Matt LaFleur did not spend much of his postgame press conference on his offense. After the Green Bay Packers held on to beat the Carolina Panthers 27-19 on Thursday night, the head coach kept coming back to his defense and the man who runs it. “I just like the aggressive style,” LaFleur said. “They just put a lot of pressure on offenses. We knew going into this, I think Carolina led the league in most explosive passes, and they just didn’t allow that to even kind of happen.”
Green Bay is 5-3. The defense sacked Bryce Young six times, forced an interception and stopped two fourth downs in the second half, and Carolina’s only play longer than 20 yards was Jalen Coker’s 26-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. LaFleur said the unit was “kind of saving the day in the second half” when the offense stalled.
“I think he’s a savant”
Asked about the pass rush, LaFleur gave the credit to defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon, who is in his first season in Green Bay. “It was just the relentless pressure. I thought our guys did a great job up front,” he said. “Some of the looks that we’re giving them are very difficult, and we do a lot of different things off of it. So I think that’s a big-time credit to our defensive staff. JG, he likes to use this word a lot. I think he’s a savant.” He added that the scheme “doesn’t mean anything if they can’t go execute it,” and said the team has “a lot of smart players out there.”
He called linebacker Ty’Ron Hopper’s night “a great performance.” Hopper tipped a Young pass to himself for the interception that set up a touchdown before halftime, and finished with eight tackles, a sack and three pass breakups. Hopper’s snaps have grown with Zaire Franklin and Edgerrin Cooper hurt, but LaFleur said the team expected it. “That’s something that we did see coming, more so in the preseason,” he said, adding that he sees “a lot of growth” in the inside linebackers.
Green Bay lost the turnover battle by two, and LaFleur pointed that out himself. “To lose the turnover battle by two and still come out on top, that doesn’t happen a lot in this league,” he said. “We know adversity is going to happen. It’s going to happen every week. I probably dwell on it more than they do, to be honest.”
“You better handle it the right way”
The Packers were without center Sean Rhyan and right guard Travis Glover, so John Williams made his first career start at center, Aaron Banks returned at left guard and Laken Tomlinson moved from left guard to right guard. Asked how the team has handled its run of injuries, LaFleur pushed back on the question. “What are you going to do about it? You better handle it the right way, otherwise you’re going to get your ass kicked,” he said. “That’s our job as coaches and that’s their job as players, is they got to get ready to play.”
He said Tomlinson’s play at left guard made it impossible to bench him. “The way Laken’s been playing, you can’t take him out of the lineup,” LaFleur said, adding that the move was not meant to take anything away from veteran Kevin Zeitler. Asked whether Tomlinson had been getting right guard work in practice, he said: “Not many, no.” Love was not sacked on 41 pass attempts, and LaFleur said the improved pass protection is “helping us kind of survive right now.”
The run game: “Not good enough”
The rest of the offense did not get the same praise. Josh Jacobs ran 21 times for 39 yards, and the Packers went backward when they tried to run out the clock with about five minutes left. “It was disappointing,” LaFleur said. “We have got to find something that we can hang our hat on in the run game, and unfortunately we have not done that yet.” Asked if he has seen anything that makes him optimistic, he was blunt. “If I’m being honest, not a lot right now. And that’s our job as coaches. We got to figure it out, because it’s not good enough.”
On Jordan Love, who threw three touchdown passes but was intercepted at the Carolina 2 with the Packers in field goal range, LaFleur said: “I’m sure he wishes he had that one back. I do too. We all do.” But he added: “Outside of that play, you can’t say enough great things about him, because he’s carrying the burden of everything right now.”
He also described Christian Watson’s night. The receiver went to a hospital in the second quarter and came back with a broken rib. “He landed on the ball, I believe that’s what I was told, and he was coughing up blood, and so they took him for precautionary reasons,” LaFleur said. “The grit to go back in the game. He had a heck of a night, and I just can’t imagine what he would have had had he not missed so much time.”
Why Coleman Owen kept returning kicks
Coleman Owen fumbled the opening kickoff, which led to a Carolina field goal, but he stayed on as the returner. LaFleur said pulling him would have been a mistake. “I didn’t think that would be the right thing to do. I think that would hurt our football team,” he said. “Nobody’s perfect in life. People are going to make mistakes, and you just got to trust what you see on a daily basis. And I think Coleman’s come in and he’s done a great job for us. So to pull the hook that quickly, I just didn’t think was right.”
The Milwaukee Brewers brought their World Series trophy to Lambeau Field a day after winning it, and LaFleur said the crowd’s reaction might have been “the loudest the stadium got all night.” “I’ve got so much respect for the Brewers organization, Pat Murphy,” he said. “You can tell they’re a real team. They care about one another. They play for one another.” The last time Green Bay played on a Thursday, it lost 35-14 at home to the Atlanta Falcons. “We got embarrassed the last Thursday night, really in every phase of it,” LaFleur said.
The Packers now have 10 days off before they visit the New England Patriots on Sunday, November 8, at 4:25 p.m. ET, which is 11:25 p.m. in Cairo.
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