If you have looked at the Green Bay Packers during this season, it’s easy to realize they’ve been pretty bad. They are certainly not the NFC powerhouse they’ve been over the past seasons. Not even a healthy Aaron Rodgers and the return of Jordy Nelson have been enough.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it: the Packers are just bad. They sit in third place of the NFC North with a 4-5 record, but they are surprisingly just one game back from the division lead. And they have enough talent on paper to top the Detroit Lions and the Minnesota Vikings. But in order to make the leap, the Packers need to fix their own problems first.
It all starts on the offense. Rodgers has been throwing the ball more frequently, but the results haven’t been encouraging. He has a 2-3 mark when throwing more than 40 passes in a game. And he already has seven interceptions in only nine contests. Rodgers has 2,410 yards, but he’s completing only 63,14% of his passes. That completion percentage would be the second worst of his career, only trailing 2015’s 60,7 percent.
There’s also the issue at the RB position. Eddie Lacy is out for the year with a knee injury. James Starks hasn’t been able to flourish as the lead back. And Ty Montgomery is a receiver, so it’s only a matter of time before he returns to his natural role. Even Rodgers has had to run the football, an area where he’s clearly not comfortable. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why the Packers average only 102.4 yards through the ground per game. After all, they are ranked 19th in rushing yards per game and 21st in total rushing yards.
And if the struggles with the RBs aren’t enough, the wide receivers haven’t done a better job either. Nelson is coming into his own in recent weeks and Davante Adams is excelling in a larger role, but that’s about it. Randall Cobb needs to produce more. And the tight ends have struggled as well. It seems the whole offense has been bad, and Rodgers can’t take all the blame. He’s not the one making the wrong routes or dropping easy passes.
The Packers’ offense needs to improve quickly. Otherwise we might see another year where Aaron Rodgers can’t make a Super Bowl run despite being one of the best quarterbacks in the league. And a failure to reach the postseason could result in lots of changes ahead of the 2017 season.