A Packers insider labels Green Bay's defense "steamrolled" after a brutal, no-answer performance against the Ravens.
It's been an ugly stretch of football for the Green Bay Packers. They're 9-6-1, and while at one point they were considered a legitimate Super Bowl contender in the NFC, they're officially now on the outs.
That's not to say they don't have a chance. Despite losing three games in a row, they are locked into the seventh and final NFC playoff spot as a wild card.
It's accurate to say that the Packers are limping into the playoffs, though. That's both literally and figuratively.
This is a team that has lost multiple superstars, and they enter their Week 18 matchup against the Minnesota Vikings with both starting quarterback Jordan Love and backup quarterback Malik Willis in questionable status. That's not to mention running back Josh Jacobs, who has been trying to tough out running on one leg for multiple weeks now due to a knee injury.
Those are all injuries on the offensive side of things, but frankly, the offense has not been the problem -- even with a backup quarterback running the show for the majority of the last two games.
What has been the problem, especially after the loss to the Baltimore Ravens, is the defense without Micah Parsons.
They lack energy, physicality and any ability to get after the quarterback.
There was some glimmer of hope that the unit could come together sans Parsons after they gave up just nine points to the Chicago Bears all the way up to the two-minute warning, but from Romeo Doub's botched onside kick return on...it has been a disaster.
The Packers gave up 13 points in the final two minutes and overtime in that loss. They then allowed 41 points to the Ravens in what ended up being a 41-24 route in front of a dispondent home crowd at Lambeau Field.
It was a beatdown of epic proportions. So much so that even team insider Mike Spofford used some very heavy language to explain the defensive performance against Baltimore.
"Defensively, it's hard to process how a group that seemingly responded well to the loss of Parsons, allowing zero touchdowns and just nine points through 58 minutes to the NFC North champs, could come out a week later and play like that," Spofford wrote in a recent mailbag article. "They got steamrolled, plain and simple. No answers, despite trying different fronts and players. So which sans-Micah Parsons defense is the real one? The first game without him or the second?"
To hear a team insider, basically a part of the team's PR unit, say that a unit got "steamrolled" is rare. What that means is that there was literally no redeeming quality in the game, and a look at the numbers wouldn't say anything different.
The Ravens rushed for 307 yards as a team, with 200-plus of those yards and four rushing touchdowns coming from Derrick Henry. They put up 414 total yards on 5.6 yards per play. They went 10-of-14 on third downs.
They won the time of possession battle, 40:16 to 19:44.
It was absolutely a steamrolling.
So which Green Bay defense is for real? Spofford went on to say that we'll find out against either the Bears (again) or the Philadelphia Eagles in the playoffs, but sadly, the book seems to be out on this defense without its star player.
They can't get after the quarterback (just one sack in the last three games) and they can't stop the run. Defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley has seemingly run out of talented players to throw out at the problem, and you can make the case that after the loss to Baltimore, he's run out of answers as well.
This is a unit that's tied down on the tracks and there's nobody coming to rescue them.