Week 1 Recap: Packers vs Saints

Photo Cred: Associated Press

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This past weekend the NFL season has finally returned! Every Sunday from now until February 13th will be filled with football. The excitement level could not be any higher. For this week’s matchup, Wisconsin’s beloved Green Bay Packers were set to face the New Orleans Saints on the road in Jacksonville due to Hurricane Ida forcing the Saints to temporarily evacuate. Due to the Saints having to play at a location away from home, most people would have thought that the Saints would not perform very well as they did not have home field advantage in the mighty Superdome. Additionally, the Saints lost a big piece of the puzzle over the offseason, as the future Hall of Fame quarterback, Drew Brees, decided to retire. After Drew Brees retired, the Saints decided to promote Jameis Winston aka “Famous Jameis” to the starting role, even over Taysom Hill who had filled in a few times for Brees over the last couple seasons. Throughout his NFL career so far, Winston has had a reputation of being a very inconsistent quarterback. Many football experts predicted the Saints to look lost as they begin a new era. However, that was not the case on Sunday. The Saints came out firing right out the gate against the Packers and never looked back.

On the other hand, for the Packers, I am going to send it over to my buddy Noah, the play-by-play announcer for the UW-Madison student radio station. After the game, we discussed our thoughts, sharing some positives of the game, as well as critiques, as we were just trying to wrap our heads around the beating that New Orleans unexpectedly had just laid on the Packers. Let me tell you.. he did not hold back!

“What in the world was that? After a long offseason of drama and excitement, the Packers finally played a regular-season game and boy was it rough. The Packers this offseason made some moves in free agency and a stellar draft, the packers set themselves up for an “all in” run. Week one was not the Packers team that people had seen last year. Only scoring three points for the entire game while giving up 38 points to the saints. Now breaking down the Packers game, there were some things that were some positives that can potentially carry over into week two against Detroit. Special teams were awful last year and carrying over into this year it looks a bit average, which is good. Not many big returns from the saints and not many bad punts gave hope that the packers can turn it around during the season. Another positive was AJ Dillon. Out of all the running backs on the packers that played, Dillon played well despite only getting 4 carries for 19 yards. The big number was yards per carrying which he got 4.8 yards per carry. If this is a sign that Dillon can have that kind of number consistently, he could be very dangerous.

Those are the only positives, now the negatives. The defense was terrible. It almost looked like the defense was being managed by Dom Capers again. It was supposed to be a fresh start and was supposed to be a top 10 defense and was going to be the thing that would get the Packers over the hump. That was not the case on Sunday. The defense gave up 332 total yards and surrendered 38 points, what made it so bad is that the defense was not even trying to stop them, letting them get 30 minutes of time of possession is not ok. Letting them get 332 total yards is not ok. Having zero sacks is not ok. Joe Barry was supposed to bring a lot of energy to this defense. I did not see any of that last Sunday. Now to the offense, which was worse than the defense. This was a mix of play calling and players, Matt Lafleur did not come in with that swagger that he usually does, running the ball more with Aaron jones and not trying to set up a tandem like last year with Williams. Lafleur needs to adjust and make sure Dillon and Jones get involved and involved early. And obviously Aaron Rodgers, I don’t know who that was on Sunday, but it surely was not the 2020 MVP that we all saw last year. Rodgers had maybe the worst performance of his career and seeing that is very concerning but not concerning enough to say the offense is in trouble. He needs to have a better performance, no if’s, and’s or but’s about it. This packers team still looks good and has a bit of time to prove it but they must show it next week in a big way, otherwise this last dance will be cut short.”

Adding to Noah’s point about Aaron Rodgers, I personally was concerned about his playing ability on Sunday. Rodgers seemed to have spent most of the offseason sitting out of team activities due to the contract dispute and the misunderstanding that he had with the Packers’ front office. While he sat out, he did not prepare himself as much for the upcoming season. Hopefully, this was a huge wake-up call as he needs to get back in the weight room to build up, connect with his teammates to design more plays, and spend more time watching film to prepare for upcoming matchups.

Moving on to next week’s matchup, the Packers will face the Detroit Lions, who are known to be in the basement of the NFC North division just about every year. No matter who is leading the Lions from the coaching staff to the quarterback, they never seem to go far. This matchup will be quite a different matchup than what the Packers have been used to in the last few years facing the Lions, as Detroit has a new head coach, and traded for a new quarterback over the offseason in Jared Goff. After this week, I am glad that the three other teams in the NFC North division lost as well, so they are tied in the standings. I believe that the Packers have a better chance and will bounce back in week 2.

Week 1 Final: Saints- 38, Packers- 3