The Green Bay Packers are having a rough go of it on offense. A few key stats highlight exactly what the issue is and what has to get fixed going forward.
One of the main issues has been the offense’s inability to sustain drives. This is only proven further when you dig into some of the numbers.
As first noted by Packers Wire’s Mark Oldacres, Green Bay is currently dead last in the NFL in average time per drive, with every drive lasting an average of just two minutes and 16 seconds.
The team is failing in a number of other ways. According to data from RBSDM, the Packers’ offense ranks 30th in “series conversion” and has a paltry 57.5 percent first-down percentage. The Packers have scored a touchdown on just 7.5 percent of their 80 drives, good for 21st in the league, and have punted 17.5 percent of the time, the fifth-most in the NFL.
Packers’ struggling offense is directly impacting Jonathan Gannon’s defense
So, what exactly does this mean?
To put it simply, the Packers’ offense can’t sustain long drives and has been among the worst in the NFL at scoring. It’s obviously not a good thing, but when looked at in the larger context of an NFL game, it becomes an even bigger issue.
As Oldacres notes, the Packers’ defense is currently facing the third-most drives, an average of 12 per game. Because the offense can’t sustain long drives and score on the few it gets, the defense has to stay on the field longer, inevitably getting gassed and giving up big plays.
So far, we’ve seen this happen glaringly in both of the team’s losses.
After Brian Flores continuously blitzed the Packers in Week 1, the defense had to keep back out, and eventually, they simply couldn’t stop Minnesota from scoring. Against the Falcons, the Packers’ defense held serve for a quarter and a half, but constant quick drives by the offense (and poor play from the defense, to be fair) led to the Falcons eventually dominating the rest of the way.
Fixing the Packers’ offensive woes will also dramatically benefit the defense
While Matt LaFleur certainly has his critics (myself included), his teams have usually followed a stout formula. He wants to control drives, score on them, and limit the number of times the opposing team has the ball.
So far, that’s failed for several reasons. The offensive line play being so bad is at the heart of it, of course, but the Packers’ inability to run the ball and generate any positive plays from it has essentially made it impossible to take much time off the clock.
Instead of sustained, long drives, the Packers are instead going three-and-out almost immediately. Most frustratingly, they’re doing so with some of the longest down-and-distances in the league, as they are currently 31st in the NFL in average third-down distance at 8.8 yards.
Like most of the Packers’ issues, the solution is to fix the offensive line. This is much harder in practice than it sounds, as the team’s hopes rest on the existing players developing or a few new additions providing a big boost.
One thing is for certain, though: The Packers must find ways to extend drives by any means possible, because it’s hurting more than just the offense.
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