Welcome to the weekly Zone Coverage Packers mailbag, where I try to answer all your burning NFL and Green Bay Packers-related questions, submitted via Twitter to @m_widmeier.
After beating the Cardinals, I’m feeling confident about Green Bay’s chance to get the 1-seed. How realistic is that path?
The Packers opened up plenty of eyes going shorthanded against a previously undefeated Arizona Cardinals team on a short week in Week 8. That 24-21 win over the Cardinals stamped home what some already had assumed, this Green Bay team can absolutely win it all.
Getting the top seed in the NFC will be no easy task for one big reason: the schedule and Aaron Rodgers landing on the COVID list.
Green Bay still has matchups against the Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens, Los Angeles Rams, Cleveland Browns, Minnesota Vikings (x2), and the Seattle Seahawks, who all of a sudden may have Russell Wilson back. Yes, the Vikings don’t look so great and neither do the Browns, but those games are far from layups. Matching up with the NFC West and AFC North is brutal compared to what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Rams, Cardinals, and Dallas Cowboys have.
As things stand right now, the Buccaneers only have two remaining games against teams with winning records and they both come at home (Buffalo Bills, New Orleans Saints). As of now, the Cowboys only play three teams the rest of the way who are above .500.
It’s not out of the realm of possibility with Green Bay sitting at 7-1, but it will likely take a 14-3 or 13-4 mark at worst to nab the No. 1 seed in the NFC this year, given what the other top-tier teams have on their plate.
With Aaron Rodgers now on the COVID list, he will miss at least the game against the Chiefs and potentially the following week against the Seahawks. The earliest he can come back is November 13, a day before the Seattle game.
While Green Bay doesn’t quite know what they have in second-year quarterback Jordan Love if he’s expected to make two starts it’s tough to imagine the Packers taking down Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson in back-to-back weeks.
Is Rasul Douglas the real deal or is this a flash-in-the-pan situation?
Douglas has been an absolute gem of a signing for the Packers. He stepped up on the big-boy stage against Arizona and sealed the game for Green Bay with an interception in the final seconds. It looked like the Packers were about to suffer heartbreak before that play.
Douglas was on the Cardinals’ practice squad earlier this year before Green Bay scooped him up. The numbers so far speak for themselves.
As far as whether or not this is the real deal, if Jaire Alexander continues to remain sidelined, Green Bay will find out. It’s hard to imagine everyone overlooked a player like this who is in his fifth season in the league and is just now bursting onto the scene. Those cases are fairly rare.
The best guess is that Douglas was way better than a practice squad piece but isn’t a late bloomer who’s just now proving he can be a lockdown corner. With Alexander out, he’s far better than the other options on the roster outside of rookie Eric Stokes, and that should suffice for Green Bay.
No, this isn’t a superstar in the making, and it’s also not a flash-in-the-pan scenario. It lands somewhere right in the middle with Douglas, who’s been brilliant for Green Bay.
What’s going on with the Chiefs? This matchup still worries me, but should it?
Kansas City has been an enigma all season long.
Monday night was supposed to be their get-right game against a lowly New York Giants squad missing some key pieces. Instead, the Chiefs looked just as sloppy as they have for most of the season. The turnovers didn’t go away (they had two) and neither did the penalties (12), and the Giants kept it simple by keeping two deep safeties way back in the secondary for much of the game.
Despite another head-scratcher, this will not be a walk in the park for the Packers. The word “worry” might be too heavy but, yes, this will be a challenge.
The blinders might be on a bit just because it’s the Chiefs, and this team still has a ton of talent on offense. The defense, on the other hand, has been woeful. This is a prime spot for Green Bay to shake free of scoring 24 points for a fourth consecutive game.
Kansas City has struggled to crack the code on the two-deep safety look recently, which is something the Packers go to a lot. On top of that, Green Bay has given up the sixth least amount of “explosive pass plays,” according to sharpfootballstats.com.
It might be a case of the Chiefs just being who they are at this point, but that’s still good enough to get into the playoffs at a minimum. And all bets are off with Love starting at QB for Green Bay.
When will David Bakhtiari be back?
Getting back the All-Pro left tackle will be a huge boost up front for Green Bay, to state the obvious. As for when he could return, Matt LaFleur kept that under wraps when asked about it on Monday, but it seems like the Chiefs game could be a target point.
The fact that LaFleur said a decision has been made leads one to believe that the Kansas City game makes sense. It’s next on the schedule, Bakhtiari has been seen back at practice, and why would the decision be for a game two or three down the line? If that was the case, LaFleur would’ve just said he still needed some time before returning to the field.
It’s not a foregone conclusion that Bakhtiari will be back in Week 9 for the Packers, but the stars are aligning that way.
Submit your questions to the next mailbag via Twitter to @m_widmeier.
