You shouldn’t be alarmed at the title.  Since the expectation is to win the Super Bowl, the play the last 3 games have shown me there’s no reason to believe this team can accomplish the goal.  Almost 1500 yards in three games is embarrassing.  Not even the horrid defense of 2011 (which was the worst in NFL history at the time) surrendered that much!  Let’s take a deeper dive, shall we?

1. By losing on Sunday at Carolina, Aaron Rodgers dropped his record to 11-23 (.324) when facing above .500 (at season’s end) on the road.  Compared to the gold standard, Tom Brady 20-23 (.465), is baaaaad.  Rodgers would need to rattle off 9-straight such victories, just to match Brady.

2. How much does this team miss Jordy Nelson?  I’ll lay out some stats and give you my opinion but feel free to interpret however you like.  In 2014, Rodgers targeted Jordy on 24.9% of all 3^rd downs.  Not just pass attempts, but all 3^rd downs.  Couple that with the difference in 3^rd down conversions from last year to 2015…it’s pretty alarming.  (3^rd down conv. 2014: 47.2%; 2015: 34.1%).  This tells me Jordy was Aaron’s security blanket, which is fine until we learned 87 was no longer going to be part of this team back in August.  Rodgers is either untrusting of his current receiving corps or he’s unable to adapt/change.  I think it’s a combination of the two, however I’m leaning more on the inability (mostly due to coaching) to adapt.

Scheme – the 2^nd half of the Carolina game, the Packers got a bit more aggressive and assertive with play calls, gameplan, and overall execution.  This doesn’t necessarily translate into “taking shots down field,” or “forcing throws into coverage,” but overall gameplan and sense of urgency.  The problem is it took getting absolutely pummeled by Carolina to invigorate such an approach.  I fully expect the Packers to crush the Lions, because Detroit is the epitome of a Hot Mess.

Dom must go.  I can’t reiterate enough how much I hate this man’s scheme, plan, approach, etc.  It’s been the same thing year in and year out.  Offense carrying the entire team until they run into a solid opponent, especially on the road, and have their season ended.  The next opportunity to earn that elusive 12^th road win v. and above .500 opponent will come week 11 @ Minnesota.  Winner essentially is in the driver seat for the division, which in the grand scheme of things, means little.  Super Bowl titles are all that matter.

No time to get into matchup, etc. with this upcoming game v Detroit (they’re terrible).  Win, lose, or draw…next week I’ll talk more about why it’s not crazy to think about a complete overhaul.  From Ted Thompson down to the last assistant coach, but that will have to wait as I’m sure most if not all of you even made it this far.

Lions 10
Packers 42