For the second time in the span of seven days, Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers put up a stinker of a performance in a loss to a New Jersey-based team.
Fresh off an ugly loss to the New York Giants in London last week, Green Bay hosted the New York Jets at Lambeau Field on Sunday. At 3-2 on the season, the Packers found themselves as 7.5-point favorites. There was absolutely no way that the Packers would lose to another inferior team, right?
Wrong! Outclassed in pretty much every possible way, Matt LaFleur’s squad lost in front of its home crowd by the score of 27-10. Green Bay didn’t get on the board until the final seconds of the second quarter. The Jets would go on to score two consecutive touchdowns to open the third quarter, including one on a blocked punt. After Green Bay scored a touchdown on an Aaron Rodgers pass to Allen Lazard it looked like the Packers might find a way to win this one.
Not so fast. A Breece Hall 34-yard touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter pretty much ended this one.
New York would go on to get a 23-yard field goal from Greg Zuerlein to win going away by the score of 27-10. New York moved to a shocking 4-2 on the campaign while the Packers fell to a 3-3 with their second consecutive loss. Here’s a look at what went wrong for the Packers and how they can fix these issues moving forward.
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Aaron Rodgers continuing to struggle connecting with wide receivers
Ahead of Sunday’s game, we focused on the need for Rodgers to get rookie Romeo Doubs involved more in the passing game. He attempted to do just that, throwing the ball in the fourth-round pick’s direction nine times. Unfortunately, it came without any success. Doubs caught four passes for 21 yards on those nine targets. That’s an average of 2.3 yards per target.
We can blame Green Bay’s young wide receiver group for a majority of these issues. But to say that Rodgers is not without fault would be foolish.
With Randall Cobb having to exit this game due to an injury, Rodgers’ struggles continued. He completed 10-of-20 passes to wide receivers in this one. When throwing to players at other positions, Rodgers completed 76% of his passes. Without any real threats on the outside for opposing defenses to worry about, the Packers’ passing game remains extremely limited. That came to fruition in an ugly loss to the Jets.
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Green Bay Packers must get Aaron Rodgers another target
Some of the blame has to be placed on general manager Brian Gutekunst for not providing Rodgers with more weapons following the blockbuster trade of Davante Adams. No, Sammy Watkins (sidelined since Week 2) doesn’t count. Rodgers is the two-time reigning NFL MVP. The hope was that he’d be able to do work even without proven targets at wide receiver. What we saw Sunday against the Jets proved that this isn’t the case.
- Aaron Rodgers stats (Week 6): 26-of-41 passing, 246 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 88.1 QB rating
In losing his first regular-season home game in 16 outings, Rodgers seemed to be a shell of his former self. The perfect storm here was a lack of trust in his wide receivers. It’s now time for Green Bay’s brass to do its quarterback a solid. That is to say, acquiring a proven wide receiver ahead of the Nov. 1 NFL trade deadline. D.J. Moore of the Carolina Panthers would be an ideal target.
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Green Bay Packers have to commit to the running game more
Green Bay’s makeshift offensive line allowed nine quarterback hits and four sacks of Rodgers on Sunday. This came against a Jets defense that was the worst in the league a season ago. It’s not a coincidence that Rodgers was forced to drop back 46 times.
Relying on your MVP quarterback is one thing. Throwing him out there in a sitution that most signal callers would struggle in is a completely different thing. Aaron Jones ran the ball just nine times for 19 yards. He was outpaced by A.J. Dillon (10 attempts, 41 yards). Neither of them made much a difference outside of their seven combined catches.
“That was very humbling, when you’re in your own building and get taken like that,” Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur on latest loss.
Ya think?
At 3-3 on the season, Green Bay is two games behind the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC North. It has already lost to the division rivals in humiliating fashion.
The Packers won’t hit their bye week until the middle of December. Regardless of their relatively easy schedule (Washington Commanders in Week 7 and Detroit Lions in Week 9), things look dire here. With outings against the Buffalo BIlls and Dallas cowboys leading up to mid-November, things could get ugly.