First in Fans' Hearts, Third in the NFC North

Our "Down the Stretch" series examines the Packers, who are very good but stuck in a division with two teams that are better.

The Green Bay Packers could have been demoralized by their last-second 34-31 loss to the Detroit Lions in Week 14. But they weren’t.

"We're definitely going to be back here and we'll be excited to play them again once we do," defensive lineman Kenny Clark said after that game, per Wes Hodkiewicz of Packers.com.

"But it's tough, it's a tough loss. Gotta get better from here, and we will get better from here."

A fine attitude, even if it doesn’t accurately represent likely playoff scenarios: if the Lions clinch the top seed, the Packers face an uphill battle, possibly through Philly, for a playoff rematch.

But forgive Clark for thinking that anything is possible. The Packers should not be here right now. They are supposed to still be climbing out of the Aaron Rodgers crater. They are supposed to be in cap purgatory, even though the Jets eased their Rodgers burden: David Bakhtiari, Aaron Jones and other departed veterans are currently eating up $65 million in dead cap space. Jordan Love’s Week 1 injury sure looked like a knockout blow when it happened. And an 0-3 record against the Lions and Vikings should have left the Packers helplessly behind the playoff tiebreaker eight-ball.

Yet the Packers are still here, and still very good: they enter Week 15 ranked fourth in the NFL in weighted DVOA, ahead of the Vikings! A 3-0 record against the NFC West – not to mention a 4-0 record against the lowly AFC South – has buoyed the Packers as an almost-inevitable playoff team. And last Thursday’s near-miss against the Lions illustrated that the Packers’ huge-play offense and opportunistic defense are capable of throwing a scare into anyone.

Welcome to Down The Stretch, a feature that takes deep dives to examine playoff teams. Today, we will try to determine how far the Packers can go as playoff road warriors.

The Green Bay Packers Story So Far

Jordan Love, fresh off an electrifying debut season as a starter in 2023, suffered an MCL sprain at the end of a season-opening loss to the Eagles in Brazil. Complicating matters, the Packers dickered with ineffectual backup Sean Clifford throughout the spring and summer, cut him at the end of training camp, and traded for perennial Titans disappointment Malik Willis to replace Clifford on August 27th.

Willis could barely take four snaps without fumbling or throwing an interception in two seasons (and three preseasons) with the Titans. Yet Matt LaFleur customized option-heavy gameplans for him on two weeks’ notice, leading to season-saving victories over the Colts and Titans. Assisting LaFleur and Willis were a deep playmaker corps, an unheralded offensive line and a Jeff Hafley-coached defense which, in a break from Packers tradition, generated more big plays than it surrendered.

Love returned sooner than anticipated, but the results were initially worrisome: three interceptions in a messy loss to the Vikings, a panic-turd Pick-6 from his own end zone that made the Rams victory harder than it had to be. But Love settled down, and the Packers strung together impressive wins against quality middleweight opponents like the Cardinals, Texans, 49ers, Dolphins … everyone but the Lions, who slapped the Packers into their place with a convincing Week 9 victory and a tougher, narrower one last Thursday night.

The Packers are now 9-4. They appear slated for the sixth or seventh playoff seed, though they could earn the ultimate 2024 playoff consolation prize — the top NFC Wild Card berth and a chance to slaughter the NFC South champion in the first round — if they can win some important road games down the stretch.

Leadership Structure

LaFleur stared into the Aaron Rodgers abyss for four years without succumbing to gibbering madness. He even convinced Rodgers to grudgingly tolerate a scheme filled with pre-snap motion, RPOs and other concepts that did not mesh with His Surliness’ scramble/gesticulate/heave-it-over-the-moon/scowl offensive preferences. LaFleur developed Love into a franchise quarterback beneath Rodgers’ ever-watchful Eye of Sauron, then engineered some game scripts that made Willis look like Jalen Hurts for two weeks.

In summary, LaFleur is at least on par with former broodmate Kyle Shanahan as a game planner and clearly possesses impressive chops when it comes to handling prickly personalities. (He also simmered Romeo Doubs down earlier this year.) LaFleur has been almost completely ignored by the annual Coach of the Year balloting, however, because he inherited Rodgers and never fit an awards-friendly flavor-of-the-year narrative.

Hafley, a former Shana-family functionary who laid low as Boston College’s head coach for several years, replaced a succession of defensive coordinators (Joe Barry, Mike Pettine, Dom Capers) who endured mild-to-moderate bum raps over the years. The Packers never had many excess resources to spend on defense with Rodgers (or in the post-Rodgers salary cap shadow), and fans were conditioned to never question the offense, leaving the defense as a perennial scapegoat. The Packers defense currently ranks 11h in DVOA, which is roughly where Pettine’s defenses often ranked, and the improvement over Barry’s units (27th last year, 25 in 2023) can partially be chalked up to the arrival of All Pro safety Xavier McKinney. Still, Hafley’s defenses have not done anything self-destructive, so LaFleur’s top lieutenant should continue to enjoy a honeymoon period until the Lions run roughshod over the Packers in the playoffs the way the 49ers used to do.

General manager Brian Gutekunst put up with Rodgers’ public castigation/insubordination for years, drafted Love, assembled the team’s deep playmaker corps and got value in exchange for Rodgers at a time when the New York media swore the Jets had all the “leverage.” (Note: if sportswriters understood the concept of negotiating leverage, our entire industry would not be pauperized.) Gutekunst also came up with sensible Love compensation packages, acquired McKinney and Josh Jacobs at moderate cost and has done a fine job manipulating the long-range contracts of important veterans like Jaire Alexander, Rashan Gary and Elgton Jenkins. He’s an excellent general manager, but he doesn’t get much national buzz because he rarely makes free-agent splashes and Rodgers hates him more than penicillin.

Team CEO Mark Murphy works in concert with Gutekunst, makes Rodgers-level financial decisions and performs traditional ownership duties. The Packers are publicly owned and therefore lack an impetuous, imperious dimwit who runs the team like a vanity project from his luxury battleship. Somehow, they get by.

Quarterback Situation

Love is a designer Patrick Mahomes knockoff. Like Mahomes, he sometimes displays the passing mechanics of a 1920s cartoon character and the risk-management sensibility of a fraternity pledge after his first kegstand. He’s also preternaturally talented, though not quite at Mahomes’ level, and capable of making throws that defy the laws of spatial geometry.

Love isn’t particularly accurate. His on-target pass rate of 71.4% (per Sports Info Solutions) ranks 31st among quarterbacks with 100-plus attempts, below the likes of Will Levis and Cooper Rush. His Next Gen Stats completion rate above average of -1.7% ranks between Levis and Mac Jones this year. But Love excels at extreme-degree-of-difficulty passes. He leads the NFL in completions (14) and yards (626) on passes of 25-plus air yards: DEEP deep passes, in other words. The Packers lead the NFL with 13 passing plays of 40-plus yards.

Love has not thrown an interception in three straight games after suffering a lengthy post-injury spree, and his sack rate of 3.24% is the third-best in the NFL, behind Derek Carr and Josh Allen. Love may always be a huge-play reliant, high-variance passer. But few quarterbacks have a higher ceiling.

What’s Going Right

• Jayden Reed has emerged as the chairman of the Packers’ receiving committee. Packers quarterbacks have a passer rating of 147.1 when throwing to Reed, per Pro Football Reference: the highest figure in the NFL. Reed does have seven dropped passes, however, and sometimes mysteriously disappears from game plans.

• While Aaron Jones has played very well for the Vikings, Josh Jacobs turned out to be a younger, cheaper substitute for an offense that needs a battering ram more than another all-purpose threat. Jacobs ranks second to Derrick Henry with 563 yards after contact, per Pro Football Reference. Jacobs also has 10 touchdowns from inside the 5-yard line, steadying the Packers’ red-zone offense.

• The offensive line, led by all-purpose lineman Elgton Jenkins (he has subbed at center this year) and tackles Rasheed Walker and Zach Tom, has been rock-solid.

• Xavier McKinney has been an invaluable addition at free safety. Not only has he intercepted seven passes, but the Packers defense ranks fourth in the NFL at stopping deep passes, per DVOA.

• The Packers have recovered 12 of 21 opponent’s fumbles. There’s some luck at work in that recovery rate, but the Packers’ forced fumble rate is also high, which is an indicator of defensive skill. Eleven different Packers defenders have forced at least one fumble this season.

Trouble Spots

• Take the Packers kickers. Please! Brayden Narveson (who sounds like a Fargo character) went 12-of-17 on kicks from inside 50-yards, with two bad misses in the narrow loss to the Vikings. Brandon McManus has been steadier but missed a 46-yarder in the first meeting with the Lions.

• Romeo Doubs has been in concussion protocol for several weeks. Tight end Luke Musgrave underwent ankle surgery and is on injured reserve. The Packers’ vaunted playmaker committee isn’t quite what it is cracked up to be without them. Reed, Jacobs, Christian Watson and Tucker Kraft are fine, but the Vikings (and Bears!) field better playmaker corps right now.

• Speaking of dropped passes, Pro Football Reference charges the Packers with 28 of them. Only the Browns and Giants have dropped more.

• Veteran cornerback Jaire Alexander has missed most of the last two months with knee and groin injuries.

• The Packers caught the Rams and 49ers near the nadirs of their injury plagues and the Dolphins in tundra conditions, so there may be a little helium in their “quality wins” dossier.

Future Schedule

Per DVOA, the Packers have the 14th-hardest future schedule. They play two more primetime games over the next two weeks – at Seattle on Sunday and versus the Saints on Christmas Eve Eve – then visit the Vikings before wrapping up the season by hosting the Bears.

The Packers need to win one of those remaining road games, not only to eliminate the slim chance of a Wild Card catastrophe (the Seahawks would hold a tiebreaker and a matching record with a win) but to prove they can hold their own against the conference’s light-heavyweights.

Real Playoff Outlook

DVOA Probabilities: The Packers have a 98.2% chance of reaching the playoffs. You will probably see lower probabilities elsewhere: DVOA loves the Packers but is not particularly fond of most of the teams that could pilfer the final Wild Card berth. While they are not technically eliminated from NFC North title contention, their chance of winning the division rounds to 0.0%.

The Packers have a 21.6% chance of reaching the NFC Championship Game and a 9.2% chance of reaching the Super Bowl.

Moneylines: The Packers are -6000 to make the playoffs; +1500 to miss. They are -115 to lose in the Wild Card round, which reflects the likelihood that they will face the beaten-down NFC West champion (or possibly the Sun Belt Conference automatic bid winner). They are +300 to lose in the divisional round and +600 to lose in the conference championship game.

That +300 wager reflects a “beat the Bucs or Seahawks, then lose in Philly or Detroit” scenario that feels very likely. I would like it better if it were around +400 or trusted either the Seahawks less or the Eagles more.

Beyond 2024

The Packers will have finally eaten most of their early-decade cap hits by next year. They have $68 million in paper cap space for 2025. Their playmakers are still on their rookie contracts, and most of their important veterans are locked into long-term deals, so the Packers can shop next year if they choose to.

The Packers possess all of next year’s draft picks of note. Alas, they will receive no more bounty from the Rodgers trade.

Bottom Line

Despite what DVOA claims, I don’t think the Packers are better than the Vikings. DVOA doesn’t know how beaten up the 49ers were when the Packers trounced them in Week 12. The Packers look like the fourth-best team in the NFC right now, and while they could get better with the returns of Doubs and Alexander, they’ve still lost to all three of the teams ahead of them.

The Packers feel like they are a player away from true Super Bowl contention. No, that player is not a go-to wide receiver: they’re fine with Reed in that role and Watson/Doubs as dueling field-stretchers. They need an edge rusher to supplement Rashan Gary; Hafley’s committee approach isn’t a championship-caliber solution. Or a cornerback to take the baton from oft-injured Alexander. Or maybe they just need fit-’n’-finish: fewer dropped passes and missed field goals, a little more consistency from Love.

The Packers also need the Lions to go away and the Vikings to return to earth’s atmosphere. The former ain’t happening, and the latter looks less and less likely each week. They cannot afford to coast to division titles, which is a long-range blessing (it prevents Falcons-like team-building logic), but a short-term headache. The Packers will make the best of their fate as road warriors in the playoffs. But imagine their odds if they could force opponents like the Eagles to play in Green Bay.

At least the Packers are fun. Icy primetime Lambeau games are fun. Love uncorking yolo balls is fun. Reed and Jacobs are fun to watch when they YAC through defenses. Not watching a scowling egomaniac treat every offensive series like a tax audit is fun. The Packers will probably be road favorites and a star attraction in the Wild Card round.

That may not be enough to appease Cheeseheads, who have grown jaded by playoff runs and championship-game letdowns over the decades. For the rest of us, however, it still feels like a minor miracle to be talking about this team this way. And when you consider how bad things could have gone over the last two years, second runner-up does not seem like so bad a fate. At least for this year.

Kenny Clark, from All Sports Reels via the Creative Commons Share-Alike