Packers ready to take next step
With the NFC’s top seed, the road to Super Bowl LV is scheduled to come through Lambeau Field.
GREEN BAY – The records are identical. The teams, and their positions entering the playoffs, are not.
A year after going 13-3 in coach LaFleur's first season, the Green Bay Packers went 13-3 in LaFleur's second. The most notable difference between these Packers and those Packers is geography. With the NFC's top seed, the road to Super Bowl LV is scheduled to come through Lambeau Field.
A year ago, the road to the Super Bowl went through Levi's Stadium and the San Francisco 49ers.
But that isn't where the differences end. Some, but not all, are for the better. Here's a look at how the 2020 Packers compare to the 2019 team.
Quarterback play
It starts with quarterback. Aaron Rodgers is poised to win his third career MVP a year after one of the staMatt
tistically worst seasons of his career. It’s remarkable the transformation Rodgers has made in his second season with LaFleur.
He has never been more efficient, completing a career-best 70.7% of his passes. It’s the first time in his career Rodgers has led the NFL in completion percentage. Rodgers also led the league with a career-high 48 touchdown passes, and no quarterback who threw at least 10 touchdowns had fewer than his five interceptions. Rodgers’ renaissance perhaps can be best seen with his 121.5 passer rating, which eclipsed Peyton Manning’s 121.1 rating from 2004 for the second-best in a season ever. Only Rodgers’ record 122.5 rating from 2011 was higher. Rodgers threw almost half as many touchdowns (26) with a passer rating that was 26.1 points lower in 2019.
Receiver depth
As much as Rodgers improved this season, it shouldn’t be a surprise the Packers receiving group also grew in 2020. Davante Adams had the greatest season of his career, maybe the greatest season for any Packers receiver ever, setting one record with 115 catches and tying another with 18 touchdowns. But the increase in productivity went beyond one player. For all his inconsistency, it can be said Marquez Valdes-Scantling emerged as a legitimate No. 2 receiver. ValdesScantling finished with a career high 690 yards on 33 catches, including a career-high six touchdowns. Even more, he established himself as perhaps the best deep threat in the league. Not since DeSean Jackson (22.5) a decade ago has an NFL receiver averaged more than Valdes-Scantling’s 20.9 yards per catch this season. It’s the first time a Packers receiver has averaged at least 20 yards per catch on at least 30 receptions since Walter Stanley averaged 20.7 yards on 35 catches in 1986.
Tight end Robert Tonyan’s arrival as a Pro Bowl-caliber tight end gave the Packers something they’ve long lacked, a legitimate red-zone threat at the position. Tonyan tied Paul Coffman’s single-season franchise record for touchdown catches from a tight end with 11, a mark that had stood since 1983. A year ago, the Packers not only failed to produce a 1,000-yard receiver, but also for the first time in a 16-game season did not have multiple 500-yard receivers. This year, arguably the greatest receiving season in Packers history also had a supporting cast.
Third-down efficiency
Where is the more explosive passing game most evident? Start on third down. There were times in 2019 the Packers could not buy a third-down conversion. They ranked 19th in the NFL last year, converting 37.6% on third down. This season, they rank second in the league converting 49.4.
Only the Buffalo Bills (49.7%) were more efficient on third down. But the third-down improvement extends to the defense. While the Packers allowed opponents to convert 39.4% of their third downs this season, a slight uptick from their 37.9% last season, third-down conversions are up throughout the league this season. The Packers ranked 11th defensively on third down, slightly better than their No. 13 rank last season. It’s far from the only area the Packers have improved defensively.
Defense on the rise
For the first time since 2010, the Packers finished among the league’s top 10 in total defense. Their 334 yards allowed per game was ninth, an 18.6yard improvement from last season, when they ranked 18th. They’re also tied for 13th in the NFL allowing 112.8 rushing yards per game, a significant improvement from last season when they finished 23rd in the league allowing 120.1 rushing yards per game. Most impressive, the Packers held Derrick Henry to 98 yards a week before he went off for 250 against the Houston Texans, and they held Chicago’s David Montgomery to 69 yards on 22 carries after he’d entered last week’s finale averaging 105.8 rushing yards in his previous five games. While the Packers’ 23.1 points allowed per game are more than last season’s 19.6, there’s a sense the defense is peaking at the right time. The Packers have allowed more than 16 points in just one of their past five games.
Special teams in decline
When one phase of a football team has gone bad, it’s something different that goes wrong every week. The Packers have done a good job limiting their penalties on special teams, same as last year. Their six special-teams penalties are tied for third-fewest in the NFL. (They had 13 special-teams penalties last season.) It’s been a mess just about everywhere else.
Start with the coverage units. The Packers allowed a pair of punts returned for touchdowns this season, a big reason JK Scott leads the NFL with 17.1 yards returned per punt. Scott also has had one punt blocked and another narrow escape. The Packers have gotten almost nothing going in their own return game, finishing 31st in the league with 18.9 yards per kickoff return and tied for second-last with 4.8 yards per punt return. Mason Crosby has been clutch on field goals, making all 16 this season, but he has missed a career-high four of his 63 extra-point attempts. And last week, recently acquired Tavon Austin fumbled a punt return to give the Bears possession at the Packers’ 20-yard line. The specialteams issues are reminiscent of 2014, when the Packers had the offense and defense to make the Super Bowl, but a seasonlong problem on special teams culminated with a botched onside kick recovery in the NFC championship game. If they’re not careful, another Super Bowl-caliber team could see its season end short because of a special-teams error.