Green Bay Packers v. Panthers: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

The Green Bay Packers came away with the win over the Carolina Panthers on Sunday. As always, here is the good, the bad, and the ugly from their performance.

Heading into the bye week the Green Bay Packers were in need of a bounce-back performance against the Carolina Panthers after an ugly outing last week in Los Angeles. Despite falling behind 7-0 early, the Packers were able to regain the lead and remained in control for much of the game.

The defensive side of the ball came away with some timely turnovers and sacks just as they have done for most of the season. While on offense, Green Bay would rely on their dynamic running back duo of Jamaal Williams and Aaron Jones to lead the way. Not to mention that Davante Adams had a fantastic game as well.

Now at 8-2, the Green Bay Packers reach their much-needed bye week where they can get healthy and begin preparing for San Francisco. But before we start looking ahead, as always I have the good, the bad, and the ugly from Green Bay’s performance.

The Good

Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams

Of all the mistakes that were made in Los Angeles, perhaps one of the more egregious errors was that Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams combined for only 10 carries. This week with a Carolina run defense that gave up 133 rushing yards per game, we needed a heavy dose of Jones and Williams and that is exactly what we got.

In total, Jones would finish with 93 rushing yards on a whopping 7.2 yards per carry with three touchdowns. Meanwhile Williams, had 63 yards at nearly five yards per carry. Oftentimes Jones and Williams were able to rip off five or six yard runs, which helped the Packers control the clock, keep second and third downs manageable, and wear down this Panther defense.

Davante Adams

Davante Adams returned to action last week in Los Angeles and although he led the team in receptions, it wasn’t the Davante performance that we were used to seeing. However, his game against Carolina was. Adams would catch seven of 10 passes for 118 yards at nearly 17 yards per catch. He made a spectacular catch down the right sideline in the first half, and converted a 2nd & 26 in the third quarter with the Packers backed up near their own end zone.

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Red Zone Defense

The mantra all season for this Green Bay Packers’ defense has been “bend but don’t break” and that is what they were able to do once again against Carolina as they came up with two huge stops in the red zone. The first stop came from a Tramon Williams interception that was deflected off of Adrian Amos’ hands, and of course, the second stop came at the end of the game as the defensive front was able to keep Christian McCaffrey out of the end zone.

The Bad

Too Many Penalties

While overall this was a much better performance than the one we saw in Los Angeles, penalties were still a huge issue yesterday. Green Bay would finish with 10 penalties, to just five for Carolina, that totaled 64 yards. Early in the game it was false starts that killed their momentum and at the end of the game, Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith each jumped offsides which gave Carolina a few more chances to score.

J.K. Scott

After starting off the season extremely well, J.K. Scott has cooled off in recent weeks and his performance in the cold on Sunday was not good. On his four punts he’d average 35.3 yards, however, I will say that number is slightly misleading since his final two punts came from around mid-field and he was just trying to pooch it near the end zone.

However, his first two punts of the game were when the Green Bay Packers really needed him to flip the field position, but he’d average just over 34 yards per punt and in both instances the Panthers were set up with very good field position. Scott has been incredibly streaky this season, so hopefully we see him get back on track after they bye week.

The Ugly

The Play before Halftime

Now, before we discuss the play itself, I will say that I was 100 percent comfortable with Green Bay going for the touchdown rather than the field goal. As Matt LaFleur says, “all gas, no brakes.” However, the play call itself and the execution was poor.

For starters, Aaron Jones wasn’t in the game. Jamaal Williams is a very good and capable running back but Jones is your playmaker, the ball needs to be in his hands. Second, the run game had been working all day, but not from a bunched formation like Green Bay ran on the goal line. There were just too many Panthers in the middle of the field for the Packers to get any sort of push and the play call was predictable. The defense wasn’t surprised or caught off guard at all, in fact, Gerald McCoy who made the play, said he knew what Green Bay was running before the ball was snapped. And lastly, David Bakhtiari flat-out whiffed and the play had no chance of succeeding.

Matt LaFleur said after the game that he doesn’t regret going for it and he would do it again, but he also admitted he would not have run the same play. And I wholeheartedly agree, that was ugly.