Frustration was high inside the Green Bay Packers locker room after surrendering 307 rushing yards in Saturday night’s 41-24 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

To make matters even more frustrating, the Packers knew what the Ravens wanted to do offensively. With Lamar Jackson sidelined with a back injury, Baltimore wasn’t about to push the ball downfield with backup Tyler Huntley.

Advertisement

Instead, they were content with handing the ball off to Derrick Henry, who finished with a career-high 36 carries for a total of 216 yards and four rushing touchdowns.

Matt LaFleur called the performance “humbling.” After experiencing the trampling firsthand, Packers safety Javon Bullard had a more colorful description.

“Pretty frustrating, I mean, but…it’s on us really,” said Bullard, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We basically just got our a– whooped. Call it like it is. We knew what they were doing. They ran the ball. We couldn’t stop the f——g run. Point blank period.”

While Baltimore needs the Pittsburgh Steelers to lose on Sunday and beat them in the regular season finale to clinch a spot in the playoffs, Green Bay is already locked into the seventh seed in the NFC. However, another performance like the one against the Ravens will almost certainly mean another early postseason exit. No one knows that more than Bullard.

Advertisement

“We got to fix that s–t tomorrow if we want to go past the wild card game in the playoffs,” he said. “If we don’t, we’ll be sitting our a– right back in Green Bay.”

Then a rookie, Bullard played 31 snaps in last year’s first-round loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, when the eventual Super Bowl champs needed only 131 passing yards from Jalen Hurts to defeat the Packers 22-10. The 2024 NFL Offensive Player of the Year, Saquon Barkley, rushed for 119 of Philadelphia’s 163 rushing yards.

If the playoffs started today, Green Bay would play the Chicago Bears for the third time in six weeks. The Bears totaled 150 yards on the ground and two rushing touchdowns in their win over the Packers in Week 16, and rushed for 138 yards as a team weeks before that.

Suddenly, Jeff Hafley’s run defense has been a massive issue, and the reason is unclear. After ranking in the top 10 in the run defense for most of the season, the Packers have now dropped to 16th.

Advertisement

Green Bay has lost three in a row and is likely to rest its key starters in a meaningless finale against the Minnesota Vikings.

Even with the postseason berth already in hand, there’s a dejected vibe inside the Packers’ locker room as they limp into the playoffs. If something doesn’t change and the run defense continues to look like Swiss cheese, Bullard’s foreshadowing may ring true for Green Bay.

This article originally appeared on Packers Wire: Packers S Javon Bullard gets brutally honest after run defense collapses vs. Ravens