Green Bay Packers v. Carolina Panthers: 3 Burning Questions

The Green Bay Packers look to bounce back this Sunday against the Carolina Panthers and these are the three big questions we have prior to their matchup.

There is no doubt about it, last week’s game was just an ugly one for the Green Bay Packers. The defense continues to struggle, the offense couldn’t move the ball, and overall it was a low energy, lack-luster performance.

However, the Packers still sit at 7-2 overall and at the top of the NFC North. Coming to Lambeau Field this weekend are the 5-3 Carolina Panthers led by star running back, Christian McCaffrey. The Green Bay defense will have their hands full but hopefully, we see the offense get back on track against the Panther defense.

But before we get to Sunday’s game, these are my three big questions about this matchup and the answers will likely determine the outcome of the game.

How will they stop Christian McCaffrey?

Christian McCaffrey is going to be a problem for this Green Bay Packers’ defense and they likely won’t stop him, but hopefully they can slow him down. McCaffrey has been nearly unstoppable this season, totaling 881 rushing yards at 5.3 yards per carry with 10 touchdowns in just eight games. He’s also hauled in another 363 yards through the air with an additional three touchdowns. That coupled with the Packers giving up nearly 128 rushing yards per game this season isn’t exactly a good recipe for success on defense.

It may sound odd, but the Packers’ best hope for slowing down McCaffrey will fall on Aaron Rodgers and the offense. We saw last week in Los Angeles how quickly things got out of hand when Green Bay couldn’t sustain a drive, and that will be magnified going up against McCaffrey. However, the previous week in Kansas City, we saw how effective an 8:33 scoring drive in the third quarter was at limiting the Chiefs’ offense and it allowed the Packers to regain control of the game.

So Green Bay’s best defense may be the offense limiting McCaffrey’s opportunities. In Sunday’s game, the Packers need to sustain long scoring drives and avoid three and outs at all cost to keep McCaffrey on the sidelines as much as possible.

Will we see more Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams?

I truly hope that the answer to this question is ‘yes.’ While nothing went right on the field last week, head coach Matt LaFleur deserves some blame as well for abandoning the run so quickly despite it being just a two score game into the third quarter. The duo of Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams would combine for only 10 carries and Jones would touch the ball just nine times the entire game.

Moving forward if the offense is going to be successful that just isn’t acceptable and Aaron Rodgers acknowledged that when talking to the media earlier this week:

"“We gotta get those guys going. We need to get them the touches,” Rodgers explained Wednesday. “We gotta get Aaron 15-20 touches and Jamaal 10-15 touches. I think that’s when we’re playing at our best. Matt knows that.”"

Well, this is a perfect week to get back on track and focus on getting Jones and Williams going once again. The Carolina Panthers give up 133.4 rushing yards per game this season, so we should see a heavy dose of the dynamic duo which will also help control the clock and keep McCaffrey off of the field.

How will the Packers bounce back?

This is probably the biggest question on everyone’s mind. After an ugly performance last Sunday in Los Angeles, how will the Green Bay Packers respond? Outside of looking like they didn’t even want to be playing, the Packers went 2-10 on third downs, gained only 184 total yards, had eight penalties, and the Chargers held the ball for nearly 12 more minutes than Green Bay.

Now they have a tough Panthers team coming to down and a loss could cause some panic heading into the bye week. The only other real bit of adversity that the Packers and coach LaFleur have faced this season was after losing a heart-breaker to Philadelphia, but they responded with an overall dominating performance in Dallas the following week.

My gut says that we will see the same this Sunday against Carolina and at the end of the season we will look back at the game in Los Angeles as just an outlier. However, we still have to see if it plays out that way.