Oh, yes, the Packers played a game yesterday. The Packers $220 million dollar man, Jordan Love, was playing with a new-look backfield, with Aaron Jones gone and AJ Dillon out for the season. The Packers signed Josh Jacobs, who led the league in rushing in 2022, but was injured last season and played like it. Not that Jones was any better, but he demonstrated in the playoffs last season he was still capable of upping his game when needed. The Packers also dumped Anders Carlson for an undrafted kicker acquired off waivers, Brayden Narverson, who impressed people when he kicked a 59-yard field goal during the preseason.
The Packers also decided that neither of the backup quarterbacks they were testing in the preseason made the “grade”—Sean Clifford was cut then re-signed to the practice squad—and they brought in some nobody named Malik Willis who has proved nothing save that he won one out of three starts, his 10 passes total thrown in that game indicating that the less he did, the better. Ryan Tannehill is still out there, but if Love struggled, that might be a “problem” in people’s minds why the Packers gave him a $220 million extension, and we can’t have that.
So the Packers traveled down to Sao Paulo to play the first NFL game in Brazil against the Eagles. The game wasn’t on broadcast TV, but an NBC Peacock “exclusive,” so I had to listen to the game on Westwood One. To be frank, although I was impressed with Love’s play the second half of the season last year, I’m still not convinced he is “the guy.” Let’s just wait and see. To start the game it looked like it was Jalen Hurts and company who were definitely not ready to play, with two turnovers on their first two possessions. But the Packers failed to convert two red zone possessions into touchdowns, and the result was that when the Eagles did get their act together on their third drive, they were ahead 7-6.
After that, it just appeared that the defenses were not in sync, with eight straight possessions resulting in points. Jacobs was ineffective to start, gaining just 4 yards on 6 carries, and Emanuel Wilson came in and ran for 14 and 18 yards, and Jayden Reed took an end around 33 yards for a touchdown to retake the lead 12-7, but the Packers decided to go for 2 after an Eagles penalty (flags were flying everywhere in the first half of this game), but failed to convert. After the Eagles scored to turn the score around again, Love connected with Reed on a 70-yard score, the longest TD pass of Love’s career thus far.
Still, with the Packer defense just as ineffective as the Eagles, with issues with their linebacker corps and their supposed best secondary player, Jaire Alexander, getting blown-up on a 67-yard TD catch and run by AJ Brown. On the next possession the Packers took their final lead of the game, 26-24 in the third quarter, after being saved from blowing another red zone opportunity on a pass interference call on third down, leading to Christian Watson catching a two-yarder for a score.
But that was pretty much the end of it for the Packers, despite Jacobs gaining 80 yards on his next 10 rushes, which did not occur during the times he was most needed to perform. As for Love, save for the pass to Reed he was mostly as inconsistent as can be expected only playing one series during the preseason, and—did you know about this—playing with a calf “issue” suffered earlier in the game. With the Packers down by 5 with seconds to play on one last drive, Love came-up lame.
In came the new backup, and he played as ineffectually as expected, albeit not having been given enough time to prepare to even play. The final score, at least from what I could hear and see in the game overview video provided by NFL.com, 34-29, just seemed less “impressive” than a close game. Once the Eagles took the lead, I didn’t have much confidence in the final result, short of another “big play” which didn’t materialize.
The only real “standout” performance was by Reed, who caught 4 passes for 139 yards, and the 33-yard run and two scores. Reed nearly had 38 more yards and a score on the Packers first possession, but the TD pass from Love was nullified by the ridiculous off-setting penalties of both teams having too many men on the field. It remains to be seen if this is a one-off and was just a matter of the Eagles defense not ready to play, since we’ve seen this before with Christian Watson, and look where he is now—targeted 5 times, catching 3 passes for just 13 yards.
Still, the Eagles are technically a better team than the Packers and have proven playmakers like Brown and Barkley. Against a “lesser” opponent, this more likely would have been a win for the Packers. But now the Packers have to deal with the fact that they do not have a legitimate backup quarterback who has any experience worth anything, and the latest news is that Love suffered medial collateral ligament damage in his left knee on this play...
...which is believed to put him out of action for 3-6 weeks. Willis wasn’t supposed to be playing this early (if ever) this season (but then again, I doubt the Jets were expecting Aaron Rodgers to miss the season last year), and of course the rumor mill is in full gear, with talk of signing Tannehill, or trading for Zach Wilson, or even Joe Flacco.
Next week the Packers play the Colts, who finished last season with a 9-8 record as well. They start the season with one of those “athletic” quarterbacks who impressed at the combines but have no proven skills at the position, Anthony Richardson. Surprisingly—or being evidence of a non-existent draft class outside of CJ Stroud—he was the fourth pick in the 2023 draft despite only playing one fairly ordinary season in college. He started four games with the Colts before injury ended his season, showing only that on occasion he managed a few “explosive” plays in between inconsistent performances, particularly with accuracy. This is the only “bright” spot for the Packers with Love out of the lineup; I don’t expect much, to be honest.
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