The Green Bay Packers are, for the second consecutive year, in the playoffs. A consistent 34-0 win over the New Orleans Saints left no questions behind, and Matt LaFleur reaches the postseason for the fifth time in six years as a head coach. It was the first shutout of the 2024 NFL season.
The coach and offensive mastermind was one of the best performers of Monday Night Football, putting together a gameplan that allowed the Packers confirm how much better they were on the field. Now, NFC seeding is what will matter against the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears over the next two weeks.
Offensive creativity
Josh Jacobs is insanely productive, and it’s easy to give him the ball dozens of times. But the Packers rushing offense was much more than that on Monday night, and it helped limit Jacobs’ workload. On the first offensive play of the game, for example, Jacobs and Jayden Reed aligned on the backfield, and Reed ran a positive outside play.
In the second quarter, when the Packers were already leading by two scores and wanted to rest Jacobs, that creativity was obvious.
Matt LaFleur called an end around and a jet sweep for Christian Watson and a fly sweep for Jayden Reed, all positive plays, and the drive was finished off with backup running back Chris Brooks getting into the endzone for the first time in his career.
Early in the third quarter, Bo Melton also rushed for 14 yards with an end around concept.
Part of that execution went through a strong game from the offensive line. Center Josh Myers and especially right guard Sean Rhyan, the two weakest links of the unit, blocked really well on both phases of the offense, and it made a huge difference in the outcome of the game.
In the second half, the Packers clearly slowed down. Part of it was the Saints doing a good adjustment job. But Green Bay was comfortable with the score and was just trying to get out of there as soon and as healthy as possible. By the end, quarterback Malik Willis and mostly backups were on the field — including running backs Emanuel Wilson and Chris Brooks, and offensive linemen Andre Dillard, Kadeem Telfort, and Travis Glover.
Even with the backups on the field, the Packers were still able to manage a touchdown drive, that ended with an Emanuel Wilson touchdown.
Nine Packers players have had rushing attempts during the game, the highest number for the franchise in 70 years. The three active running backs scored touchdowns.
- Josh Jacobs (TD)
- Emanuel Wilson (TD)
- Chris Brooks (TD)
- Christian Watson
- Bo Melton
- Jayden Reed
- Tucker Kraft
- Jordan Love
- Malik Willis
Defense does what it should
During the Joe Barry era, the Packers defense would give up a lot of yards and points to bad, bad quarterbacks. Last year, that happened against Desmond Ridder, Jimmy Garoppolo, Kenny Pickett, a rough version of Bryce Young, Tommy DeVito. Those days are gone.
Under Jeff Hafley, you can point to some mistakes by the defense, you can argue that they allowed a lot of points for the NFC top offenses. But they do what they have to do against bad quarterbacks, and they dominated against Spencer Rattler on Sunday.
In the first half, Rattler had 13 dropbacks, and he was under pressure in seven of them. That included a strip-sack from cornerback Keisean Nixon, recovered by Rashan Gary.
Safety Zayne Anderson, making his first NFL start, got an interception.
Aggressiveness
The Packers have been one of the most conservative teams in football in 2024, which is somewhat uncharacteristic for Matt LaFleur. But that was different on Monday, and the Packers took full advantage of their good offensive performance.
LaFleur went for it on 4th down twice on the same drive, during the first half, converting with a Jordan Love sneak and then with a throw from Love to Tucker Kraft, who got several yards after the catch to put the team in scoring position.
In the fourth quarter, the Packers decided to be more conservative with a 4th & 5 at midfield, but that was understandable considering the game was 24-0 and it wasn’t a short conversion.
LaFleur was aggressive even when Malik Willis was on the field, and the backup quarterback made a big play on 4th & 2 in the final minutes to find Jayden Reed in the redzone.
Green Bay has one of the best offenses in football, and playing some drives with four downs available is a significant advantage.
