Coming off their bye at 8-2, are the Green Bay Packers actual Super Bowl contenders out of the NFC or just another propped-up pretender?
The NFC is composed of some of the best teams that the NFL has to offer in the 2019 season. Therefore, the room for error is very small. When looking at the playoff picture after Week 11, there are dominant teams that stand out from the herd. The Green Bay Packers are one of these teams.
Green Bay has a dynamic offense, featuring a run game that has been nonexistent for years in the absence of Eddie Lacy. And Aaron Rodgers is still one of the most dominant quarterbacks the league has ever seen. Rodgers has shared the wealth by balancing passes thrown to every pass-catcher on the offense, as opposed to favoring targets such as Davante Adams.
Titletown even has a representable defense, one capable of stopping even the best offenses in the league. While their big-play susceptibility is a concern, along with difficulties stopping the run, the Green Bay defense gets their recognition in the red zone. They allow a touchdown on 48.48 percent of opposing team red zone trips, ranking seventh in the league per team rankings and have five total red zone takeaways, four of which are interceptions.
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With a “revamped defense”, as many call it, Rodgers no longer has to put the team entirely on his back. You actually see Rodgers smiling during games, rather than his iconic stare of disappointment he displayed under former head coach Mike McCarthy.
Likewise, second-year defensive coordinator Mike Pettine has orchestrated a dynamic defense that forces more turnovers, giving Rodgers the ball to work his magic on offense. With all of this said, is it enough to bring them to the Super Bowl, let alone win it?
Pettine’s defense works remarkably by creating heavy pressure in non-blitz packages, forcing the quarterback to either take a sack or throw an incompletion, thus increasing the probability of creating a turnover. His 3-4 base defensive scheme is built to eliminate the pass because his philosophy is that it is easier to fly to Miami than to drive — meaning that it is easier for opposing offenses to pick up the first down through the air than it is for them to run the ball.
The fault in his philosophy is that, while the statement is true, throwing for gains is easier than running, the run defense has been pitiful and teams are finding that the Packers have significant struggles in stopping the run. Look to their Week 4 matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles in which the birds exposed the Packers run defense, as they ran for over 200 yards and effectively beat the Pack in Philadelphia.
From that point on, opposing teams have found the Packers unable to adopt the most important philosophy in all of football: run the ball, stop the run. They have been able to establish the run as they have one of the most dynamic running back pairs in Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams but their run defense is ranked 25th in the league, allowing 126.9 yards per game.
It is noteworthy that the Packers have faced some of the NFL’s most premier running backs including Dalvin Cook (Vikings), Josh Jacobs (Raiders), Christian McCaffrey (Panthers), Ezekiel Elliott (Cowboys) and the duo of Melvin Gordon and Austin Ekeler (Chargers).
Facing star halfbacks like the ones listed above, a team’s run defense is surely going to have their hands full. Ultimately though, this does not give the Packers an excuse to allow 4.8 yards per carry, ranking 27th in the league. The Pack’s front-seven, apart from the Smith Brothers who have been exceptional in combining for a total of 18.5 sacks and 57 QB pressures, has had little production from the interior.
If the Packers’ defense is unable to gain more consistent production from the front-seven, particularly the interior linemen and inside linebackers, the secondary will be unable to cover wideouts, leading to massive gains through the air that we have seen since the Packers’ Week 5 matchup against the Dallas Cowboys.
If Mike Pettine and the Packers are able to step-up after their Week 11 bye and find their niche, this team has a legitimate chance to win it all. But given what we’ve seen, that’s a big “if”.