There’s a lot of doom and gloom about the Green Bay Packers’ preseason loss to the New York Jets out there right now. After watching the game over, I don’t think there’s that much to worry about with the first-team offense or defense, aside from drops, that can’t be explained by simple coaching adjustments.
If you want to complain about drops, I’ll concede that. Our receivers coach for the last two years has been our former assistant offensive line coach. At a minimum, the drops coinciding with that hiring (and retention) are bad optics.
Anyway, let’s get into Saturday’s action.
The video linked above includes all of the Jordan Love dropbacks against the Jets, so we’ll be referencing those plays as we go through, if you want to follow along.
So far, no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet.
A bad drive? Sure. There was a linebacker slipping on play action, Bullard not filling hard on a run play, Simmons having a brain fart and then a terrible situational call that probably wouldn’t be called in a game that was scouted. But most of those issues can be fixed with one conversation. Among them, Bullard’s failure worries me the most.
In short, there are plenty of things to clean up for the Packers. There always are when a drive ends without points or the defense gives up a touchdown. But as far as recurring issues go, the only common thread between these mistakes we saw on Saturday night was drops from receivers, which also trickled down to the second- and third-team offenses. Besides that, it’s hard to make the claim that Green Bay has some sort of structural problem going into the regular season.
Yes, this might be the only look we’ll be getting at the first-team units for the rest of the summer, but I’m not hitting the panic button just yet.