Green Bay Packers v. Chiefs: The good, the bad and the ugly

The preseason has come and gone and here is the good, the bad, and the ugly from what we saw in the Green Bay Packers final game against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Well folks we made it! The Green Bay Packers have finished up their preseason schedule and next week Thursday the regular season finally begins.

As expected this was a game that was played by the backups and even though it was the final game, for many of these players there was still quite a bit to play for. Whether it’s for playing time in the regular season or a roster spot, these players had one last chance to leave their mark on this Packers team.

This Saturday the final cuts will have to be made and then their full attention can be turned to week one against the Chicago Bears. But before we get to that point, we have to look back at this game against the Chiefs to determine the good, the bad, and the ugly from this performance.

The Good

The preseason is done

As I alluded to above, I am happy that the preseason is complete and the Green Bay Packers made it through relatively healthy. Equanimeous St. Brown will miss some time but on the bright side, the injury wasn’t as bad as it looked. It also appears that the Packers avoided major injury at inside linebacker as Oren Burks says he expects to miss weeks instead of months and Curtis Bolton was seen walking around the locker room without crutches or a noticeable limp.

My hope moving forward is that the NFL reduces the number of preseason games as I just don’t think it accomplishes that much. Teams don’t want to risk injury to key players and they run very vanilla schemes, so what do the players even get from it that they don’t already get in practice?

With that said, I won’t be holding my breath on this one.

More turnovers!

As we all know generating turnovers for the Green Bay Packers’ defense over the years has been a bit of an issue. But this preseason, the defense has come away with eight total turnovers in four games, two of which came against the Chiefs. One was a Ty Summers pick-six and then a fumble recovery by Markus Jones.

Markus Jones

Speaking of Markus Jones, we don’t know for certain whether or not the Green Bay Packers will keep five EDGE rushers – my gut says they will only keep four – but  Jones went out with one heck of a performance on Thursday night.

Jones was able to create pressure and hit the quarterback which led to the Ty Summers pick-six and he also had the fumble recovery after that. Jones would add a tackle and a pass deflection to his stat sheet as well.

Kingsley Keke

Goodness, what a steal Keke has turned out being and honestly, he probably could have made this list just about every game this preseason. Keke finished the game with two tackles, a sack, and a pass deflection. He is going to end up playing a fair amount of snaps this upcoming season.

The Bad

Jace Sternberger’s preseason debut

After suffering an injury in the scrimmage with the Houston Texans, rookie tight end Jace Sternberger had his first taste of preseason football against the Chiefs. Unfortunately, things didn’t go very well.

While he did catch a touchdown pass from Tim Boyle in the flat, that was more so because of play design than anything he did to get open. That would be his only catch of the night on four attempts that came his way and two of those passes were just plain drops on his part.

It’s quite rare that a rookie tight end comes in and makes an impact in that first season so I would expect 2019 to be a red-shirt season for Sternberger with a much more significant role in 2020.

The Ugly

The ILB position

Coming into Training Camp, many thought that this was the weakest position on the team but now with a few significant injuries we know that to be true. As the Green Bay Packers head into week one, they only have one player that they can truly rely on at the position and of course, that is Blake Martinez.

While Burks and Bolton’s injuries aren’t as bad as initially expected, they still are going to miss some time. Ty Summers has shown plenty of potential along with that sideline-to-sideline mobility, but he has also missed a number of tackles and against the Chiefs, he was caught out of position a few times.

Then we have James Crawford who has a very high motor and flies all over the field but struggles to finish the play when he is in a position to do so and overall he just hasn’t improved defensively. Lastly, Brady Sheldon has had a moment here and there but once again, he isn’t someone you can trust.

Moving forward we should expect to see a lot of Raven Greene at inside linebacker and for the Packers to play a lot of dime defense until Burks or Bolton can return.