had improved as players and Devonte Wyatt exploded through the first 3 games of the season.
It’s hard to overstate how good Wyatt has been to start this season. At times he has really looked like the second best or second most important player on this defense. All this was evidenced by the way the Packers defense fell apart after Wyatt left with an injury on Sunday.
Don’t forget that Wyatt got off to a hot start last season before an ankle injury in October slowed him down significantly for the rest of the year. The Packers can’t afford that to happen again this year. They need Wyatt and they need him at his best.
4 weeks in and we’ve already seen what we think is this team’s ceiling and what we think is their floor. It’s a long season, we all know that. The bye week comes at the perfect time for this team. I’m looking forward to improvement after the bye.
