Ben SolakNov 4, 2025, 06:30 AM ETCloseBen Solak joined ESPN in 2024 as a national NFL analyst. He previously covered the NFL at The Ringer, Bleeding Green Nation and The Draft Network.
play1:17Should managers be hesitant to start Jordan Love in fantasy?Field Yates breaks down why Jordan Love isn’t a lock to start in fantasy this week.
play1:09Was the Colts’ loss a bad game or a bad sign?Domonique Foxworth, Rex Ryan and Adam Schefter debate if the Colts’ level of concern after getting beat by the Steelers.
play2:31Schefter to McAfee: Seahawks a team to watch ahead of trade deadlineAdam Schefter explains to Pat McAfee why the Seahawks are an intriguing team to watch ahead of the NFL trade deadline.
play1:36Stephen A.: The Bills aren’t the best team in the AFCStephen A. Smith says he isn’t taking too much from the Bills’ win over the Chiefs in the regular season.
Why didn’t the Commanders sit Jayden Daniels? (1:07)Rex Ryan questions why the Commanders didn’t pull Jayden Daniels before he got injured. (1:07)
Should managers be hesitant to start Jordan Love in fantasy?Field Yates breaks down why Jordan Love isn’t a lock to start in fantasy this week.
Was the Colts’ loss a bad game or a bad sign?Domonique Foxworth, Rex Ryan and Adam Schefter debate if the Colts’ level of concern after getting beat by the Steelers.
Domonique Foxworth, Rex Ryan and Adam Schefter debate if the Colts’ level of concern after getting beat by the Steelers.
Schefter to McAfee: Seahawks a team to watch ahead of trade deadlineAdam Schefter explains to Pat McAfee why the Seahawks are an intriguing team to watch ahead of the NFL trade deadline.
Adam Schefter explains to Pat McAfee why the Seahawks are an intriguing team to watch ahead of the NFL trade deadline.
Stephen A.: The Bills aren’t the best team in the AFCStephen A. Smith says he isn’t taking too much from the Bills’ win over the Chiefs in the regular season.
Stephen A. Smith says he isn’t taking too much from the Bills’ win over the Chiefs in the regular season.
The Big Thing: Where is the Packers’ dominance we were promised?
Second Take: Let’s not make J.J. McCarthy the NFC Player of the Week this time, please
Monday Night Mystery: Jerry Jones and the TBD Trade
Every Tuesday, I’ll spin the previous week of NFL action forward, looking at what the biggest storylines mean and what comes next. We’ll seek measured reactions to everyone’s overreactions, celebrate the exciting stuff that nobody is appreciating and highlight what you might have missed Sunday and Monday. There will be film. There will be stats (a whole section of them). And there will be fun.
Jump to a section: Big Thing: Why aren’t the Packers dominating? Trade watch: Let’s play deadline bingo Second Take: J.J. McCarthy hasn’t turned the corner Mailbag: Answering questions from … you Next Ben Stats: Wild Week 9 stats Monday Night Mystery: Jones and the TBD trade
Every week, this column will kick off with one wide look at a key game, player or trend from the previous slate of NFL action. What does it mean for the rest of the season? This week, we tackle the Packers, who have been upset twice this season.
Well, not really. (Looking at you, 2014 NFC Championship Game). But by Vegas expectations, this is tied for the biggest upset loss for the Packers since the 1970 merger, as Green Bay was favored by 13.5 points against Carolina.
The Packers are the largest favorites to lose outright since the Titans beat the Dolphins as 14.5-point underdogs in Week 14 of the 2023 season. The Packers are the only team this season to have lost two games in which they were more than a touchdown favorite — their Week 3 loss to the Browns as a 7.5-point favorite is the other such game.
The performance against the Browns somewhat made sense. The Packers were still onboarding edge rusher Micah Parsons and had just lost Jayden Reed (collarbone) indefinitely the previous week. The Browns’ defense was seriously good, too: a top-five unit by every metric. Even then, it took a Jordan Love interception with under four minutes remaining, then a blocked Brandon McManus field goal, for the Packers to lose.
The Packers suffering two of the most disappointing losses this season is as much a story of our expectations as it is of their shortcomings. When they acquired Parsons on Aug. 28, they felt like a contender, adding a game-changing player on defense. At ESPN BET, Green Bay went from 20-1 to win the Super Bowl to 14-1 immediately after the trade, 11-1 before Week 1 and 8-1 after the team beat the Lions in the opener.
After Sunday’s loss, the Packers are still 9-1 to win the Super Bowl. But what was a nagging doubt after the loss to the Browns has grown into a larger one after a 40-40 tie against the Cowboys, a late-game win over the Cardinals, a quiet first half against the Steelers and Sunday’s loss to the Panthers. If the Parsons trade was supposed to make the Packers into a juggernaut … why haven’t we seen that happen yet?
To a degree, the results against the Panthers are aberrative. The Packers had only seven drives, as Carolina wisely shortened the game with a slow offensive operation. The Panthers snapped the ball with minimal time left on a running clock (42.5 seconds of game clock per play), inched their way down the field with the rushing attack and went for it on fourth downs.
The best defense against a high-powered offense like the Packers’ unit is keeping it on the sideline. The second-best defense? Playing deep zone coverage and forcing that offense to inch along. Carolina was in zone on 89.5% of its snaps against Green Bay.
Of those seven Packers drives, six crossed the Panthers’ 25-yard line — yet the Packers scored only 13 points. In the past 10 years, only 11 teams have scored fewer points on at least six drives across the opponent’s 25. There were many reasons for the low-scoring output: a Savion Williams fumble, a missed field goal in gusty winds, a third-and-3 TFL creating a fourth-and-8 disaster. Run this game back 100 times, and the Packers score more than 13 points in 99 iterations.
Here’s the play LaFleur is referencing. This is a designed shot play: two tight ends, under center play-action, Christian Watson on the big post with Romeo Doubs behind on the over route.
It’s not a great play. You can tell LaFleur is frustrated with his call — why go for a shot play when the Panthers have been giving you free access to underneath throws? Did he get impatient, looking for a huge spark to win the game with one throw?
There’s also a question for Love, who could have bought time to throw Doubs on the over route — a preferable matchup, with only a linebacker sinking underneath the route — or checked it down to the late-releasing tight end.
So, this was a bad play, but Love was solid at pushing the ball downfield despite the Panthers’ defensive approach: 3-of-5 on throws of 20-plus yards. One incompletion was the pick, but another was a catchable ball/maybe a drop from Matthew Golden.
The deep ball is an inextricable part of Love’s game and LaFleur’s corresponding offensive philosophy. Since the 2023 season, 12.8% of Love’s passes have traveled at least 20 yards downfield — the fourth-highest rate, behind only Will Levis, Anthony Richardson Sr. and Russell Wilson. But Love and LaFleur can become overly cautious when the Packers are big favorites.
Look at how Love’s downfield aggressiveness changes relative to the expectation entering the game. Neither Love nor LaFleur is looking at Vegas spreads during the week and building a game plan around the number, of course — but if we use the spread as a proxy for how much better we think the Packers are than their opponent, we can see that the downfield aggressiveness vanishes from the Packers’ approach. Critically, this wasn’t as present when Aaron Rodgers was playing under LaFleur.
But Love averaged 8.1 air yards per attempt Sunday — farther downfield than we’d expect. After the game, LaFleur wished that their passing game was a little more cautious. “We consistently moved the ball. I mean, nine-play, nine-play, 10-play, 10-play, 13-play, 12-play [drives]. I do think there’s a little bit of pressing to get a big play, but when they’re not there, you can’t chase it.”
This dichotomy is not unfamiliar. The Chiefs faced this challenge in 2021 and 2022, when opposing defenses almost universally deployed soft shell coverages against their downfield passing attack, demanding the Chiefs string together long, mistake-free drives. We spent much of last September bemoaning the explosion of two-high defenses and the accompanying deflation of the passing game.
But the Packers are not well-suited to the changing tide. This season, only two Packers skill position players have more than 20 yards after the catch over expectation, as calculated by NFL Next Gen Stats. One is running back Josh Jacobs. The other, unsurprisingly, is superstar tight end Tucker Kraft, who tore his ACL in this game and is out for the remainder of the season. Kraft has 109 YACOE this year; the rest of the team has 111 combined.
Love is not used to authoring nine-play, 10-play, 12-play scoring drives. It’s not how Watson, Doubs and Golden excel. That sort of offensive approach belongs to teams like the Panthers, who are trying to shorten a game as a 13.5-point underdog. To turn some of those longer drives into quicker ones that end in touchdowns, the Packers need more yards after the catch — an element only Kraft was providing.
A better running game would also help. Much like in YAC, the Packers are struggling relative to expectation. Jacobs has 29 rushing yards under expectation — 12th worst among backs this season. Backup Emanuel Wilson is 16 yards below expectation; gadget WR Williams is 15 yards below expectation. The Packers are not producing the additional yards needed to play a ball-control, incremental style of offense with minimal possessions.
“You got to be able to run the football. I think that’s been a little bit of an issue, at times,” LaFleur said. “If they’re going to play soft shell, and you’re handing the ball off and getting 2 yards — not that it was consistently like that, but there were a couple of times like that — you get behind the sticks, and it gets more difficult.”