3 big things from Green Bay Packers overtime win over New England
By Paul Bretl
The Green Bay Packers narrowly escaped with a win over the New England Patriots at home. However, as Matt LaFleur says, you won’t catch Green Bay apologizing for winning.
Now that I’ve had the opportunity to go back and rewatch the matchup between these two teams, here are my three big things from the Packers’ performance.
A consistently inconsistent Green Bay Packers offense
The box score for the Packers’ offense looks a lot better than what we saw on Sunday, particularly during the first half. Green Bay finished the game with 27 points, 443 yards, and averaged 6.2 yards per play.
Aaron Rodgers had an abysmal first half that included a pick-six, along with a few other uncharacteristic throws, hanging on to the football, and him completing just 4-11 passes for 44 yards. We also saw Romeo Doubs fumble for the second week in a row, Elgton Jenkins continue to take lumps at right tackle, and Christian Watson not adjusting well to a deep ball.
The end result was an offense that had put up only seven points at halftime and struggled on third downs as they often found themselves behind the sticks.
However, in the midst of those early issues in the passing game, Green Bay ran the ball very effectively, totaling 199 yards and 5.7 yards per carry. We also saw Rodgers turn things around in the second half, Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb were a part of some massive third-down conversions, and Doubs found the end zone on a beautiful back-should catch.
"“I settled in and usually don’t have two terrible halves, so I kind of returned to the form I expect from myself, and we started moving the football,” Rodgers said via Packers.com."
The Packers would begin the second half with three straight scoring drives, totaling 17 points, which continued their trend on offense of looking like Jekyll and Hyde all within the same game.
In Week 1, Green Bay did find some success moving the ball but was unable to convert that into points. Then against Chicago and Tampa Bay, the Packers’ offense would find early success before completely sputtering–the opposite of what we saw this week.
As was expected, there are growing pains with this offense, specifically within the passing game. The continued growth of Doubs and Christian Watson is going to be crucial to the Packers consistently unlocking the passing game’s potential. And despite the fumbles and dropped pass from Doubs, Rodgers told reporters following the game that his confidence in him hasn’t wavored, and he will continue to look in his direction.
Here and there we see flashes of what can end up being a very good offensive unit. However, getting there begins with more consistency and less all-or-nothing.