Burning Questions for the Rest of the Season
It’s fall, and that means the days are getting a chillier, the leaves are beginning to fall, and the halloween decorations have been busted out. It also means that the NFL has been playing long enough for most teams around the league to have a good grasp on their strengths and weaknesses.
The Green Bay Packers are coming out of their bye (hopefully) rested, refocused, and ready to take on a stretch of their season that appears to be heavily tilted in their favor.
The Packers start the next portion of their schedule as 14 point favorites over the Cincinnati Bengals, before heading to Arizona for a contest with the reeling Cardinals. The week after that, the Packers are headed to Pittsburg, who have some guy named Aaron Rodgers playing QB for them. Lastly, the Packers head back to Green Bay for a home game against the Panthers, who are playing so poorly they made a local podcast covering the team quit in frustration.
Obviously the matchup with the Steelers in week 8 is the marquee event, and likely is the most narratively important matchup in the regular season since 2009, when Brett Favre came to town in purple and gold. But there’s a whole lot of football between now and then, and the team can’t afford to look ahead to it.
I recently took the opportunity to look back on how the team has answered the burning questions of the offseason during their first month of play. Today I’ll take a look at new questions that have developed over the course of the 2025 season, and what answers can find.
Can the offensive line gel together
In one of the most surprising developments of the 2025 season, the Packers offensive line, which was purported to be a major strength of the team, has fallen well short of expectations. The starting group of Walker-Banks-Jenkins-Rhyan-Tom had two top 50 draft selections in backup, with Jordan Morgan and Anthony Belton, and the newly acquired Darrian Kinard as a solid depth piece.
Walker was playing out his contract year, and as a starting left tackle in the NFL, was looking forward to using a high level of play to parlay into in a major payday next offseason, either with the Packers or elsewhere (Sean Rhyan is in the same boat). Zach Tom and Aaron Banks had just gotten their own paydays this past offseason. And Elgton Jenkins was moving positions to replace the worst starter on the offensive line last year, Josh Myers. The plan looked solid on paper, but they don’t play the games there.
It starts with the injuries. In the team’s total snap opportunities, Zach Tom has only played 11.7%, Aaron Banks has 27.7%. There’s been a game of musical chairs behind those two players, with Jordan Morgan splitting 89% of the team’s snaps at three different positions, Darian Kinnard has played 45.1% of snaps, and Anthony Belton has played 33.7% of snaps.
Another note to keep an eye on as the season progresses: the split between zone blocking and gap blocking when rushing the ball. In 2024, that split was around 60-40, in favor of zone blocking. But going back to 2023 and 2022, it starts to look more like 65-35. The Packers have been trending to using more and more gap blocking schemes, starting last year and seemingly doubled down upon with the acquisition of heavier offensive linemen over the offseason. Now four games into the 2025 season, it’s 50-50, with only five total snaps more of zone blocking than man.
How will Christian Watson’s return impact the offense
When Watson tore his ACL in week 18 last year, Packers fans were already bracing for the possibility of being without him for the entire 2025 season. Now, just five weeks into the season, he has returned to practicing in an official capacity with the team.
Watson has a 21 day window in which to return to the active roster, and there’s a possibility we could see him in limited snaps as early as this week against Cincinnati, though I think it’s more likely we’ll see him return against Arizona.
Watson’s return to the lineup means the return of one of the most athletically explosive receivers in the entire league. Watson’s ability to draw defenders to him is a major piece of Matt LaFleur’s offense, and one that Jordan Love will look to take advantage of early. Just look at his stat line from last year’s early Bears game for the proof of concept.
Watson has a reputation for drops and injuries among certain Packers fans, but he actually has one of the lowest career drop percentages among the team’s receivers, and has played more games than Jameson Williams, who just received a massive contract from the Lions.
His impact in the lineup is felt as a route decoy, a blocker, and a downfield target. But with an already crowded receiver room, where does a fully active Christian Watson fit in?
The most obvious, and exciting, use case for Christian Watson in the 2025 version of this offense is as a pairing with Matthew Golden. That combination of their speed on the field together is an absolute nightmare for defensive coordinators to stop. Look for the two to be bunched up together on the same side of the field, especially early on in Watson’s return, as an easy way for LaFleur to get Watson into the flow of the offense again.
Late last season, when the Packers were struggling against man coverage, and opposing teams were seeking to exploit this, Watson was by far the most effective counter the team had against it.
Pass game vs Run game
If there’s something that Matt LaFleur has made plain this season, it’s that he really, really wants to run the ball.
Putting aside the discussion about aggressive vs conservative playcalling, which is a related but separate discussion, how does the split between runs and passes look for the offense moving forward?
So far in 2025, the offense has run the football at the fourth highest rate in the NFL, at 45%. That’s only behind the Seahawks, Lions and Eagles. LaFleur has been vocal about his preference to map out gameplans according to rushing attempts, and not necessarily by rushing yards.
Having a high number of rushing attempts does lend your offense a number of advantages. The obvious ones are to set up play action passes later in the game, and tiring out the defense. There’s also the added ability to dictate terms and game flow to the defense more successfully, with an effective running game. A successful running game can also lend itself to a team like Green Bay who likes to spread out receiving targets equally as well. Remember LaFleur’s comment about his… distaste for WR1 discussion. When you’ve got an effective running game and a myriad of receiving options, the defense has no way of anticipating where the ball could go at any given moment.
On the other hand, when your QB is dealing the way Jordan Love was in that Dallas game, the question is begged: why would you ever take the ball out of his hands?
A higher passing attempt average tends to result in higher EPA, points per game, and explosive plays. Love has made the most out of his opportunities this year, and has looked like a bona fide top ten quarterback this year.
When measured in EPA, the Packers have a +45.9 when passing, and a +3.7 when rushing. Jordan Love also leads the league in EPA in expected pass situations (i.e. third and long, two minute drills etc.)
With the run game struggling to find its sea legs, and coming off of the monster performance against Dallas, the team should (in my opinion) look to run the offense through Love’s arm over the next few weeks, especially against the Bengals and Cardinals.
What does the ceiling really look like for the cornerbacks?
Will the real cornerback room please stand up?
For a unit that looked as dominant as any other unit on the team through week three, boy did they crash back to Earth against the Cowboys. The question is why, and is there more of the same on the horizon?
Similarly to the offensive line, the cornerbacks expected an uptick in play, via addition by subtraction. The Eric Stokes experiment was ended, with Nate Hobbs signed in his absence.
Now, Hobbs’ has been disappointing in his limited play, but the fact is that none of the corners looked great in Dallas. The Packers’ pass rush was, quite simply, stifled. The secondary suddenly felt all the weight of the defense on its shoulders alone, and couldn’t keep up with Dak Prescott seeing the face of god for 45 minutes.
The fact of the matter is that if the Packers want to get to the promised land, they’ve got to go through some of the best offensive lines in the league. If the secondary’s level of play is entirely predicated on the pass rush’s ability to affect the quarterback, that’s just a tough way to live. Injuries pending, the Packers have a Super Bowl caliber pass rush, as crazy as that still seems to say.
In order for the defense as a whole to become a Super Bowl-caliber unit, the cornerbacks must prove that the Dallas game was a fluke, and come up with their own positive contributions. They’ve proven to be productive in the area of pass breakups, but the real next step for the group has to be generating turnovers. Through these four games, the secondary has only intercepted two passes, and both of those have been from the safeties.
Does the defense have any more tricks up its sleeve?
Look, I’ll admit this is a Micah Parsons question. His volume stats (4 tackles, 2.5 sacks) don’t jump off the page, but volume stats are for losers.
Micah is the ultimate chess piece, but I predicted that Packers fans would have to wait a bit before they could see that piece fully unleashed. Through the first four games that the Packers have played, that prediction has panned out and Micah has only played four total snaps off the line of scrimmage.
To me, the bye week presented Jeff Hafley the chance to introduce Micah into different roles within the defense, and the possibilities are endless. The Packers want to be a disguise-based defense, according to Evan Williams. When playing disguise defense, there’s a certain disadvantage to having to inherently play players out of position. For example, the simulated pressure concept that took the league by storm last season. You’re showing blitz, but end up only bringing four rushers, albeit from unorthodox spots, and dropping linemen into coverage. Naturally, a lineman isn’t going to be very good in coverage right? Not when you're dropping Parsons back, who has the speed to stick with almost any running back or tight end in the league. And that linebacker or safety you’re rushing, who wouldn’t be as good at doing it as others? Stick Micah in that spot. Now you’re still in an advantageous spot, personnel wise.
Expect a creative mind such as Hafley’s to begin to make full use of Parsons’ unicorn-like versatility in the next few games.
What is going on with the special teams
Deep Sigh
I don’t know what kind of ancient, special teams related eldritch being that the Packers pissed off within the past two decades, but boy, it has not taken it easy on the team.
Justis Mosqueda of Acme Packing Company is the resident special teams expert among the internetwide Packers-sphere, and he’s written extensively on the topic. In his most recent article on the subject, Mosqueda points to a Special Teams Scores chart, tracking the performance of special teams over the last twenty years. I’ll give you three guesses as to who is at the very bottom of that chart.
Mosqueda provides a number of possible explanations for the phenomena, which has obviously persisted over the course of multiple head coaches, general managers, and special teams coordinators during that twenty year stretch.
Unfortunately, the firing of Rich Bisaccia mid season is extremely unlikely, first to actually happen and second to ultimately help the problem. So that leaves the Packers with the question: can they figure this out mid-season, with the tools they already have, before it can really come back to bite them. We all remember how putrid the special teams were in 2021, how it cost the Packers a playoff game against San Francisco. In order for history to avoid repeating itself, the special teams needs something. What is that something? I don’t know.
Playing more starters on teams could be a solution, but there seems to be an institutional aversion to the practice in Green Bay. We can only hope that Bisaccia and LaFleur have been putting their heads together over the bye, and that extra time in the film room has been dedicated to those issues.
I’d also be curious to see if the Packers exit their bye trying the “dirty kickoff” that they saw firsthand in Dallas, which has also been employed by the Panthers and the Rams. Simply explained, with the new kickoff rules, a kickoff that lands in the endzone is given a touchback that starts at the 35. But if the kick bounces in the field of play into the endzone, the touchback is rewarded at the 20. That’s 15 free yards just waiting to be exploited! If the team doesn’t at least attempt this, I’d be very curious to hear the answer why.
Conclusion
The NFL is constantly evolving, and it has a way of humbling even the best teams. Three weeks ago the Packers were on top of the football world, riding high off wins against the Lions and Commanders. Now? They’ve got a multitude of questions to answer, and ground to make up in the race for the NFC North. Even after beating the Lions to start the year, Detroit is once again favored to win the division.
The football gods have granted Green Bay every opportunity in the world to attempt to figure this thing out. An early bye, and a few lower tier opponents to try to get it right against. The same team that took it to Detroit and Washington is still there. It’s time they go out and prove it.
Filed Under: FeaturedKalani Jones
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Co-Owner of the thirteen time world champion Green Bay Packers. Sometimes I write about them. Follow me on Twitter at https://x.com/kjones_in_co and on Substack for film breakdowns!
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NFL Categories: Green Bay PackersTags: Green Bay PackersMatt LaFleurJordan LoveMicah ParsonsNFL Breakdowns
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