Acme Packing Company
The Green Bay Packers should be 4-0 right now. The reasons they’re not are entirely down to them shooting themselves in the foot. Now, at 2-1-1, they’re already 1.5 games behind the Philadelphia Eagles for the NFC’s top seed, and a half-game behind the Detroit Lions for the division, a team they thoroughly browbeat in Week 1. The team has used up most of its dumbassery allowance within the first month of the season, and can’t afford to continue to blow its leg off with dumb personnel decisions, mistakes, and bizarre field goal blocking schemes. If the Packers want to be a legitimate Super Bowl contender, that will not only have to come from playoff performances in January and February, but from taking care of business in October. In the last ten Super Bowls, only one Wild Card team (2021 Tampa Bay) reached the Super Bowl, and only three teams have been seeded lower than third.
Fret not, though. As Green Bay is an extremely talented team, and an extremely good team when they’re not actively engaging in poor trigger discipline. Aside from a game where an absolutely battered offensive line played perhaps the best defensive front in football, the offense has largely been able to move the ball at will. The defense was absolutely punishing teams until Devonte Wyatt went out with an injury in the Cowboys game, and Dak Prescott played one of the best games of his career. The team isn’t perfect, but the tools are all there to be very good. But the team is not so good as to overcome clear problems from a coaching perspective or roster management perspective once we get to win-or-go-home games.
The obvious elephant in the room is special teams. Good lord. Field goal block has cost them two wins by itself so far this season, two wins they desperately need in a very competitive NFC. Who was on the field when the first extra point was almost blocked against Dallas, and then the subsequent one was? Brant Banks, who was like OL13, and Luke Musgrave, who is one of the worst blocking tight ends in football. Afterwards? Elgton Jenkins replaced Brant Banks, and Karl Brooks replaced Luke Musgrave. After getting kicked in the teeth, the team responds by playing the good players. These plays matter. They involve scoring points. There are no opportunities to get veteran players 20 seconds of extra rest.
The same thing occurs when it gets to clutch time on punt return. The team takes rookie wide receiver Matthew Golden off and has replaced him with either Keisean Nixon or Romeo Doubs. And I don’t blame the coaching staff for not trusting Golden. This might be one of the dumbest things I’ve seen a punt returner do in the NFL.
And aside from doing slow-mo spin moves with a man running at you at the speed of a residential zone car, Golden actually just stinks at being a punt returner in the most basic sense. Aside...
