The Green Bay Packers fell to 1-2 on Thursday Night Football with a shocking 35-14 loss at home to the Atlanta Falcons. The Packers walked off the field to boos, and star tight end Tucker Kraft made it even more embarrassing with his comments after the game.
The loss has Packers fans wondering about just where the wheels fell off, and whether the season can be salvaged.
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Now the Packers have a mini-bye week to sort things out, before the season truly spins away from them. Can they turn things around in time, or is 2026 shaping up to be a lost year for Green Bay?
As they try to right the ship, here are some potential areas of focus. These six stats illustrate just where things have gone wrong for Green Bay so far this year, and where they can improve over the rest of the season.
48.7
We start with perhaps the biggest area of concern: The running game.
Through three games, the Packers have averaged just 48.7 rushing yards per game on the ground. That ranks Green Bay dead last in the NFL, and they are the only team averaging below 50 rushing yards per game. The Cleveland Browns, who sit 31st in this category, average 65.5 yards per game on the ground.
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To put that in another light, the Packers’ rushing attack is delivering -0.448 Expected Points Added per Play. That is 31st in the league, ahead of only the Los Angeles Chargers.
68
We will stay with the running game for a moment, because it is just that bad.
MarShawn Lloyd leads the way for Green Bay with 68 rushing yards this season. For comparison, Bijan Robinson had 111 last night against the Packers for the Atlanta Falcons … in the first half alone.
Robinson finished Thursday night’s game with 194 rushing yards. That is more than the Packers have gained on the ground this season as a team. Through three games, the Packers have just 146 rushing yards from Lloyd, Chris Brooks, Kaleb Johnson, and Jordan Love, combined.
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44.4%
Now we get to talk about the Packers’ passing game.
This stat is the percentage of dropbacks where Love has been pressured this season. On 44.4% of his dropbacks this season — 133 overall — Love has faced pressure, as charted by Pro Football Focus.
It was actually worse for Love and the Packers on Thursday night, as according to charting data from Pro Football Focus he was pressured on 45.5% of his dropbacks against Atlanta. On those 25 plays, he completed just 9-of-25 passes (a completion percentage of just 39.1%) for 116 yards and an interception.
Here is that interception:
Brandon Dorlus uses a quick swim move on rookie left guard Jager Burton — a fifth-round pick out of Kentucky — and gets to Love as he is making this throw over the middle. Love makes the throw under pressure, and his eyes lead safety Xavier Watts right to the football.
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2.92
Continuing with the pass blocking woes, 2.92 seconds is the average “time to throw” Love has had this season, as charted by Pro Football Focus.
That ranks Love 33rd out of 33 qualified passers, and he is the only quarterback with an average time to throw below three seconds.
On this sack from Thursday night, pressure got to Love below that three-second mark:
On this play from Week 1, a blitz off the edge pressures Love just as he hits his drop:
Which is generally not a good thing.
Now, it is not as if Love is flawless. Take this play from Week 2 against the New York Jets, which comes on a 1st-and-25 situation early in the third quarter, with the game tied at 7-7:
As noted in the clip, Love can help himself here and throw the shallow route to Johnson working from left-to-right. Instead, he pulls the ball down, which allows the Jets to get pressure with three.
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But this does highlight the impact of consistent pressure on a quarterback. Moments where you can help yourself, you feel pressure earlier than you should, given the duress you have been under. Certainly the protection needs to be better overall, but Love does have to help himself where and when he can.
18%
We need yet another offensive line statistic to show bad things are.
According to ESPN’s Pass Block Win Rate, that was the percentage of snaps where the Packers offensive line sustained their blocks for 2.5 seconds or longer, entering Thursday night’s game against the Falcons.
That ranked Green Bay 32nd in the league entering Week 3.
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While numbers are not in yet from Thursday night’s game against the Falcons, it is hard to see how that might have improved too much.
0.092
We flip to the other side of the football for a moment.
This is the Defensive Expected Points Added per Play for Green Bay this season, 0.092. For comparison to the rest of the league, that is 25th out of 32 teams.
When you add this with Green Bay’s Offensive EPA, as RBSDM does here to generate “Team Tiers,” you see the Packers in the lower-left quadrant, meaning they are below league average in both categories.
And in a cluster of teams that includes the Cleveland Browns, the Tennessee Titans, and the Miami Dolphins:
Probably not where you want to be.
When you fit the pieces together, they tell a story. A story of a team struggling in the trenches, struggling to run the football, a quarterback under pressure in the pocket, and a defense that is being asked to pick up too much of the slack in a league driven by offenses.
And that tells the story of a 1-2 team, already on the ropes before October arrives.
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