Green Bay Packers v. Saints: 3 Week 1 X-Factors
By Paul Bretl
Green Bay Packers X-Factor No. 3: Preston Smith
The good news is that Za’Darius Smith has been back at practice this week; however, his status for Sunday’s game is still up in the air. Regardless of whether Za’Darius is available or not, the Green Bay Packers are going to need a strong Week 1 performance from Preston Smith, who will be looking to get off to a good start in what hopefully becomes a bounce back year.
It’s well documented by now, but Smith’s production from 2019 to 2020 fell off a cliff as he went from 62 pressures to 29 and 15 sacks to 5, according to PFF ($$). But by all accounts, he appears to be in much better shape this summer and looks to be closer to his 2019 form based on what we’ve heard and seen from the training camp practices.
"“He’s going to have a heck of a year,” OLB coach Mike Smith said via Sports Illustrated. “I have no doubt about it.”"
This week, the Green Bay Packers will be up against a very good Saints’ offensive line unit. As I noted in a recent article, New Orleans has one of the better tackle duos in football with Ryan Ramczyk and Terron Armstead, and as a group, they ranked fifth by ESPN’s pass-blocking win rate metric, were top-11 in both sacks given up, and pressures allowed, while finishing sixth in total rushing yards.
5 Big Questions for Week 1 Matchup with Saints. dark. Next
If the Packers can win this matchup upfront, it will slow the New Orleans running game, putting the ball in Jameis Winston’s hands in obvious passing situations more often–which is a good thing for this Green Bay defense. It will also allow them to generate more pressure on Winston, which, again, is a good thing and should lead to more turnover chances.
And in order to consistently do this, they’ll need the 2019 version of Preston Smith to show up in New Orleans—not to mention that Rashan Gary will also need to perform well, which I expect he will.