While it would be nice to chalk up Thursday night’s game as an unfortunate anomaly and move on, the loss further exposed some troubling trends from the season’s first three weeks.
The Green Bay Packers had a full meltdown in all three phases against the Detroit Lions in front of a full national audience. We saw a young offense that couldn’t move the ball, a defense constantly playing below its talent level, and a special teams unit that couldn’t get out of its own way. Basically, every small struggle the Packers have had in 2023 was magnified exponentially.
With the Packers getting dominated so badly, they needed a competent special teams unit to at least give them a chance with some solid field position. But the unit couldn’t even do that. Even with an All-Pro kick returner in Keisean Nixon, Green Bay’s offense constantly started in an unfavorable position. Until special teams can work out their disciplinary issues and find a better group of blockers, Nixon might need to stop running the ball out from the end zone.
Last week, I wrote that special teams needed to do more to help the offense. With a highly respected coordinator and a lot of money invested into the unit, the Packers needed more from the maligned third phase of the game. They didn’t get it on Thursday.
The unit had a share of issues. Jayden Reed‘s muffed a punt return. Quay Walker took a leaping penalty. There was a false start, some holding penalties, poor blocking on returns and punt protection, and Nixon not following the correct route on returns.
Green Bay has a league-high 10 special teams penalties, costing the team 96 yards, according to nflpenalties.com. Four of those occurred against Detroit.
In a game where Green Bay’s offense desperately needed every bit of help it could get, special teams couldn’t provide. On Nixon’s best run late in the game, a holding penalty brought the ball back and had the Packers starting near the 10-yard line.
Part of the joy of watching Nixon is his chaotic style. Nixon took to the returner role with gusto and attacks the position in an uncommon manner. A true rogue as a returner, Nixon tries to house the ball on every return. Last season, he threatened to every time he touched the ball.
Nixon didn’t care when they changed the kickoff rules this season, because he intended to score on every return. Even when the kicker perfectly places the ball in the end zone, Nixon is still going to try to return it.
I love this mentality! It’s why Nixon is one of my favorite players on the team. But it’s not working right now.
The truth is that Nixon is barely getting the ball to the 20 on each return. While Nixon leagues the league in returns (10) and yards (250), his average is a modest 25 yards per return. Still in the upper half of the league, but not enough to make a difference in terms of starting field position.
The issue is a combination of factors. The blocking has been an issue. Even with a fair amount of roster turnover, Rich Bisaccia still has some of his chosen guys, and many moves the team made this off-season were with Bisaccia’s unit in mind. But the blocking has taken a step backward, and Nixon isn’t getting the gaps he needs.
LaFleur also stated that Nixon wasn’t always following the right route. “One was, quite frankly, Kei’s got to follow where the return is designed to go,” LaFleur said. “It’s no different than on offense when a back maybe bounces a play that shouldn’t go outside, and he bounces it outside, it puts someone in a bad position. That’s what happened on one of those.”
Finally, by returning a kickoff instead of calling for a fair catch, Nixon puts the team in a position to make errors, something they’ve clearly done too much of. A fair catch puts the ball at the 25-yard line. By running the ball from the end zone, not only does Nixon need more work to get to that point, but his teammates risk getting a penalty and bringing the ball back. Nixon wants to go for the big play and give the team juice in his own way. Again, this mindset is great! But it’s actually hurting the offense when he gets the ball to the 20-yard line and a penalty brings it back even further.
It’s the difference between Randall Cobb‘s return touchdown in 2011 and Ty Montgomery‘s failed attempt in 2018. When the effort works out, we love it. When it doesn’t, it was bad process. If Nixon was averaging 35 yards per attempt, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
But right now, special teams has a lot to clean up. The penalties are out of control, and Bisaccia needs to reign in his group. Until that happens, someone needs to convince Nixon to choose his moments more deliberately. It even looked at one point like the team considered having Jayden Reed return kicks late in the Detroit game, but it didn’t happen.
Nixon is still the best option as the kick returner, and it’s likely he’ll start breaking bigger runs as the season goes on. His big-play mindset is what a young team like this needs. But looking at the bigger picture, this young, inexperienced offense needs all the help it can get. Nixon’s teammates aren’t doing him any favors with the high penalty rate. Until these issues get fixed, it might be best to take the fair catches.
