Acme Packing Company
Up until the end of the third quarter of Sunday Night Football, the Green Bay Packers had surrendered one drive of over 15 yards against the Dallas Cowboys. Starting with the final drive of the third quarter, though, the Packers, consecutively, gave up drives of 80 (touchdown), 77 (touchdown), 54 (touchdown) and 76 yards (field goal).
If you’re wondering what changed, the loss of starting defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt was massive in Week 4. Wyatt was only able to play 13 snaps, which pushed undrafted rookie Nazir Stackhouse into the DT3 role. With the defense unable to get off the field, Colby Wooden and Karl Brooks wore down, forcing the unit to play Stackhouse on 25 of the final 47 plays (53 percent) of the game.
Pro Football Focus, famous for grading every snap at the NFL level, gave Stackhouse a 30.1 grade on defense versus the Cowboys, well below the single-game grade of any other offensive or defensive player that the Packers have had all season.
If you want a look at Stackhouse’s performance yourself, here’s his pass-rushing reps against Dallas:
Officially, Next Gen Stats credited Stackhouse with zero pressures. But maybe he had a great game stopping the run, right? He is 327 pounds after all.
Well, here are the clips of his effort against the run:
You can argue that the first four runs were at him, before he ended up two gaps behind his assignment on the fifth play. Two rushing touchdowns whizzed by him, too. It’s hard to find plays where you can even argue that he “won the block.”
In the preseason, Warren Brinson, whom the Packers spent a draft pick on in April, got consistent burn ahead of Stackhouse in both practice and preseason games. If Wyatt is out for any significant time, Stackhouse and Brinson, the latter of whom has been inactive for every game this regular season, will be the team’s only backups at the position. Whenever Wyatt is back healthy, though, Green Bay should take some time to think about whether they really want Brinson to be a healthy scratch over Stackhouse for the remainder of the season.
You just aren’t going to win many football games with Stackhouse playing double-digit snaps.
