GREEN BAY – The head coach called it out.
In the first answer Matt LaFleur gave at his usual day-after-game press conference Monday, he called what the Packers played in Sunday’s loss to the Vikings “sloppy football.”
As he continued, he wasn’t just referencing the pre-snap penalties that once again reared their ugly head in the 27-25 defeat. He also talked about certain fundamentals on each side of the ball that didn’t measure up against one of the NFC’s elite teams.
Defensively, LaFleur gave Vikings QB Sam Darnold credit for playing “a hell of a game” in throwing for a career-high 377 yards, but neither the pass rush nor coverage was good enough on Green Bay’s end.
While Darnold wasn’t pressured much, at times that was due to the Vikings keeping a running back and/or tight end in to help with protection, at least in the initial moments after the snap. Those are called “max protect” scenarios and make it very difficult for a traditional four-man rush to get home.
But if seven blockers are protecting, that means only three targets are downfield against as many as seven defenders, and Darnold was still finding holes. If an offense is max protecting, “you should glove whatever (route) concept” is being run, LaFleur said, and that wasn’t happening.
“There were some tight-window throws he made (but) we’ve got to keep depth,” he added, referring to the middle level of the zone coverage. “There’s got to be depth on the second level. You can’t have these big discrepancies between your second and third levels.”
That said, the Vikings didn’t max protect on all of Darnold’s 44 drop-backs, and the Packers generated just one sack and four QB hits, which made for a long day.
“Your coverage is going to get better if you can get a better pass rush, as well, so it all goes hand in hand,” LaFleur said. “The rush goes with the coverage.
“We’ve got to do a better job of trying to get pressure on the quarterback, moving him off the spot.”