As far as the playoffs are concerned, the Packers’ hopes to remain in the hunt effectively ended today with a 34-20 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Packers’ defense continued it’s recent slide and was thoroughly embarrassed by Baker Mayfield no less. If last week’s debacle in New York wasn’t bad enough, Barry made sure to look even worse this week.
Head coach Matt LaFleur must be borderline insane or something. How can you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results? Would firing Barry with three games left help the Packers this season? Maybe. One thing is sure. It cant hurt.
Quarterback Jordan Love had a good day, throwing for almost 300 yards and two TDs. Aaron Jones returned and was good for one drive. After that he was on a snap count and then the Packers fell behind forcing them to throw pretty much every play. Jones was a non-factor as a result. While the Packers had to scratch and claw to move the ball the Bucs went through the Packers’ defense like a hot knife through butter. They scored with ridiculous ease, especially in the second half.
The Packers are now back to evaluating for the future after flirting with the playoffs for a week or two. The Packers should be really happy about what they have seen from guys like Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks, Malik Heath, Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft. The offense could be a force in the coming years, especially if Christian Watson can figure out his hamstring issues.
But with a defense that can’t play a lick, it won’t matter. I think I see why Jaire Alexander doesn’t want to play. All it will do is hurt his brand trying to play in this defense. We all know nothing is going to change, so lets hope it gets bad enough that LaFleur has no choice but to fire his buddy after the season. Unfortunately, that may mean going 6-11 and wasting a 4,000 yards passing and 30 touchdown season by Love. Sad.