There’s no shame in falling into a trap game. It happens to teams every single season. The Bills lost the Falcons, the Chiefs fell to the Jaguars — it’s part of the NFL cycle. Only one true contender in the league has fallen into three trap games this season, and that’s the Green Bay Packers. Their loss to the Panthers at Lambeau Field was a gut punch to a team hoping to separate themselves from the Lions in the NFC North, and get out of the muck that will be the wild card this year.
Losing to Carolina, along with losses to Cleveland and a tie with Dallas all had shared DNA: The Packers should have won, and won fairly easily. That’s not to take anything away from the Panthers, Browns, and Cowboys, who all formulated game plans to get the better of Green Bay — but also a realization that Jordan Love and the Packers’ biggest enemy on offense are themselves.
The game against Carolina showed this more clearly than any other this season. Defensive coordinator Ejiro Eviro sent out his most boring, vanilla defense against the Packers, and it preyed on their worst traits. Sitting in a two-high shell, they dared Love to beat them deep — they wanted him to challenge them. On paper you look at the Panthers secondary and there really isn’t that much to be afraid of. Jaycee Horn is an elite corner, but after that? Yeah, it gets a little ugly.
Safety Tre’Von Moehrig is a solid player, but he’s not typically great at playing the ball in the air. To the Panthers defense he’s far more often used as a hard-hitting element of their run defense, while also being tasked with challenging tight ends. Moehrig isn’t typically a guy you feel confident in covering a wide receiver. The other safety, Nick Scott, is a straight up liability for Carolina, and unquestionably their worst starter on defense. Then there’s the corner across from Horn, Mike Jackson — he’s just as likely to blow coverage and allow an explosive touchdown as he is actually making a play.
The point is: They’re not good. Watch Carolina on film and a quarterback would rub their hands together like Birdman hoping to face them. It’s here the trap was really laid. The absolute best way to beat the two-high shell, especially when paired with the Cover 3 that the Panthers often run, is to pressure the sidelines with outs, and the inside with digs and crossing routes. This essentially takes the two safeties out of the play, putting the pressure on linebackers and corners in coverage. It’s a “bend, don’t break” scheme inherently designed to stop the explosive plays.
Critically: It’s also very, very easy to run against. This was ostensibly the same defense the Panthers ran against the Bills the week prior, when they were blown out 40-9. It did a great job holding Josh Allen to 163 yards passing, but the trade off was that James Cook was able to go HAM for 216 yards rushing.
It’s unclear what preparation Matt LaFleur and the Packers did on offense for Carolina, but it was as if they were totally mystified that Evero brought back the two-high shell. Instead of leaning on Josh Jacobs, where they could target runs off tackle and away from Derrick Brown, Green Bay instead decided to keep on trying to generate explosive plays when they made no sense. A lot of this falls on Jordan Love as well, who was too enticed by the idea of burning Jackson and the flawed safeties that he didn’t audible out of obvious plays the defense was designed to beat.
Instead he took the bait, the dare from the Panthers to throw over the top — and Carolina punished him for it. Not only did Moehrig get an interception, but Jackson dropped the easiest pick in the world on a 4th and 8 play he would have taken to the house, if not for his hands of stone.
The two Love interceptions (and they should be characterized as such), were both examples of hubris. A ludicrous over-confidence in his ability to make something happen deep, without any design for taking what the defense was giving him. That was the story for much of the afternoon, as Love passed up the proverbial bird in the hand, for the two in the bush.
The Packers’ offense made even less sense considering the conditions. Swirling, gusty wind inside Lambeau made it hell for kickers, and any deep lob pass had a propensity to waffle in the air. What Green Bay fundamentally did was make the worst possible decision considering what Carolina showed them, and what the weather was doing. The underlying question is: Why?
We are six years into LaFleur’s tenure as a head coach, Love’s third season as a starter. When it comes down to brass tacks it really doesn’t matter if Love is throwing for 3,500 yards and 25 touchdowns a season if the team isn’t capitalizing on it — and the Packers really aren’t. Love’s record as a quarterback is 23-17-1, which is far too close to .500 for a team with the talent of the Green Bay Packers. This is a team that’s now 5-2-1 on the season, which is nice — but not when they really should be 8-0.
Something is happening with the Packers’ game prep that doesn’t make sense. There has to be a reason why Josh Jacobs only carried the ball 17 times in a tight game where Love threw it 37. The week prior we saw the Packers face the Steelers in a very similar schematic game that saw Green Bay settle for the underneath routes against two-high, and use Jacobs far more effectively.
It’s certainly possible this was just the classic trap. The Packers didn’t prep enough, overlooked the Panthers, and focused the majority of their effort on their Week 10 matchup with the Eagles. That would be an acceptable excuse if Green Bay hadn’t already fallen into a trap twice. This kind of complacency is inexcusable when you’ve made the same mistake twice before.
If the Packers want to get out of second gear and assert themselves as one of the best teams in the NFL they need to correct these problems. There has to be more attention to detail, and more importantly better preparation. On Sunday it felt like Green Bay lost the game before they ever stepped on the field, and that belies greatness.
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