GREEN BAY — If the Green Bay Packers are going to salvage their 2026 season — with 14 games left, there’s certainly ample time and opportunity to do so — it will start by figuring out how to get their offensive line to at least function, something it did not do sufficiently in Thursday night’s loss to the Atlanta Falcons. 

And while head coach Matt LaFleur didn’t want to pin all the offense’s problems on the line — he cited his own play-calling, quarterback Jordan Love’s off-target throws and at least three dropped passes by would-be receivers as other mitigating factors — anyone who watched the game with even a rudimentary knowledge of the old NFL adage that “it all starts up front” knew that the offense had little-to-no chance of success with how overwhelmed the line was.

“I don’t want to put all the blame on the offensive line. I mean, there’s plenty of blame to go around,” LaFleur insisted after the game “We’ve got to catch the ball better. Certainly, there’s some throws I think J-Love would love to have back — just like there’s some play calls I’d love to have back.

“There’s enough blame to go around to everybody.”

If the line cannot sufficiently protect Love when he drops back to pass and cannot create holes for the running backs, then that group’s inability to do its collective job will short-circuit whatever LaFleur is trying to do.

Not only was the Packers’ run game ground to a halt — with former Pro Bowler Josh Jacobs still on the NFL’s commissioner’s exempt list, MarShawn Lloyd and Kaleb Johnson carried a combined eight times for just 17 yards — but Love was under near-constant pressure for the second time in three games.

The Packers started Jordan Morgan at left tackle, rookie fifth-round pick Jager Burton at left guard in place of injured veteran Aaron Banks (knee/toe), Sean Rhyan at center, Jacob Monk at right guard (until he sustained a fourth-quarter injury and was replaced for the final seven offensive snaps by Donovan Jennings); and 2025 second-round pick Anthony Belton at right tackle, in place of Zach Bako-Bewele, whose season is over because of a ruptured patellar tendon in his right knee.

Burton (27.0), Monk (38.2) and Belton (38.7) all earned brutally low grades from Pro Football Focus, with Burton being charged with 10 pressures (five QB hits), Monk with six (three QB hits) and Belton five pressures (three hits).

“We’ve got to continue to come in day by day and get better. That’s all it is. Ain’t no secret method to it. We’ve just got to show up every day and do our job,” said Belton, who started seven games at right guard as a rookie second-round draft pick last season but moved back to tackle, his college position, during camp after Monk emerged as a starting option inside.

“We’re going to figure it out. We’ve just got to keep doing our job. It’s going to get better. The fact that it’s still early is not an excuse, but it’s going to get better as we go. That’s all I can say. We’ve got to learn from this game, keep moving forward. That’s all it is. Approach every day with the mindset to get better and the intention to get better.

“Every now and then [the defense] is going to make a play but it’s still up to us to keep the quarterback clean. J-Love shouldn’t be getting touched or on the ground that much. There’s no excuses to it. Just moving forward, we’ve got to keep hammering it every day to keep [No.] 10 clean. That’s just got to be our motto. He shouldn’t be on the ground.”

Against the Falcons, Love was pressured 28 times, according to PFF, and according to NFL NextGen Stats, the Packers allowed 15 so-called quick pressures, meaning the rush got to Love in 2.5 seconds or less. So far this season, only one team has allowed that many quick pressures in a game: The Packers in the opener at Minnesota, when they allowed 17.

“Yeah, it is difficult,” admitted Love, who finished the night having completed 28 of 53 passes for 312 yards with two touchdowns, a late interception and one sack for a passer rating of 75.4. “I think that’s where I can improve at — making quicker decisions, understanding the coverages and where I can get the ball out and find completions.

“I’ve got to do a better job of finding completions throughout the course of the game to help us stay on track as an offense and stay out of some of these bad situations — third-and-long, second-and-long. It’s the NFL. There’s always going to be plays where there’s going to be pressure. Sometimes you might have a little more time in the pocket but as a quarterback, I’ve got to operate a lot faster and be more accurate.”

Banks’ status for the Packers’ next game on Oct. 4 at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers remains to be seen, but the next-man-up options would be Jennings, tackle John Williams, guard/tackle Travis Glover and recent practice-squad pickup Cordell Volson, who started 48 games in three seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals before going to camp this summer with the Tennessee Titans, who cut him on the final roster reduction despite his one-year contract including a $2.5 million guaranteed signing bonus.

“I think that’s tough on a quarterback if you’re constantly getting hit and throwing off your back foot. It’s hard to trust everything that’s going on around you,” LaFleur said. “But we’ve also got to look at things we [as coaches] can do schematically to help alleviate some of that pressure.

“If you had told me we were going to drop back 50-some odd times, I’d say it’s probably not a good night for us. I think you need to have some semblance of a running game to complement the pass game at least to keep [defenses] on their heels so they just don’t tee off and get after the quarterback.”

When asked if he needed to consider making a change with his coaching staff — the implication being that offensive line coach Luke Butkus needs to be replaced — LaFleur dismissed the question, saying that he wasn’t “even going to respond to that question.”

He also deferred to general manager Brian Gutekunst on a question about whether the team needed to add more outside help, particularly on the offensive line.

“I’m going to work with whoever’s here and we’re going to all work together to try to fix this thing,” LaFleur said. “It’s three games in. Certainly we’re nowhere near where we need to be. [But] there’s a lot of ball left in front of us.

“We’ve got to continue to work with these guys and try to figure out what we do well, because right now I don’t know what we’re doing well offensively.”

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