Packers’ red zone woes could prevent them from winning Super Bowl

One year after being historically great in the red zone on offense, the Green Bay Packers have come crashing back down to earth and are below-average when it comes to scoring touchdowns in that part of the field.

The 2020 version of the Packers, who went 13-3, secured home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and lost in the NFC Championship game, were a historically great team on offense when they got the ball inside the opponent’s 20-yard-line. In 60 red zone trips, they scored a whopping 48 touchdowns–an 80 percent conversion rate which ranked first in the NFL.

Offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett has termed that area of the field “the gold zone” after a famous Austin Powers’ movie and due to the emphasis they have on that part of their game.

The Green Bay Packers have struggled in the red zone on both sides of the ball this year. And that could prevent them from winning the Super Bowl.

Unfortunately, Green Bay has come nowhere near to replicating that same success.

Entering their season finale against the Detroit Lions, scoring touchdowns toward their end zone has been a very difficult proposition. In 67 trips (7 more than they had last season), the Packers have only scored 39 touchdowns (nine fewer than 2020) for a 58.2 percent success rate that ranks 19th in the NFL.

Their struggles have been somewhat perplexing as they return basically the same personnel and coaching staff from a year ago. Also, their top guys such as Aaron Rodgers, Aaron Jones and Davante Adams all remain the same and continue to perform at a high level.

Take the Minnesota Vikings game as an example. They marched down the field on seven different occasions to get the ball inside the 20-yard-line, but were only able to score three touchdowns against a porous defense. They still ended the night with 37 points, but that won’t fly against teams who don’t allow as many red zone opportunities.

The defense hasn’t been any better. They certainly had their struggles last season, but were still one of the better teams in the red zone, only giving up touchdowns on 57.7 percent of their opponent’s trips–ranking eighth in the NFL.

While their defense has improved overall this year, they are much, much worse inside their own 20-yard-line. The Packers’ D has given up a touchdown on a whopping 70.5 percent of their opponents’ trips into the red zone–a number that ranks second-to-last.

These combine to make the margins much slimmer in every other aspect of the game if the Packers want to make their way back to the Super Bowl. They’ll have to find a way to improve on both sides of the ball in order to avoid a second-straight postseason run that falls short at Lambeau Field.