Paul Bretl | 9/29/2024
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Calling the Packers start on defense slow would be an understatement. On the Minnesota Vikings first three possession of the game, they scored three touchdowns.
Just like that, only a few minutes into the second quarter, the Packers found themselves in a 21-0 hole. The Vikings came out swinging and the Packers looked unprepared.
“It’s very frustrating because I know, and we all know, like, we know what we are capable of in this locker room,” said Xavier McKinney at his locker. “We know what we’re capable of defensively and that was not our standard and we gotta be better and we will be better. And it’s just as simple as that. I gotta be better. We all hold ourselves accountable and that’s just kind of what it is. Moving forward we will be better.”
To make matters worse, it wasn’t just that the Vikings were finding the end zone, but they were doing so quite easily as well. Sam Darnold and the passing game were quite efficient, with a few pass-catchers running wide-open. Aaron Jones was finding success in the run game, and the pass rush was nowhere to be found.
“We didn’t start fast, how we wanted to,” added McKinney. “We didn’t execute well early in the game and it cost us later in the game. Obviously when you playing a good team it’s going to be hard to make mistakes early in the game and be able to come back from that. So we just gotta do better. Just execution-wise, being cleaner in our details and just getting off to a better start–a faster start.”
While communication and poor execution on the Packers’ end in the first half provided the Vikings’ offense with opportunities to exploit, the Minnesota game-plan contributed to those issues. On the first drive, facing a third-and-14, the Vikings caught Green Bay in man coverage and generated an explosive play for the first down. The drive then concluded with Addison beating Corey Ballentine with no help in sight.
The second scoring drive by the Vikings featured a really good mixture of the run and passing game, leaving the Packers off-balanced. The third scoring drive began with good field position following an interception thrown by Jordan Love.
“A lot went wrong in the first half, obviously, when they score on their first three possessions,” said LaFleur. “It was tough because I thought early on we had some opportunities. I think it was third-and-14 and they hit a high cross for an explosive gain. They caught us, they did a good job. They got a man-zone tell, so we were in man coverage, got to the man beater and they got us here. And then we had an opportunity, I believe it was on that first drive, where Isaiah, where Sam gets flushed and we’ve got to make that play.”
Certainly, making things more difficult for the Packers defense was not having Jaire Alexander, who was ruled out prior to kickoff after suffering what was listed as a groin/quad injury during last Thursday’s practice. Matt LaFleur said post-game that he didn’t think the injury would be long-term.
However, not having your top cornerback against an offense that features Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison is a difficult challenge to overcome. LaFleur wasn’t going to make any excuses for his team—at the end of the day, they didn’t make enough plays—but perhaps some of the early execution errors and miscommunications were a result of a team that had to tweak the game plan on the fly, I’m going to guess, with Alexander’s injury happening late in the week.
And it’s not only the game plan that can change when losing a player of Alexander’s caliber, but the game flow changes as well, specifically, how Jeff Hafley calls the game and how aggressive–or passive–he is.
“I’m not going to go down that road,” said LaFleur about not having Alexander. “It is what it is. It’s no different than an in-game injury. You’ve got to make an adjustment as a staff, and to me, that’s an excuse. I will never use that around here. Like, next man up, we’ve got to adjust our game plan if need be. Does it help you? Absolutely not. I mean, you want your best players out there. But I’ll never go down that road of using that as an excuse.”
Perhaps some solace that can be taken was how the Packers’ defense responded in the second half. Over the final two quarters the Vikings scored just three points and the Green Bay defense was able to give the ball back to the offense. Excluding the Vikings’ final possession where they took a knee, the Packers forced Minnesota to punt on four of their seven second half possessions, while generating two turnovers on two of the other possessions.
As far as there being any major halftime adjustments that resulted in the improved play, McKinney said that wasn’t the case. It was just a team that executed their responsibilities a lot better.
“Just being clean,” McKinney said of the turnaround. “It was really no adjustment. We just kept kind of chopping it down and we got cleaner on our details. We were challenging in coverage and it was just better overall. So nothing really different changed we just had a little bit more, you know, pep in our step and it showed that second half.”
While the defense certainly contributed to the early deficit the Packers found themselves in, the loss on Sunday was a collective effort. The offense turned the ball over four times and also couldn’t put much together for just about all of the first half. Kicker Brayden Narveson would miss two field goal attempts and Matt LaFleur was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct, which could have taken points off the board, but fortunately didn’t.
With that said, the Packers even being in a position at the end of that game to have the opportunity to win was a collective effort as well and one that says a lot about the resolve of this team.
“It don’t matter what team goes to Lambeau, it don’t matter what stadium that we go to, that the Green Bay Packers team is going to play a full 60 minutes,” said Rashan Gary. “With us the only thing that we gotta do is make sure we communicating, flying around, and playing complementary ball–all three phases. We handle that, we going to be right where we want to be.”