Beating the Lions doesn't mean the Packers are fixed

The Packers are in familiar territory. Monday’s 35-17 win over the Lions put them in first place in the NFC North. As he is wont to do, Aaron Rodgers ran roughshod over Detroit in a four-touchdown performance. Aaron Jones made his $12 million salary look like a bargain. Davante Adams looked like Davante Adams.

But all is not well in Green Bay. It took nearly 95 minutes of game time for the Pack to earn their first lead of the season. The problems that plagued the NFC’s reigning top seed in Week 1 didn’t disappear in Week 2. While the final result was a three-possession lead and a series of Jordan Love kneeldowns, the Packers’ Last Dance season with Rodgers at the helm is still threatening to devolve into a tangled mess.

That's a 5⃣0⃣-yard gain!@AaronRodgers12 @tae15adams #DETvsGB | #GoPackGo

ESPN pic.twitter.com/mdwoP7U0gu

— Green Bay Packers (@packers) September 21, 2021

Let’s look at why.

The secondary is improving (but Kevin King remains a mess)

In Week 1, the Packers allowed a quarterback who’d been cast to the wind the chance to prove he’s still got it. In Week 2 … the Packers allowed a quarterback who’d been cast to the wind the chance to prove he’s still got it.

Jared Goff couldn’t match Jameis Winston’s five-touchdown day, but like his predecessor he was able to take an undermanned receiving corps and spin hay into gold. Or, at the very least, a gold-like substance. Goff threw for 246 yards and a pair of touchdowns despite having only two targets who looked like they belonged in an average NFL starting lineup.

One was TJ Hockenson, who was targeted nine times and caught eight of them, initially dusting whatever linebacker/safety combo was tasked with following him through the formation. This wasn’t unexpected; Goff turned Tyler Higbee into the league’s top value-added tight end in 2020 with the Rams and Hockenson is possibly best known as the only non-running back many fantasy football players can name from the Lions roster. While his second-quarter touchdown catch was the “what can you do?” result of a perfectly-placed pass:

@TheeHOCK8 #DETvsGB | ESPN pic.twitter.com/3jl3VtwS1C

— Detroit Lions (@Lions) September 21, 2021

Green Bay still struggled to slow the player it knew would be the focal point of Detroit’s passing offense.

The Packers responded by shifting Pro Bowl safety Adrian Amos over to Hockenson in coverage, using him to deter the tight end from longer routes while keeping inside linebacker De’Vondre Campbell stuck to him close to the line of scrimmage. This eventually worked — Hockenson had a key 15-yard gain on third-and-1 in the third quarter but had just three catches for a whopping 10 yards afterward — but it also took the Pack’s valuable centerfielder away from over-the-top help elsewhere.

This left the team’s corners with limited help. This was not a problem for Jaire Alexander, because he is good. It was for Kevin King, because he is not:

just throw the ball to whomever Kevin King is covering every down pic.twitter.com/WIByio2D2U

— Christian D'Andrea needs help to buy Ale Asylum (@TrainIsland) September 21, 2021

King got beat by Quintez Cephus here, who is carrying a rich University of Wisconsin tradition to the pros by being the lone viable non-tight end receiving threat in a run-first lineup. Four plays later, King attempted to pass Cephus off to rookie Eric Stokes, only for the Packers to realize entirely too late they’d completely forgotten to cover the guy who roasted them for 46 yards three minutes earlier.

Somehow, this may not have been the most embarrassing moment of King’s night:

Dan Campbell burned all his timeouts in a 35-17 game so D'Andre Swift could do this pic.twitter.com/EQRXKsERcC

— Christian D'Andrea needs help to buy Ale Asylum (@TrainIsland) September 21, 2021

Fortunately for the Packers, first-round pick Stokes has flashed talent despite his growing pains, showcasing brilliant closing speed and helping to limit the impact of the Detroit WR corps after the first quarter. Still, Green Bay may regret selecting him at 28 instead of the run of pass-rushing defenders who immediately followed this spring. On Monday, the team’s corners and safeties have had to work overtime because…

Without Za’Darius Smith, Green Bay’s pass rush is butt

The Packers have one sack in two games this season. It barely counts:

"hey, how did the Packers get their first sack of the season?"

uh, well pic.twitter.com/yQ2l1siKvV

— Christian D'Andrea needs help to buy Ale Asylum (@TrainIsland) September 21, 2021

Green Bay does have nine quarterback hits, so there’s been a little bit of bad luck when it comes to getting upfield. Still, the fact remains both Jameis Winston and Jared Goff had eye-opening performances because they had plenty of time in the pocket and wide-open running lanes when they easily escaped a one-sided rush. Winston scrambled to create four first downs with his legs in Week 1. Goff’s 46 rushing yards Monday night *doubled* his career high.

Winston and Goff have used the extra time bought in the pocket to generate a combined 123.3 passer rating this fall — a number that is somehow only sixth-worst in the NFL and second-best in the NFC North. The Packers have faced two guys who, despite being former No. 1 overall picks, were slapped on the ass and told in no uncertain terms they were no longer needed at their original place of employment. And Green Bay has made them look, in terms of efficiency, like 2011 Aaron Rodgers.

That’s bad!

Per ESPN, the Packers’ 40 percent pass rush win rate ranks 21st in the NFL. Za’Darius Smith’s back injury pushed Preston Smith into a larger role in the pass rush hierarchy after his disappointing 2020, but he’s only got two quarterback hits and a single QB pressure to his credit through two games. Rashan Gary has been more active on the stat sheet (a team-high four QB hits) but hasn’t racked up many actual stops — he has just two official tackles on the season.

It’d be premature to put this failure solely at the feet of Gary and Smith. Green Bay’s front three, headlined by the usually-awesome Kenny Clark, has struggled to crumple pockets from the inside out against two of the best offensive lines in the league. Dean Lowry and Kingsley Keke have been slow to get upfield. Their lack of leverage has created the holes for Winston and Goff to scoot through for big gains even when the coverage holds behind them.

If this is a problem now — against two pocket passers — just think of how bad it could be in regular season showdowns against Russell Wilson, Patrick Mahomes, or Lamar Jackson? Hell, the Packers could be the team that saves Matt Nagy’s job if he’s smart enough to let Justin Fields improvise from the pocket.

(…actually, that would be a pretty great act of subterfuge against a division rival. Bears fans would be furious.)

Anyway, this problem could fix itself after Week 3. Games against the, uh, limited blocking of the Steelers, Bengals, and Bears loom. Smith will likely return from injured reserve fresh and angry. The Packer defense is set to rebound.

The offense isn’t quite out of the woods yet after that 35-point performance though, because…

The offensive line misses David Bahktiari

Green Bay is starting two rookies up front this season to make up for the absence of Bahktiari (currently on injured reserve) and Corey Linsley (signed with the Chargers thanks in part to the awful salary cap situation exacerbated by Rodgers’ unwillingness to extend his contract, but that’s another story). That’s forced interior lineman Elgton Jenkins to kick out to left tackle, where results have been mixed.

Through two games, Rodgers’ sack rate has risen from 3.7 percent in 2020 to 6.8 this fall. The Packers’ pass protection win rate has fallen from an NFL-best 74 percent to a fifth-best 68 percent. That may not sound like much, especially with a proven interior pass blocker like Jenkins pulling extra duty at LT, but those misses have shown up in big moments.

Here’s the scene moments before Rodgers’ first sack of Monday’s game. It’s third-and-5 in a 7-7 game and the reigning MVP has options to keep this drive alive:

Davante Adams is wide open over the middle. A perfectly threaded out-route to Allen Lazard on the left could also work. Or Rodgers could just run to his right, pick up five yards, and slide to the turf with a new set of downs.

Instead, Trey Flowers’ pressure on Jenkins forces Rodgers to take an extra second he does not have. Nick Williams cleans him up for an easy sack, and five minutes later the Lions lead 14-7.

Here, Jenkins gets bull-rushed into the pocket on second-and-2, forcing Rodgers to blank an open Marquez Valdes-Scantling and loop back to his left … right into Michael Brockers’ arms.

Detroit blitzed on half their passing downs in Week 1, but on Monday got most of their pocket-shrinking chaos from their typical pass-rushing set. The blame for the sudden shift in pressure isn’t all on a recombobulated line, however. Rodgers was hesitant to run away from pressure, especially late in a game that had already been decided. He was more willing to take sacks Monday that we’ve typically seen.

As a result, his yards per scramble have dropped for the third straight season, sliding from 8.3 in 2018 to only three yards in 2021. That’s a potential red flag if he continues to see pressure; Rodgers’ legendary status is predicated on his ability to move in the pocket, buy time, then uncork an otherworldly laser beam downfield. While it’s clear his arm talent is still there — see the Adams catch above — his running ability may be waning as he hits his late 30s.

That’s a fixable problem, but it’s much easier to fix with an All-Pro left tackle and Jenkins back at the left guard position in which he’s excelled.

***

The Packers are 1-1 and will likely still win an underwhelming NFC North. Just winning the division isn’t sufficient. Green Bay’s last decade has been defined by teams that are “good enough” but never quite great, especially in the postseason.

There are tools in place to repair this, but a deep Packers playoff run would depend heavily in the growth of young players in the secondary and the health of stars like Smith and Bahktiari. We’ve already seen what those missing pieces have cost Green Bay in a small sample size to start the season. If head coach Matt LaFleur and general manager Brian Gutekunst can’t MacGyver their way to a few more solutions, the sun may set on the Rodgers era with only a single Super Bowl to show for it.