Breaking Down the NFC North, 2024

[PackerDNA]

The NFC is going to be a gauntlet to get through. Playing the Bucs or the Falcons would be the easiest first game, other than that, anything can happen in the other matchups.

I want the fifth seed. I do not want the seventh seed.

 

[Pkrjones]

I want the fifth seed. I do not want the seventh seed.

Agree, a victory Sunday over MN is a crucial 1st step. My desired order of playoff opponents is:
Tampa, Washington, Vikes, Detroit, Rams, Philly.
6th seed probably gets us Rams. 5th seed gets us Tampa (or better yet, Atlanta?). More than likely 2nd round is Detroit.
Every week GB needs to improve, including coaching & clock management.

 

[gopkrs]

Just watched KC roll over Pittsburgh. Most of it was long drives on short passes. A lot of them in the flat. Kind of what Detroit did to us and other teams are doing effectively this year. And they are not turning the ball over just because they are long drives. We are going to have to play tight and not allow anyone to just march down the field making 3rd or 4th downs over and over. Bend don't break won't make it. That said, I think we are changing our mindset about that. At least I hope we are.

 

[shockerx]

Everytime I watch KC...I just want those zero to 3 yard safe throws to Kraft...ala Kelcee style. let him YAC for more. I want Kraft getting 8 to 10 targets especially cold months... play off of Jacobs physical style. control the ball, beat the defense down.

 

[gopkrs]

Everytime I watch KC...I just want those zero to 3 yard safe throws to Kraft...ala Kelcee style. let him YAC for more. I want Kraft getting 8 to 10 targets especially cold months... play off of Jacobs physical style. control the ball, beat the defense down.

Maybe we'll be able to do some of that along with Musgrave when he gets into the swing of things. Though a bit differently. Two TE set. One short left, one short right, with either being able to go short middle. Of course our pass blocking would needto be good without help, except for the back. And Romeo and Watson (or) going out on a route. Maybe could work. Would keep the linebackers busy. The TEs would need to find the hole fast. And if they were played too close; they could go deeper.

 

[OldSchool101]

Agree, a victory Sunday over MN is a crucial 1st step. My desired order of playoff opponents is:
Tampa, Washington, Vikes, Detroit, Rams, Philly.
6th seed probably gets us Rams. 5th seed gets us Tampa (or better yet, Atlanta?). More than likely 2nd round is Detroit.
Every week GB needs to improve, including coaching & clock management.

I’m also fine with the 6th seed or better. My reasoning?

If the 5th (us) 6th,7th seeds win opening week. The #7 would go play @#1
The #6 would play at Lambeau.
My preferred choice.

If just ONE of the 6th OR 7th Wins? They’d go play @#1. We’d go play @#2 or #3 whichever didn’t lose Wildcard Weekend. Then hope both underdogs (us) wins again. If so, We’d play that 6th/7th at Lambeau
My secondary hope.

 

[OldSchool101]

Here’s an interesting graph showing some scheduling strength results. Notice GB has an average opponent ranking of #14.4 which was the #1 hardest in the NFL. Yes we’ve lost to great teams. Because we’ve played more good to great teams. NOW
our remaining schedule is more average balanced with the
Vikings + Bears.

Clearly Vikings have THE toughest remaining scheduled. They get 2 tough games hosting GB and at Detroit. It’s no secret they are great, but I’ve noticed many sites project MN behind GB in their strength evaluation. Yes even though we lost to them. That speaks volumes. Partly because they say GB is the most consistent as far as expectations.

Notice before today we are ranked at #5 in power rankings. Ahead of Minnesota and KC (I know, I might question that also but I’m just a messenger). These sites use lots of variables and we score high in so many categories, that’s just a very clear fact. In 5 separate sites GB is ranked over Minnesota in 3/5. It’s not just one evaluator looking at us as a powerhouse. We ranked at high as #3 in the NFL and as low as #6, with 4-5 overall being the Mean, leaguewide.

NFL Strength of Schedule Rankings

Strength of Schedule Played and Strength of Schedule Remaining for all 32 NFL teams.

powerrankingsguru.com

 

[Magooch]

With a 6-3 loss to the Seahawks that's 10 losses in a row for da Bears. I believe that ties a franchise record...which means they will presumably REALLY be wanting to avoid a loss to us in their final game next week. As far as I know 11 losses in a row would be a new record.

 

[Pkrjones]

With a 6-3 loss to the Seahawks that's 10 losses in a row for da Bears. I believe that ties a franchise record...which means they will presumably REALLY be wanting to avoid a loss to us in their final game next week. As far as I know 11 losses in a row would be a new record.

This 2024 Bear's team is historically bad, they deserve to lose 11 straight. The Packers need to start fast on O putting points on the board. The Bears know they can't keep up & will force bad throws attempting to make "something happen". Hope or edge rushers are excited... they're about to get 8+ sacks to end the regular season.

 

[Poppa San]

they're about to get 8+ sacks to end the regular season.

If that's all then Caleb will miss the NFL record by one or two.

 

[pacmaniac]

Agree, a victory Sunday over MN is a crucial 1st step. My desired order of playoff opponents is:
Tampa, Washington, Vikes, Detroit, Rams, Philly.
6th seed probably gets us Rams. 5th seed gets us Tampa (or better yet, Atlanta?). More than likely 2nd round is Detroit.

I'd much rather get the 5th seed and play the NFC South winner, than get the 6th seed and have to play the Rams. MLF is 4-0 against McVay. I don't think he's that much better than McVay, and I think McVay will start to make that head-to-head record a bit closer.

 

[tahoebum]

Now that it looks like we’ll be heading to Philly for the wildcard week one, it’s time to reflect on why we finished 3rd in the division this year. I think the biggest difference is Jordan Love is not at the level of Rodgers or Favre. We were spoiled to have two first round HOF’ers back to back. Love could get there, but right now he’s not a top 10 QB and certainly not even in the conversation for MVP. Rodgers won the league MVP 3 times and Favre also won it. We simply don’t have that same caliber QB anymore and you could make the argument that Detroit and Minnesota both had better QB play this season. Having the 3rd best QB in our division is not something the Pack is accustomed to and has certainly not happened anytime in the last 30 years. You could also make the argument that we have the 3rd best coach in the division. Certainly Dan Campbell has turned the mindset at Detroit around and Kevin O’Connell is a shoe in for coach of the year.

 

[Dantés]

The Packers have a real weakness at corner that limits the kinds of coverages that Hafley can use effectively. It's hard to keep defenses on their toes when you have to spend the bulk of your time toggling between cover 2 and inverted cover 2. That's the biggest issue on the roster.

The other, more global problem is that the Packers have gobs of B+ level players, but very few bonafide difference-making stars. Josh Jacobs and McKinley are there. Love played like one down the stretch last season, but isn't there again this year-- at least not yet. I think Kraft will be one in due time, as will Cooper. But outside of that, it's just a lot (a LOT) of above average NFL players. That's great for depth, but they don't have a lot of guys who rise up and take over stretches of games.

 

[rmontro]

Now that it looks like we’ll be heading to Philly for the wildcard week one, it’s time to reflect on why we finished 3rd in the division this year. I think the biggest difference is Jordan Love is not at the level of Rodgers or Favre.

Yeah, I've got to admit I'm a little disappointed in Love's (lack of) progress this year. He hasn't played badly, but I had hoped he would take another step forward this year. I guess you could say that for the team too, after nearly getting to the NFCCG last year. But it doesn't seem to have materialized.

 

[AmishMafia]

Yeah, I've got to admit I'm a little disappointed in Love's (lack of) progress this year. He hasn't played badly, but I had hoped he would tak another step forward this year. I guess you could say that for the team too, after nearly getting to the NFCCG last year. But it doesn't seem to have materialized.

I am thinking sophomore slump.

Love worked very hard as he was prepping to be the starter in 2023. He played great towards the end of the season and was getting some impressive recognition from some very knowledgeable football people.

Did he work as hard for 2024 season? Or did he did he ease up? Or maybe he worked just as hard and now defensive coordinators had a much larger film reference to find weaknesses.

Now he has a year of understanding what it takes to remain on top and I think he will be fine.

Or, maybe the wealth of receiving targets is a bad thing. Maybe if we picked 3 and concentrated on them, the chemistry would develop more.

I'm rambling. But i think something is just a little bit off but think it will get fixed.

 

[OldSchool101]

Recent Update


We’re F’d!!

 

[Magooch]

Ironically, while I've heard many say things like "Love needs to play a little more like Rodgers and less like Favre" (or similar), I feel like this is an area in which some Rodgers-tendencies seem to come thru for Love, in some ways... Rodgers had a tendency to want to play hero-ball because it often seemed like he didn't trust his teammates to do enough to win games. He'd pass up easy opportunities and try and force things and would default to "his plan" when things got dicey.
Similarly...I don't necessarily feel like it stems from a lack of trust with Love - I think he does trust a lot of his guys in general - but maybe it's just a "situational maturity" thing...a lot of times it feels like Love also seems to think that he has to play hero-ball too. He is often either unable or at least unwilling to take the easy completion or checkdown and is prone to swing for the home run play, probably a little too frequently. Many times I think he could stand to settle down a little bit and be a bit more patient.

And it's a delicate balance because A.) I think one thing that is special about Love is that he CAN produce those home-run moments out of nothing, at a moment's notice and B.) I feel like a lot of times his best moments come in "pressure" or hurry-up, fast-paced type of situations.

So, I don't know. I don't think the Love we saw at the end of last year was some sort of "mirage" - I think that does accurately represent the potential he has. It just hasn't quite developed as linearly as we might have hoped this year.

 

[OldSchool101]

Loves evolution so far (2024 pacing)

TD/INT
2023- 32/11
2024- 30/13

YPA/YPC
2023- 7.43/11.2
2024- 8.05/12.7

Passer Rating
2023- 96.1%
2024- 97.3%

Net Yard/A
2023- 6.67
2024- 7.56

Sacks
2023- 4.93%
2024- 3.28%

Bad Throw%
2023-17.5%
2024-16.6%

Drops
2023- 5.2%
2024- 6.8%

Comp%
2023- 64.2%
2024- 63.2%

4thqtr Comebacks
2023- 2 (17 games)
2024- 2 (14 games)

Win/Loss
2023- 10-9 (.526)
2024- 9-5 (.643)

 

[Magooch]

The tricky part IMO is how Love's 24/25 compares to the latter-half of last season. I think most of us would admit the front half of 23/24 for Love was...not so great. But that tends to "color" the whole-season numbers too

 

[OldSchool101]

Jordan Love isn’t Goff or Darnold this season. But he’s very respectable.

12th yards per game passing
6th TD/gm (tied Josh Allen)
13th INT/gm
5th QB rating
13th Passer rating
5th Avg/yds (3 way tie at 8.0)
25th Comp% (10 game min)

 

[rmontro]

The tricky part IMO is how Love's 24/25 compares to the latter-half of last season. I think most of us would admit the front half of 23/24 for Love was...not so great. But that tends to "color" the whole-season numbers too

Yeah, I think most of us are comparing Love's performance with the second half of last season. During the first half, he was still acclimating.

 

[rmontro]

Jordan Love isn’t Goff or Darnold this season. But he’s very respectable.

People are praising Darnold, and he's done a great job. But if you look at his previous years, this is by far his best. A lot of what a QB does depends on what situation he is dropped into. Right now he has a great team around him with lots of weapons.

 

[OldSchool101]

The tricky part IMO is how Love's 24/25 compares to the latter-half of last season. I think most of us would admit the front half of 23/24 for Love was...not so great. But that tends to "color" the whole-season numbers too

Amen.
If you took “post bye week”
I’d put Love in the top 5 QB’s area overall just off the top of my head.

He’s plenty good enough to Win in Postseason with this Defense.

The issue we have this year is obviously our North Division has multiple 14+ Win teams. That’s just a complete anomoly.

 

[OldSchool101]

People are praising Darnold, and he's done a great job. But if you look at his previous years, this is by far his best. A lot of what a QB does depends on what situation he is dropped into. Right now he has a great team around him with lots of weapons.

Sure. No question I agree with that. I’d still take Darnold by a hair right now, he’s red hot. My only concern is Darnold shows some weakness against good Defenses like we saw Yesterday. We are NOT the best Defense he will face. He will face at minimum 2-3 Defenses above our pay grade. I just don’t trust him past regular season.

In Regular season the nod goes to Darnold. In Postseason I think Love is creeping VERY close. Love is ahead of Darnold in QB rating. Darnold is ahead in passer rating. Possibly because Darnold takes a LOT more sacks. That’s going to hurt him in postseason.

I’d call the last half of season almost a dead heat between Love and Darnold. The MN Defense is just a little better than the Packers. That could change if we get fully healthy like MN is.

 

[Magooch]

Comparing just to the second-half of 2023/24 season (Weeks 9-17), adjusted to per-game numbers where applicable:

TD/INT
2023- 2.2 pass TD per game / 0.3 INT per game (2 Rush TD)
2024- 1.8 pass TD per game / 0.8 INT per game

Yards per game
2023 - 271
2024 - 237

Y/A
2023- 7.65 yards per attempt
2024- 8.05 y/a

Passer Rating
2023- 107.6
2024- 97.3

Sacks taken per game
2023- 1.3 sacks per game
2024- 1.0 sacks per game

Bad throw %
2023-17.1%
2024-16.6%

Drop %
2023- 5.2%
2024- 6.8%

Completion %
2023- 68.3%
2024- 63.2%

Win %
2023- 6-3 (.667)
2024- 9-5 (.643)