Packers Mailed It In

It’s amazing that professional athletes need motivation to “get up” for a game, but here we are. Baltimore was desperate and played with the necessary attitude to rush for 307 yards, on the road, against a very talented team. Green Bay’s effort, or lack thereof, seemed to stem from a much bigger problem; making the postseason apparently is “good enough.” While I’m not a player in the NFL, ‘nor am I in the locker room, it sure appeared that making the playoffs was all the Packers wanted out of this season as running the ball like that and defending the run is mostly attitude – given that ability isn’t that big of a discrepancy. The Ravens could do what they wanted all game and had their way with the Packers’ defense.

The positive note is that the Packers’ offense at least showed up ready and willing to fight. Yet again, a non-punting performance resulted in a loss – now back-to-back weeks (and 3^rd on the season) where typically an offense that doesn’t punt still found some way to lose the game. The Red Zone issues are still plaguing this team and unless they figure out that part of their offense, it’ll be tough to make a deep run let alone get out of Wild Card Weekend.

Blueprint Is Out Now?

In each of their losses, especially as of late, Packer opponents kept hammering the ball on the ground knowing the Green Bay defense will wear down. This is from not getting 3 & outs as well as not generating turnovers to shorten opponent drives, thus keeping the defense on the field longer and wearing down in the 2^nd half. Couple this with the offense only being able to score on short, quick drives even when the Packers do put up 7 points on a drive they’re on the field for a short amount of time. They also stall once they get to the red zone which should eat up another 1-2 minutes of possession. Do that over the course of 4-5 drives per game and that could easily be another 10 minutes of possession, a 20-minute swing for the defense…which is huge.

To expand on those issues, the defense is thrust back onto the field quicker than could be and the offense is leaving points on the field (settling for field goals or going for it on 4^th down and not converting), just a bad combination for what is a very talented team – they just lack execution enough throughout the game where the lesser team (Chicago and Baltimore) hangs around and is fresher come the 4^th quarter.

7th Seed Is Now Locked In

With the Vikings defeating Detroit on Christmas Day, the Packers clinched the final playoff spot in the NFC, meaning that all 7 playoff teams are determined, but the seeding was/is still up for grabs. With the loss to Baltimore, that catapulted the Bears to the NFC North Division win, meaning Green Bay is left with a wild card berth, and given their record (9-6-1), they’ll hold the last wild card spot, the 7^th seed. This means they’ll either face Chicago or Philadelphia in the Wild Card round and have to go on the road every game in the postseason. Chicago can win the 2 seed if they win vs. Detroit next Sunday OR if Philadelphia loses to Washington. Should Chicago lose and Philadelphia win, then Green Bay would travel to Lincoln Financial Field for a 7-2 rematch of last year’s Wild Card round with the Eagles.

Both teams are beatable, hell, every team is beatable in the NFL this season as there’s not true juggernaut, but each of those teams possess the makeup to beat Green Bay as they have each won vs. the Packers this season already. Green Bay’s run defense has relinquished 171 rush yards/game over the last 4 games (v Bal, @ Chi, @ Den, and v Chi), and it’s only getting worse. Chicago ranks as the 3^rd rushing offense in the NFL averaging 149.4 yards on the ground while Philadelphia is tied with Green Bay for the 17^th ground attack in the NFL averaging 119.3 yards, but are finding their rhythm with a big, strong offensive line and all-world HB Saquon Barkley finding his groove. Both opponents now look more formidable to Green Bay than they had over the last few weeks.

They issue moving forward now, is that with the Packers locked in the 7^th seed and banged up all over every position, they’ll likely sit key players as to try to get them as healthy as possible for the playoff push. The issue is that if they sit too many guys, the timing and rhythm of the players will be off and as we’ve seen in the past, could set up for a slow start, especially offensively, which won’t help get this team rolling and “hot” to advance through the playoffs.

Looking Ahead

Not to get too far ahead, but while the season feels like it’s already over (since the Surtain interception in Denver that seemed to swing the entire momentum of the season), all of this feels like another quick playoff exit. Since we’re fans we can look ahead to what the 2026 Packers will look like, or at least some of the differences in the form of personnel from this season.

The players likely exiting 1265 Lombardi Ave is a vast list. Quay Walker, Rashan Gary, Rasheed Walker, and Romeo Doubs are all likely not to be a part of the Packers’ plans moving forward. While Quay and Doubs have been solid throughout the season, their production just doesn’t match the money they’ll likely receive on the open market, thus not making it worth bringing them back as the Packers are cash strapped and must be as efficient with their spending as they’ve ever been. Rasheed Walker’s play regressed this season, and given it was a contract year for him, he probably cost himself quite a bit of money, but still will be too rich for the Packer to bring him back – also considering Green Bay used a 1^st round pick on Jordan Morgan last year to assume the Left Tackle of the future role, Walker (Rasheed) is as good as gone.

Doubs has flashed a bit and been fairly consistent during his time in Green Bay, but with the emergence of Christian Watson as the team’s #1 WR, using a 1^st round pick on Matthew Golden, and next year’s return of TE Tucker Kraft, it doesn’t make sense to spend a considerable amount of cap space on a WR that is very replaceable.

The BIG elephant in the room is Rashan Gary. Maybe one of the most-frustrating players in recent Packers history, Gary has shown flashes of greatness, but might as well have been a healthy scratch the last 9 games. Gary has been stout in the run game, until Baltimore exposed him and he hasn’t made a splash play all season. All of his sacks came early in the season when teams were trying to figure out Micah Parsons. Micah’s production kept steady (2^nd-best pass rusher in the NFL behind Myles Garrett), but Gary’s dropped off considerably and has been non-existent since Parsons’ ACL injury. Considering Gary counts the 2^nd-highest cap hit on the Green Bay Packers, he’ll either need to take a huge pay cut to remain with the team or be outright cut as he’s not worth the money and Green Bay needs all the cap space possible to address other areas of concern (mainly DL and CB).

The Risk(s) of “Going All In”

The risk of going “All In” has reared its ugly head in the worst way. While Micah Parsons is an incredible player, a game-changing player, giving up essentially 3 premium players (Kenny Clark and two 1^st round draft picks) and a ton of money has really put the Packers in a predicament. Having Parsons go down with a season-ending injury really has Green Bay in a situation of coming off an 11-6 season and a defeat in the Wild Card round, but now missing their top 3 defensive tackles (Clark in a trade, Slaton in free agency, and Wyatt to injury) and has cash-strapped them in the salary cap department with Parsons’ contract coming into effect next season ($19,237,000 cap hit in 2026).

This is a disaster scenario for the Packers given that they don’t have a 1^st round pick for the next 2 years to address main areas of concern (D Line and Corner), they’ll have to strike gold in the 2^nd and 3^rd rounds at those positions and hope rookies can contribute, which is quite rare.

The offensive line is an issue as well. We already talked about LT Rasheed Walker, but Jordan Morgan has played much better at RT than he has RG or LG over his short tenure, and he’s destined to be the LT of the future. If he can shore up that position, that would be a huge help moving forward. The issues come with the 3 interior line spots. We moved pro-bowl LG Elgton Jenkins to Center this year, clearing the way to sign Aaron Banks to fill the LG void, but neither move has worked out and Jenkins is also likely to not return next year. Sean Rhyan has played OK at center since filling in for the injured Jenkins, but he’s more of a Right Guard and has struggled there this year as well. It’s a mess, it can be cleaned, but a huge mess nonetheless.

General Manager, Brian Gutekunst, and EVP Dir. Of Football Operations, Russ Ball, will have to work their magic this offseason to field a team that can capitalize on their extremely talented core to contend for a Super Bowl next year. Otherwise, it’ll be just contending for a division title (which would be a massive improvement considering Green Bay hasn’t won it since the 2021 season).