Paul Bretl | 9/28/2024
GREEN BAY, Wis. — It’s been an up-and-down start through the the first three weeks of the season for Packers’ left tackle Rasheed Walker. Now on the schedule this week, he and the rest of the offensive line faces one of the more disruptive defenses in football in the Minnesota Vikings, and one that throws a lot of looks at opposing offenses.
“Inconsistent. Up and down,” said Stenavich when asked about Walker’s play. “And his play has been good, but like you said, the penalties, those things kill drives and that’s something we really need to improve on. Not just him, he’s not the only one that’s gotten penalties. But as an offense, that’s the biggest thing we need to focus on. Making sure we’re playing with good fundamentals. We’re focused on that, that way it will eliminate most of those penalties that kill drives.”
On the season, Walker has surrendered five pressures and one sack, according to Pro Football Focus. With that said, his play in pass protection has improved over the last two games, with only one of those pressures and no sacks allowed during that span. By PFF’s pass-blocking efficiency metric, Walker is tied for seventh among all tackles over the last two weeks, and there are only three tackles, who have allowed fewer pressures.
However, the biggest issue right now for Walker, and as Stenavich mentioned, the offense as a whole, are penalties. Through three games, Walker has been penalized five times–twice in Week 1, once in Week 2, and twice in Week 3. Those five penalties are the third-most among all tackles this season and the fourth-most of any offensive lineman.
“Anytime when you’re engaged,” said Stenavich about blocking technique, “and you feel the D-lineman try and escape opposite of where you’re blocking him, and that happens in protection when a quarterback scrambles out and stuff like that, that is really difficult for a lineman because you’re blocking, he’s bull rushing, there’s force against you, all of a sudden it changes and then they see that, it’s just an unfortunate thing that happens. You just have to immediately try and let go when you feel that change of direction in a D-lineman and kind of anticipate it.”
The penalties aren’t only an issue for Walker, but for this Packers team as a whole, particularly on offense. The 26 penalties on the Packers is the fifth-most in football. Of those 26 penalties, 18 have come on offense, and that is tied for the most through three games.
During Friday’s press conference, Matt LaFleur brought up a stat that he had shared with the team that same day: due to penalties on the offensive side of the football, two touchdowns and 120 or more yards had been taken off the board.
“Really the focus is on the technique,” said LaFleur. “We’ve got to do a much better job of refining our technique so that we don’t get put in those situations. That’s been a point of emphasis, I would say. It’s always a point of emphasis, but I probably sound like these annoying parents that keep nagging on the guys about the importance of that, because it costs us.
“So, yeah, we’ve got to do a much, much better job. Some of them happen, it’s just you’ve got to learn from your mistakes. You can’t make repeated mistakes. That’s, unfortunately, we’ve struggled with that.”
A big challenge is up next for Walker and the rest of the Packers offense. This is a Vikings’ defense that ranks second in pressure rate this season and first in sacks. The challenge for Walker, specifically, is that Minnesota has two very good edge rushers in Andrew Van Ginkel and Jonathan Greenard, who, on their own, will be a handful. But making matters even more difficult is the Vikings’ willingness to blitz–they rank second in blitz rate–and do so from a variety of looks and personnel groupings.
Walker will be matched up on both Van Ginkel and Greenard throughout the game, with the Vikings moving both defenders around. Greenard currently has the fourth-most pressures among edge rushers with 17, while Van Ginkel has eight. Tight-end help may be required at times for Walker, but Minnesota defensive coordinator Brian Flores does an excellent job at getting his edge rushers matched up solely on tight ends–obviously something the Packers will want to avoid.
“That’s definitely a concern,” said LaFleur of the Vikings’ 16 sacks. “So we’ve got to do a great job in terms of our protection calls, making sure we get a body on a body and then you’ve got to go and actually block these guys which isn’t the easiest task to do either.
“So, I think they’ve got a lot of good rushers in there. I think they rush collectively as a unit as one as good as anybody. I mean, their pick games that they’re running, it causes a lot of carnage on the offensive line at times. And they’ve also done a great job, I mean shoot, it shows up all over the tape just getting free runners at the quarterback and sacking the quarterback.”
Walker finished out the 2023 season on a strong note, eventually beating out Yosh Nijman in what was a left tackle rotation for several weeks to then playing his best football in the playoffs. Walker then built upon that momentum with a strong offseason, so much so that the left tackle position was never even up for grabs, even with the Packers drafting Jordan Morgan in the first round.
As good as the offense has looked the last two weeks in Jordan Love’s absence, there is still more that can be unlocked. Fewer penalties from Walker at left tackle and continuing to elevate his play will help the offense get there. We saw him do it late last season and he’s done it for stretches this year, but as always, it comes down to consistency.
“He’s got to keep battling,” said LaFleur of Walker. “You know because we’ve seen it. He’s been able to play at a high-level and that’s the expectation. So we are going to keep working through it. We know that, collectively as a group not only just the offensive line, but our entire football team there’s a lot to improve upon in terms of our fundamentals and our details. And we’ve just got to be dialed in.”