The Good, Bad & Ugly from Green Bay Packers First 12 Games

The Bad for the Green Bay Packers

Special Teams

Maybe the Green Bay Packers are just doomed to have poor special teams play for eternity.

Despite making a change at special teams coordinator, the issues for this unit are as prevalent as ever. By PFF’s grading system, the Packers special teams unit ranks 30th this season.

We’ve seen Mason Crosby miss field goals, and while he’s certainly at fault, it’s not as if the blocking has been very good, there have been problems with the hold, as well as will the snap. Without Kylin Hill, the kick return unit has lost any playmaking ability it had, while Amari Rodgers is incredibly indecisive as a punt returner. Then there are the coverage units, which have been okay, but not great.

Special teams already cost Green Bay the game in Kansas City, you can also point to the missed field goal in Minnesota as another, and it nearly lost them the game in Cincinnati. It feels like it’s just a matter of time before the special teams unit strikes again.

The Red Zone

As good as the Green Bay Packers have been on offense and defense this season, both units have really struggled inside the 20-yard line.

After scoring on a ridiculous 80 percent of their red zone trips a season ago, this year, the Green Bay offense finds the end zone just 55.3 percent of the time when they are inside the 20–this ranks 25th. Although they do give themselves plenty of opportunities, which is a good thing, ranking seventh in red zone visits per game with nearly four.

Then on defense, as I’m sure you recall, they didn’t get their first red zone stop until the Washington game in Week 7. Overall, they rank 30th in red zone stop percentage, but they do a good job of keeping their opponents out of the red zone.

"“The positive is we haven’t done very well in that department but we’ve still been able to win games, so hopefully that will start to even out a little bit, you’d think at some point,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said via ESPN. “But we’ve got to continue to grind and work at it and maybe look at what we’re doing and try to switch some things up.”"

Aaron Rodgers under pressure

By several key metrics this season, Rodgers has actually been one of the worse quarterbacks in football when under pressure. Out of 38 eligible quarterbacks, according to PFF, Rodgers ranks 32nd in passer rating, 35th in yards per attempt, 29th in total yards, and his completion percentage has fallen over 10 percent and ranks 36th.

For some context, in those same categories a season ago, Rodgers was third in passer rating, 10th in yards per attempt, 14th in yards, and while his completion percentage ranked 27th, as I just mentioned, it was over 10 percent higher.

So what are the reasons behind this dip in production? Well, it could be any number of things, but my guess is that two contributors include the lack of practice time over the last six weeks–particularly during the first half of the Minnesota game it did not look like Rodgers was always trusting what he was seeing. Also, the offensive line play isn’t nearly as stout as it was in 2020, so when there’s pressure, there is really pressure.