Three Reasons The Green Bay Packers Will Disappoint In 2022

SportsMoney Three Reasons The Green Bay Packers Will Disappoint In 2022 Rob Reischel Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I report on the Green Bay Packers. New! Follow this author to improve your content experience.

Got it! Jun 30, 2022, 08:31am EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Can Matt LaFeur and Aaron Rodgers help the Green Bay Packers end their 12-year Super Bowl drought? ASSOCIATED PRESS Amazingly, the Green Bay Packers begin training camp in just four weeks. And after the 2021 season marked the 11 th straight year Green Bay finished without a Super Bowl title, Packer Nation can’t wait for a new campaign to begin. The Packers have won three straight NFC North divisional titles and are 39-10 in that stretch (.

796). Each of those seasons, though, Green Bay failed to win the NFC and now enter its 12 th straight season without reaching a Super Bowl. The Packers had a rough offseason, trading arguably the NFL’s top receiver in Davante Adams and cutting elite pass rusher Za’Darius Smith due to salary cap reasons.

While Green Bay remains a heavy favorite to win the NFC North, Tampa Bay and the defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams are the frontrunners to win the NFC. If the Packers are to snap their 12-year drought without a Super Bowl, here are three areas they must solve. 1.

Who will catch the ball? All-Pro wideout Davante Adams demanded a trade after the season, so Green Bay shipped him to Las Vegas for a first- and second-round draft pick. While the Packers received solid value for Adams, they also lost a player who averaged 108 catches, 1,328 yards and 12 touchdowns per season over the last four years. MORE FOR YOU WWE Extreme Rules 2021 Results: Winners, News And Notes As Roman Reigns Beats The Demon The World’s Highest-Paid Soccer Players 2021: Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo Reclaims Top Spot From PSG’s Lionel Messi The Good, Bad And Ugly From The Green Bay Packers’ Win Over The San Francisco 49ers That leaves the Packers with a group that’s either over-the-hill (Randall Cobb and Sammy Watkins), mediocre (Allen Lazard), unproven (Amari Rodgers) or rookies (Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs and Samori Toure).

Watson, a second round draft choice who Green Bay traded up 19 spots to select, has the most upside. But he’s raw and comes from a run-first offense at tiny North Dakota State. Cobb, who hasn’t played a full season since 2014, had his fewest number of receptions (28) and yards (375) last year since his rookie campaign in 2011.

Watkins also set career-lows in catches (27), yards (394) and touchdowns (one) in Baltimore last year. Lazard has never had more than 40 catches in a season, while Rodgers had just four receptions in a dreadful rookie season. In addition, tight end Robert Tonyan — who caught 52 passes and 11 touchdowns in 2020 — is battling back from a torn ACL.

Add it all up and this is undoubtedly the weakest group of pass catchers Aaron Rodgers has entered a season with since he became the starter in 2008. “I like production over potential,” Aaron Rodgers said of his pass catchers. “We have some production.

We have a lot of potential, so we need to temper expectations and heighten the accountability. “I think that’s the most important thing for those guys. There’s guys who’ve done some things in the league and there’s guys that haven’t and they’re going to get opportunities, so reasonable expectations for those guys and then high expectations and accountability for the entire room.

” 2. Can the special teams be … at least mediocre? Green Bay finished 32nd in the NFL special teams rankings compiled by Rick Gosselin last season. That marked the sixth time since 2005 the Packers have been last and the 11 th time in 17 years they finished in the bottom six.

As bad as things were in the regular season, they got even worse in the Packers’ 13-10 loss to San Francisco in the divisional playoffs. The biggest disaster came with 4:41 left in the game. Green Bay led, 10-3, and had a fourth-and-19 from its own 12-yard line.

Punter Corey Bojorquez lined up 2 yards deep in his own endzone and 49ers defensive lineman Jordan Willis shot up the middle and blocked the punt. Safety Talanoa Hufanga picked up the ball at the 7-yard line and raced to the endzone to tie the game. Larry McCarren, the longtime color commentator on the Packers’ radio network, summed it up best.

“What a nightmare,” McCarren screamed. “What a meltdown. ” Green Bay head coach Matt LaFleur fired special teams coordinator Maurice Drayton after the season, marking the second straight year he’s made a change at that spot.

The Packers then hired former Raiders head coach Rich Bisaccia, who has two decades of special teams experience. Bisaccia will have his work cut out for him. Kicker Mason Crosby is coming off a down year in which he made just 73.

5% of his field goals. Veteran punter Pat O’Donnell was signed in free agency, while long snapper Steven Wirtel was inconsistent last year. The Packers’ coverage units have been a mess for years.

Green Bay has also lacked a dynamic return man for more than a decade, but rookies Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs both have promise. Can Bisaccia turn around the worst special teams in the NFL? He’s succeeded before, but also hasn’t inherited a mess quite like this. “We’re really fortunate to have a guy of that caliber,” LaFleur said of Bisaccia.

“If you’d ask the coaches around the league, he’s regarded as one of the best in the business. So anytime you can get a guy like that, that’s a big-time win for us. “Now ultimately, we all have to go out there and perform.

But just in terms of the presence that he brings and the experience that he brings and the leadership that he brings, I think it’s really going to benefit us. ” 3. Will the Packers’ postseason meltdowns finally end? Perhaps no team in sports has suffered more devastating playoff losses since 2010 than Green Bay.

The Packers are 0-4 in NFC Championship games in that time, and 0-2 in overtime games. Green Bay has also been the NFC’s No. 1 seed three times in that stretch, but lost home games each season.

The 2011 Packers went 15-1 in the regular season, then were whipped by the New York Giants, 37-20, in the divisional playoffs at Lambeau Field. Green Bay led Seattle, 19-7, with just more than 2 minutes left in the 2014 NFC Championship game, before dropping a 28-22 overtime decision. The Packers also fell in overtime the following year to Arizona, 26-20.

Green Bay was routed by Atlanta, 44-21, in the 2016 NFC title game and blown out by San Francisco, 37-20, in the 2019 conference championship game. Then in both 2020 and 2021, the Packers were the NFC’s No. 1 seed, but couldn’t seal the deal.

Tampa Bay defeated Green Bay, 31-26, in the 2020 conference title game when quarterback Aaron Rodgers opted not to run for a potential touchdown in the final moments. Head coach Matt LaFleur then settled for a field goal and his team never got the ball back. Last season, Rodgers and the Packers managed a mere 10 points in a 13-10 home loss to San Francisco in the divisional playoffs.

“Every year is going to be hard,” nose tackle Kenny Clark said of Green Bay’s recent string of playoff losses. “It is what it is. It’s going to be tough but if you’re a competitor, if you love this game, if you love to compete, it shouldn’t be no question about coming back and going back to work.

We’re competitors. We love to win. When we don’t win, it just sucks.

” “It just sucks,” could be Green Bay’s playoff slogan since 2010. The 2022 Packers hope to reverse a decade of disappointment when the new season begins next month. Follow me on Twitter .

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