For an excruciating fifth week in a row, the Green Bay Packers will hope to have a winning game plan in place when they head to Ford Field Sunday to face their NFC rivals, the Detroit Lions.
Since the team went into it’s month long London Fog, the coaching staff has believed in the plans but the results haven’t come against the Giants, Jets, Commanders and Bills. From Head Coach Matt LaFleur to his coordinators on down, the staff has been grinding for a week only to see a sudden change in plans. In the case of the last two weeks, left tackle David Bakhtiari and then Elgton Jenkins were game day scratches, forcing a reshuffling of the offensive line at a moment’s notice. In most cases, the plan had a good idea of which wide receivers would be running the routes but last week in Buffalo, Christian Watson, who had a decent amount of feature snaps in that plan, was erased six snaps into the contest because of a concussion.
No wonder the execution levels over a 60 minute contest have been less than optimal.
Now a 3-5 team ready to face an even more desperate 1-6 squad, the Packers might have to take another contingency plan if the personnel for Plan A has more last minute changes.
The biggest question this week remains the offensive line. Bakhtiari missed a second straight day of practice while Jenkins returned on a limited basis and sitting out Wednesday. Not sure how much sleep rookie Zach Tom is getting while possibly learning the plan for both left tackle and guard.
Wide receivers line up Thursday, who’ll be in the lineup Sunday?
The receiver position is getting a little more clarity. Allen Lazard worked in a limited capacity again today but is still getting his left shoulder wrapped and iced post-practice. Watson is emerging from, but hasn’t cleared the concussion protocol just yet. He was still upgraded from a DNP to limited participant. If both can go, the Packers would be missing only Randall Cobb, but they might want to keep Samori Toure active just in case.
The others on the Thursday injury report were Aaron Rodgers, still limited because of the thumb and Preston Smith who is dealing with shoulder and neck issues.
Shemar Jean-Charles is still down with an ankle and Marcedes Lewis was the another DNP because of his usual Thursday veteran rest day. More concerning is De’Vondre Campbell’s knee injury. He missed a second straight day and is a real stretch to be available by Sunday.
That’s prompting a couple of changes worth keeping an eye on against Detroit’s big swinging, high scoring offense. Second year pro Isaiah McDuffie is most likely the next man up without Campbell. More interesting to me is the fact Defensive Coordinator Joe Barry indicated after practice that number one pick Quay Walker will be getting the green dot on his helmet and become the signal caller in the defensive huddle. He’ll relay Barry’s call to the guys and then be responsible for the unit’s proper alignment. That’s asking quite a bit from a kid with all of 8 games under his belt. Barry said he did plenty of it during training camp and he should be fine.
We heard from all three coordinators today. Special Teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia was asked if his unit is where he thought it might be at the season’s mid-point. He said there’s always room for improvement but he judges his unit game to game. Did the kicking game and cover unit help the defensive field position? Has the return team done the same for the offense?
As for the offense, Coordinator Adam Stenavich admitted it’s been tough juggling players in, out and all around. He agreed with his quarterback who said this week the offense has a good chance to increase production when all of those key pieces actually have a couple of games together under their belts. Through eight games, that’s been a real reach.
“The only consistency right now”, said Stenavich, “has been the inconsistency.”
