Jordan Love pinpoints the Green Bay Packers' critical weakness with a single, telling word. Discover the truth behind their offensive struggles and potential for greatness.
When they're "on" and cookin', the Green Bay Packers look like they have an offense that can keep up with the very best the NFL has to offer. They've got weapons all over the field and a young, up-and-coming star quarterback in Jordan Love who can really sling the rock.
There's just something, unsettling, about this offense when it's out of rhythm, though, and we saw that issue show its ugly head once again in 2025 in Green Bay's 16-13 loss to the Carolina Panthers in Week 9.
Again, there are weapons all over the field, and that's even with star tight end Tucker Kraft now deemed out for the rest of this season with a torn ACL.
Romeo Doubs is as solid as a wide receiver as you'll find in the NFL. He's not a superstar, but he can absolutely pass for a low-end WR1 on a good day. Christian Watson, when he's healthy, is an elite field-stretcher. He showed that off again this past Sunday, averaging 29 yards per catch, even in the loss.
Matthew Golden has struggled getting going this season, but he's a first-round rookie who has flashed elite speed, route-running and hands. Malik Heath and rookie Savion Williams are decent depth pieces on offense, and that's not even to mention Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks, who are both injured.
And somehow, we've gotten this far into an offensive analysis without talking about star running back Josh Jacobs, who is an All-Pro in every sense of the word.
Then there's Love, who has a MVP ceiling and the talent to play at that level, though he does seemingly make one or two head-scratching decisions a game.
Throw it all together with a head coach and play-caller in Matt LaFleur who is supposedly one of the best in the game at what he does and there's no reason this offense shouldn't be scoring 40 a game,at least, right?
Again, when they're "on", the offense has that potential. In Green Bay's two losses we've seen the Packers score just 10 and 13, though, and those outputs came against supposedly inferior teams in the Cleveland Browns and the Panthers, respectively.
“I think it’s inconsistent,” Love said of the offense after the loss to Carolina, according to Matt Schneidman of The Athletic . “I think we’ve had games where we’ve played very well, put up a lot of points, and we’ve had games where we have not put up enough points. Those are the games that you lose. It’s just inconsistent. We’ve got to find ways to keep just building on it, keep growing on the things we’re doing well and clean up a lot of the mistakes, but turnovers, penalties, all those things that are just negative are what’s hurting us in some of these games where we’re not playing at the level we’ve played at in other games.”
"Inconsistent" is a terrible word to hear if you're a fan of this team, because it's a brutally honest assessment of where these Packers are at -- especially on offense.
Inconsistent is okay in the first year of a new scheme. These things take time to pick up, especially at an NFL level. Inconsistent not acceptable, but tolerable, when you've got a bad team. That's just what you expect from bad teams in the NFL. They're bad enough to play poorly but they're also pros, so they're dangerous enough to fulfill the promise of "Any Given Sunday". That's inconsistent.
Inconsistent should never be a word used for a team that believes it's a legitimate Super Bowl contender, though, because inconsistency is an absolute killer in playoff runs.
Inconsistency is the difference between hoisting the Lombardi Trophy ana a Wild Card weekend exit, and right now this team looks like it's primed much more for the latter than for the former.
It's concerning, but you can't fix a problem if you don't first admit it.
Now, it's up to LaFleur and Love to earn their keep and do just that. Fix it.