Packers Notebook (Week 5)

Packers bitten by injury bug

No matter how many cotton balls are wrapped around the cardboard carton, at least a few eggs are going to break if dropped from the top of a 10-story building.

It’s the same in professional football. No matter how cautious a coach is during training camp, the preseason and the regular season workweek, players are going to get injured on Sundays.

In any preseason list of the Green Bay Packers’ most valuable players, left tackle David Bakhtiari, guard Elgton Jenkins, cornerback Jaire Alexander and outside linebacker Za’Darius Smith would rank among the top six or eight. They were four of the team’s seven Pro Bowlers last year.

By the end of Sunday’s victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers, all four were out of commission. Bakhtiari is on the physically unable to perform list with the ACL tear sustained during a New Year’s eve practice last season.

Jenkins, who moved from guard to tackle to replace Bakhtiari for the start of this season, has missed the last two games with an ankle injury.

Smith, who missed all but one practice during training camp because of a back injury, played 18 snaps off the bench in week one, was placed on injured reserve and had back surgery; there’s no guarantee he will return this season.

And Alexander suffered a shoulder injury on a key fourth-down stop on Sunday. The team spent Monday gathering opinions from specialists. “Being smart” was how one source put it. The good news is he didn’t suffer a broken collarbone.

“He’s a Pro Bowler. He’s a captain,” coach Matt LaFleur said Monday. “You can never have enough great players out there. Right now, we’ve got a few of our stud players on the bench due to injury.”

From 2009 through 2018, the Packers were one of the most-injured teams in the NFL fairly regularly, according to ManGamesLost, a website that tracks injury data for the major professional sports leagues. In terms of number of games missed, Green Bay ranked eighth during that span under former coach Mike McCarthy.

The arrival of LaFleur changed that dynamic. In 2019, the Packers had the eighth-fewest injuries en route to a surprise trip to the NFC Championship Game. In 2020, the Packers had the 10th-most injuries but, really, none were of dire long-term consequence until Bakhtiari was injured late in the season. Green Bay got back to the NFC Championship Game and might have won it with a healthy Bakhtiari.

From an injury perspective, this season could hardly have started worse. But the Packers have persevered, going 2-0 in the games without both Bakhtiari and Jenkins and 3-0 without Za’Darius Smith.

“If you would’ve told me early in the season we’d be without arguably two of our best linemen for a couple of games and play those two fronts (San Francisco and Pittsburgh), I would’ve been ecstatic with two wins and here we are at 3-1,” quarterback Aaron Rodgers said after accounting for three touchdowns vs. Pittsburgh.

How much more can one team take, though? Can the Packers continue to protect Rodgers at a high level with such a young offensive line? Can they possibly stop a team like Cincinnati – with an ascending young quarterback in Joe Burrow and three excellent receivers – without their top pass rusher and top cover man?

“Just next man up, next man up,” outside linebacker Rashan Gary said of his mindset after Alexander went down. “It sucks at the moment, but we’re in the middle of the game and we can’t harp on that. Now everybody, at the end of the game, we’re checking on him and making sure his spirits are up and see what’s happening. It’s just that next-man-up mentality and trying to get this win for Ja’ because if he was out there then he’d be wanting the same.”

No missing Mason

Against San Francisco, Mason Crosby tied his franchise record by making his 22nd consecutive field-goal attempt. The kick that did it, the 51-yard game-winner as time expired, was almost blocked.

The kick that established a new record, a 26-yarder in the final seconds of the first half against Pittsburgh, came after his 31-yarder was blocked by Minkah Fitzpatrick and returned for what would have been a game-changing touchdown. However, Pittsburgh’s Joe Haden was called offside and Crosby hit a 26-yarder after the penalty.

So, while the Packers officially haven’t had a kick blocked, they have a huge problem to solve before they face Cincinnati. Any show of weakness is sure to be tested by upcoming opponents. It’s also bound to get inside the head of Crosby, who added another chip-shot field goal without incident in the third quarter to extend his streak to 24.

“There’s a lot to clean up there,” LaFleur said. “They got a really good jump, jumping off the hand of our holder, so we have to do a better job of varying our snap counts. But also we can clean up some stuff in terms of just our alignments up front and how we go about that. We’ll have a plan for that this week.”

On the block, Haden went around tight end Robert Tonyan and Fitzpatrick went inside of Tonyan before Tonyan and the rest of the protection unit even moved. If Haden was offside, it wasn’t by much.

“They timed it up pretty well,” LaFleur said.

Rodgers moving up the charts

Rodgers’ second touchdown pass against Pittsburgh gave him 420 for his career. That tied Hall of Famer Dan Marino for No. 6 on the NFL’s all-time list. If he throws one at Cincinnati, he’d tie Philip Rivers for No. 5.

At quarterback, there’s aging. And then there’s aging gracefully. With Rodgers, who will turn 38 on Dec. 2, the Packers are one of the NFL’s elite teams. With Ben Roethlisberger, who will turn 40 on March 2, the Steelers appear to be going nowhere fast.

“The way that we train gets me ready for the season, for sure. But then when you pair that with the diet and the regimen and the habits, that’s really important,” Rodgers said. “Mike (McCarthy) used to always say this, and I’ve said it many times, but once the legs go, the rest goes. I started squatting after the ‘18 season, and that’s been the biggest change for me. Now, I’m not running around like I used to. Obviously, that’s changed. I’m not playing the way I played in ‘11 from a physical standpoint. But I’m smarter, and I want to keep being able to run bootlegs and extend plays when I can.”

Better against the run

With defensive tackle Kenny Clark returning to his 2019 form and linebacker De’Vondre Campbell making an enormous impact in his first year with the team, the Packers are a lot stronger against the run than they have been.

Green Bay has yielded 4.29 yards per carry this season compared to 4.55 in 2020 and 4.67 in 2019. That’s still only 17th in the league, but it’s put Green Bay in better third-down situations. On Sunday, the Steelers moved the chains on only four of their 11 third-down opportunities.

“Across the board, our team is playing with really good effort, really good urgency,” LaFleur said. “We’re playing tough and physical and, quite frankly, I think sometimes that allows you to cover up some areas where you may have made a mistake if you got everybody hustling. Our guys have taken that to heart, and I still think there’s room for improvement there as well. So by no means are we a finished product.”

Campbell turned in his third consecutive excellent performance. After 13 tackles against Detroit in week two and 11 tackles against San Francisco in week three, he recorded nine tackles, one quarterback hit (to help thwart a third-and-5) and one pass breakup (to stop a third-and-5) vs. Pittsburgh. One play after defending a pass to receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, Campbell gave up a catch to Smith-Schuster but stopped him well short of the first down.

After a Pro Bowl season in 2019, Clark — who turned 26 on Monday — never really got rolling after an early-season groin injury. He’s been dominant to start this season, though. With 17 tackles, he’s almost halfway to last year’s total of 42. His 15 quarterback pressures, according to Pro Football Focus, are also almost half of last year’s total of 32.

“Kenny’s Kenny. Kenny is a problem back there. He’s a disruptive force,” said Kingsley Keke, who had his first sack of the season against Pittsburgh. “When he comes out of his hips playing the run and being active into the passer, Kenny is a Pro Bowl-type talent, type player. He’s earned everything that he’s gotten so far, and he works tremendously hard. He’s definitely helped me improve as a player — mentally, physically, everything. It’s helping me watching him, yeah, for sure.”