Green Bay Packers: 3 Key X-Factors for a Playoff Run

Green Bay Packers X-Factor: Special Teams

The offense has been one of the best units in the league all season long, and the defense is peaking at just the right time. The special teams unit, however, well, this group can’t seem to go one week without making a huge mistake.

For whatever reason, things took a turn for the worse during the Green Bay Packers’ Week 7 matchup with the Houston Texans. For my sake and your sake, I’m not going to list everything that’s gone wrong since then, but a few of the items include two punt return touchdowns, missed extra points, a blocked punt, a fumbled punt, a kickoff out of bounds, a fumbled kick return, and a kick return unit that can barely make it past the 20-yard line at times.

Yikes, that’s a lot, and I know I left some things out.

In the playoffs, everything is magnified, and a crucial special teams error could be what ends a season. Fortunately for the Green Bay Packers, those punt returns and a few other mistakes have come against inferior opponents. But if that happens against New Orleans or Seattle, for example, that could make all the difference in the game.

Now, the special teams unit doesn’t have to be great by any means, but they have to be better than what they have been, and they can’t continue making these egregious errors on a weekly basis. With the offense and defensive units playing as well as they are, if Green Bay Packers’ special teams can hold it together during the playoffs — and by hold it together, I basically mean don’t give up a touchdown or fumble the ball — then beating this team becomes even more difficult.