Paul Bretl | 8/9/2025
GREEN BAY, Wis. — The NFL preseason is all about fine-tuning and cleaning up mistakes in preparation for the regular season. During this time of the year, it is expected that there are going to be miscues and things to be cleaned up.
However, while that may be true, even for the preseason, what we saw from the Packers on Saturday night against the New York Jets was some extremely sloppy football.
“Well that was a humbling experience,” Matt LaFleur said after the game. “Definitely not what we want to put out there. I don’t care preseason, regular season, it doesn’t matter to me. It was just sloppy football.
“Too many penalties, drops, missed tackles, bad decision making, and it really showed up in every phase of football. And if you do that, you’re going to get your a** kicked, and that’s exactly what happened.”
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The issues that the Packers’ team as a whole started from the jump, and it didn’t improve as the game went on.
Despite Jordan Love and most of the starting offense starting the game with a 1st-and-5 following an encroachment penalty on the Jets, a four-yard run and two incomplete passes to Romeo Doubs in tight coverage against cornerback Sauce Gardner resulted in a Packers’ punt.
The defense then surrendered a touchdown, particularly struggling to defend the middle of the field. Missed tackles turned minimal gains into modest ones and modest runs into chunk plays. The New York passing game was also very effective in finding the soft spots in the Packers’ secondary.
On Love’s second and final possession of the game, he turned to Matthew Golden–who was one of the few bright spots on the night–twice on third downs. On the first throw, Golden hauled it in for a first down. On the second target, Golden drew a penalty that moved the chains.
But the drive would quickly stall out and ended with Love taking a sack, resulting in another punt. Love would finish his outing just 1-for-5 passing for seven yards.
“So we had two drives and definitely something that I think we could’ve done a lot better on,” Love said after the game. “We didn’t move the ball very well, didn’t put up any points. There’s going to be stuff we look back on want to clean up going forward, but obviously limited action.”
Whether it was the first, second, or third team pass catchers, the Green Bay receivers struggled in this game. According to PFF’s early tracking data, the Packers’ pass-catchers had three dropped passes on just 22 total throws–which may end up on the low side–and they were just 2-for-7 in contested catch situations.
Then there were the penalties–so many penalties. The Packers ended up being flagged seven times, totaling 64 yards. Many of the penalties came against the offensive line. Second-year offensive lineman Jacob Monk was responsible for three of those penalties.
“All those penalties were a major problem, and it’s hard to get into any type of rhythm when you’re having multiple penalties,” LaFleur said. “You have a short-yardage situation, third and 1, it looks like it’s going to e an easy first down, and you get called for holding. You just can’t have those.”
When it was all said and done, the Packers surrendered 30 points and only scored 10. Their quarterbacks were just 10-for-22 passing for 64 yards, which, as mentioned, is also how many penalty yards the Packers had called against them.
Green Bay averaged just 4.0 yards per play on offense and turned the ball over twice–once on a muffed punt by Mecole Hardman and another on a strip sack of Malik Willis after Sean Rhyan was beat at the center position.
The Packers held the ball for just 21:19 and the defense surrendered 9.1 yards per pass attempt. You get the idea–it was a rough outing.
“What we put out wasn’t good enough,” said Colby Wooden. “We gotta be better. We gotta be better. That was unacceptable. 30 points for our first game, regardless of, if it’s preseason or not, that’s unacceptable. So we gotta come do better.
“We gotta look ourselves in the mirror and he said specifically, look ourselves in the mirror and do what we gotta do–make the corrections. Nobody is above the corrections. Listen to the corrections. Listen to how he’s saying it.”
After watching this performance, perspective when it comes to the grand scheme of an NFL season can be lost.
The Packers were without several key players and whether Green Bay had won by three scores and put together a clean outing or performed like they did on Saturday night has no bearing on what the regular season holds.
“I’m not going to rush to any judgment on a preseason game,” said Love. “I think that’s what it’s there for. It’s there to go out there [in a game]. We’ve been going against our defense for so long, to be able to see some new looks and to see what it’s like to go out there and execute. Sometimes you’ll go have a great game. I remember the Bengals preseason game a couple years ago. We put up a lot of points and a lot of yards.
“So there’s instances where it’s high and there’s instances where it’s low. So I think there’s a lot of areas to clean up from an offensive perspective, but it’s good tape to learn from, to grow from. But it’s Week 1 of preseason, so we’re not going to rush to any conclusions.”
With that said, as LaFleur mentioned, the Packers have to have urgency when it comes to fixing what went wrong.
So while you can put the panic button away, after a showing like that, frustration, disappointment, and some anger, are all reasonable emotions to be expected swirling about within the building.
Now, and as always, it’s all about how the team responds.
“Matt is not going to come out here and expect us to play perfect football,” Tucker Kraft said. “But what he saw, he has every right to be upset. Guys were out there and they were playing with the wrong techniques, they were getting themselves out of position, and that was costing us drives. That’s not what he coaches.
“So when you go out there and do something that he’s not coaching you to do, that’s why he’s going to be pissed off.”