The Green Bay Packers are grappling with special teams issues that could jeopardize their playoff hopes as the season winds down. NFC North rival Green Bay Packers, under the direction of head coach Matt LaFleur, have some serious issues when it comes to special teams. High-profile, high-stakes blunders in recent years have heightened these fears. With only two games left in the regular season, the Packers are dangling by a thread in terms of playoff hopes.
Matt LaFleur has been the Green Bay Packers head coach for seven months. During that stretch, he’s never dismissed a coach midseason. He did take one big step last year when he hired Rich Bisaccia to be the special teams coordinator. Bisaccia is the second-longest-tenured assistant in the entire NFL. Of course, he already achieved success with the Las Vegas Raiders as their interim head coach by reaching the playoffs. His extensive experience and high salary, believed to be among the highest for special teams coordinators in the league, suggested a commitment to enhancing this vital aspect of the game.
Despite their recent efforts, the Packers have been on a 10-game streak of Self-Inflicted Where it Hurts Most. In his last game against the Cleveland Browns on September 21, their go-ahead field goal attempt was blocked with under a minute remaining. As luck would have it, this crucial inflection point resulted in a gut-wrenching 13-10 defeat. Even LaFleur—who was not shy about their own agency’s errors—described this particular blunder as “catastrophic.” It got even worse, he noted, when a blocked extra point was returned for two points, putting the game at 40-40 against the Dallas Cowboys.
Those issues persisted in what became an incredibly disappointing contest vs the Chicago Bears, a game in which the Packers fell 16-9. In that match-up, rookie wide receiver Romeo Doubs infamously bobbled an onside kick. This monumental error allowed the Bears to recover the ball, thus slashing the life expectancy of the team’s success dramatically.
Even head coach Rich Bisaccia recognized the seriousness of these special teams gaffes. “We talk about special teams, 28 plays in a game, and there’s one that you just can’t get over, right?” he stated. Nowhere has the significance of special teams plays been more glaringly exposed than this crucial time of the year.
With all those missed opportunities, it’s understandable that LaFleur and Bisaccia would be searching for solutions. LaFleur expressed concern about the nature of special teams mistakes, noting, “The unfortunate thing about special teams in general is when there is a mistake, a lot of times they’re catastrophic mistakes.”
Their struggles with the special teams unit under former coordinators Shawn Mennenga and Maurice Drayton have been well-documented. Both were subsequently removed due to basically the same performance shortfalls. On special teams, LaFleur hired Bisaccia specifically to shore up this third phase of play. After these last two unsatisfactory outings, one might start to question if any of that is really working.
Even if playoff hopes are thin as a string, it still makes LaFleur and Bisaccia equally intent on avoiding the danger to straightening out performance. Bisaccia stated his confidence in Doubs’ ability to bounce back after his key mistake against the Bears, affirming, “He’s been there for eight of them and that’s the first one we didn’t come up with, so he’ll be back out there this Saturday night.”
The Packers have two very important games to finish the season. Time is running out for them to get their special teams ship righted. The team will have to walk a fine line descending these cliffs if they want to land a playoff spot with the growing pressure from behind.
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