Sky’s suddenly the limit for Matt LaFleur’s Packers’ offense
ARLINGTON, Texas – Maybe Matt LaFleur’s offense just needed a little time.
After a shaky, shaky start on that side of the ball in his first three games as Green Bay Packers coach, LaFleur has paired a scheme with Aaron Rodgers that is starting to show it has a high ceiling.
The last two weeks it has put up 61 points and 826 yards combined against two teams that are likely to be playoff contenders, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys.
The surprise is it came through as big as it did in the Packers’ 34-24 Week 5 win over the Cowboys despite Green Bay playing without injured Davante Adams.
The Packers hired LaFleur last January in large part to rejuvenate Rodgers and restore the juice in an offense that had grown stale the last few years.
Common sense said there would be rough patches for the first month or so of the season as LaFleur acclimated to his players and they acclimated to his scheme.
Still, there was no knowing whether those early-season issues would last and perhaps reveal deeper issues within this team. They didn’t. Not that we can proclaim that these Packers have arrived. It takes more than a couple of good games to say that.
But in back-to-back weeks they’ve moved the ball and put up points against apparently good teams. And more important, in Dallas on Oct. 6 Rodgers looked like an MVP candidate even if his mediocre passer rating (85.2) suggested otherwise.
“Days like today, it’s not the greatest statistical game for myself, but I feel like I played my best game of the season,” Rodgers said. “The way that I was moving and seeing things. I’ve accomplished a lot statistically in this league. I just want to win now.”
This is the Rodgers the Packers need if they’re going to accomplish something meaningful this season. He made a few good throws from inside and outside the pocket. He turned a couple of possible sacks into positive plays with backhanded and left-handed flips and awkward arm-angle throws. And he didn’t turn the ball over.
While the numbers were bland (238 yards passing, no touchdowns), the results were anything but.
“He’s really, really good at that stuff,” LaFleur said of Rodgers’ playmaking. “He’s just a great quarterback.”
LaFleur has to be equally heartened that his running game finally showed life. After four bad games on the ground, Aaron Jones exploded against Dallas (107 yards rushing, 75 yards receiving) and outperformed the NFL’s highestpaid running back, Ezekiel Elliott (62 and 29).
The thing was, Jones did most of his damage with the inside zone run, rather than the outside zone that is the usual starting point of the Shanahan/McVay/ LaFleur offense. Time after time, Jones made sharp, decisive, explosive cuts against the grain just after taking the handoff as he gashed the Cowboys for an average of 5.6 yards per carry and four touchdowns. It should have been five scores, but LaFleur flinched after Jones failed to score on first-and-goal from the 1 in the second quarter. That trip, like the first-and-goal-from-the-1 debacle last week against the Eagles, ended without a touchdown.
This was the dynamic Jones we’ve seen enough of the past two years to know he’s for real. But the question is whether he can do what he failed to his first two seasons: stay healthy and on the field. If he’s still doing this in December, the Packers might have something going, though if they ride him every week like they did in this game (26 touches), the chances of him still standing then aren’t good.
“He’s a very explosive guy,” Rodgers said.
The Packers came into this matchup as 3½-point underdogs, and really, that felt light considering how important Adams was to their offense against the Eagles (10 catches) before turf toe knocked him from that game late. Sure, the Cowboys were missing their two-time firstteam all-pro left tackle (Tyron Smith), but surely the Packers’ loss of Adams was bigger, right?
Or not.
The Packers’ Smiths (Za’Darius and Preston) took full advantage of Smith’s replacement (Cameron Fleming) and combined for three sacks and three other hits on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, who threw three interceptions.
With the way the Packers moved the ball up and down the field against the Cowboys with Jones’ running and Rodgers’ slinging, it was hard to notice Adams wasn’t there.
Of course, the Packers are going to need Adams if they’re to turn this surprising 4-1 start into something worth talking about in a couple of months.
But to do what they did without him in a hostile environment was no small feat. It doesn’t make a season, but it makes for an interesting start.