The Green Bay Packers offense sputtered like an engine with rotten spark plugs in Monday night’s 10-7 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles at Lambeau Field.
Matt LaFleur’s offense struggled for the second straight week, generating 261 total yards and managing to get inside the red zone just once in 10 possessions. The Packers scored a season-low 7 points, and Monday night marked the third loss this season in which they allowed 16 or fewer points.
“We’ve got to find solutions. We’re going to keep on battling,” LaFleur said. “I don’t sense any -- there’s a lot of frustration, obviously, when you’re not performing to the level of winning football. But I do believe in the people in regards to finding solutions to try and iron this out. I’m confident that we can come up with something.”
The question swirling around Green Bay is whether LaFleur’s offense has become predictable at times, particularly when the running game isn’t able to muscle its way down the field.
With a chance to complete a late comeback, the Packers faced a fourth-and-1 at their own 44-yard line with 90 seconds remaining. Following a 9-yard completion, the offense rushed to the line to preserve time on fourth down. Green Bay ran an inside zone play that running back Josh Jacobs said the Eagles knew was coming. Philly stuffed the play for a 4-yard loss and caused a superfluous fumble.
“Fourth-and-1, they called out our play,” Jacobs said. “We ran it like four times, and they called it out. ... The clock was going down, we kind of snapped it fast, faster than we wanted to and they made a play. I tried to pitch the ball back to , where the fumble came, but at that point, you’re playing backyard football, it’s fourth down. So yeah, that’s kind of how it went.”
Love, who went 20-of-30 passing for 176 yards and took three sacks, confirmed that the play call came from LaFleur.
“I think it’s a call that we called a couple times going fast throughout the game,” the QB said. “They probably heard the call or were guessing. There was a D-lineman saying some stuff, but I still thought we had a light box and we could try and run it right there.”
An offense going to one of its bread-and-butter plays is nothing new. In a big spot, leaning on something that works is generally a benefit. But with an injured offensive line, the Eagles knowing what was coming altered how Jacobs attacked the line.
“As a runner, it don’t ever feel good,” he said. “Never, I mean never when they know what we're doing, it don’t feel good because it changes my mind on how I’m going to run the ball. If we’re just being honest, it makes me kind of guess what I’m going to do. Obviously, people are smart, if we got code words or whatever, if you hear it a few times, like you’re going to eventually react to it. You know, that’s football, but it’s never a good feeling.”
Added Jacobs: “They called it out, we called our play, and they said, ‘Inside zone, it's coming right here.’ So I kind of did not want to run right there, you know. But that’s just how it played out.”
Philly stuffed the play that would have been a turnover on downs regardless of the fumble.
The Packers defense, which played tough outside of back-to-back explosive plays that led to the Eagles' only touchdown of the night, got the offense the ball back yet again with 27 seconds remaining, but a 64-yard field goal attempt from Brandon McManus didn’t come close.
The loss dropped the 5-3-1 Packers behind the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears in the NFC North.
LaFleur, who admitted “a lot went wrong” for his offense Monday night, dismissed questions about his job status.
“I’ll leave that for everybody else to decide,” he said. “I’ll just focus on the day-to-day and trying to do. ... I feel like you’re always coaching for everything in this league. You know, that’s just my mindset. It’s always been that way. You know, you can’t ever exhale. You’ve got to always be pushing, and that’s just my mindset. So, that will be my mindset until they tell me not to coach anymore.”
There is still a lot of season left, starting with a Week 11 game against a New York Giants club that just fired its head coach, Brian Daboll. If Green Bay turns things around, this two-game stretch will be a blip on the radar -- one that most teams go through over the course of the season.
With the Packers going all-in after the Micah Parsons trade, however, if the struggles continue, the heat will ramp up on LaFleur and his staff.