It’s a bad day at the office when The Onion mocks your defense.
Yet that’s life for the Green Bay Packers under defensive coordinator Joe Barry. His soft coverage and unimaginative defense made Baker Mayfield more dangerous than ever, becoming the first visiting quarterback to have a perfect passer rating at Lambeau Field. Mayfield had a career day against Barry’s squad, throwing for 381 yards, four touchdowns, and no interceptions. Mayfield is just the sixth visiting quarterback ever to throw for 350 yards and four touchdowns at Lambeau. That’s quite bad for the Packers’ defense, to put it lightly.
It’s futile to expect something different from Barry, who trots out the same lackluster defense week after week. But if the defense actually did the things the Packers built it to be good at, we might be able to excuse a few areas of deficiency. The Packers are typically bad against the run, but they limited the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ rushing attack. However, the Bucs shredded them in the passing game, giving up 14 explosive plays.
The Packers built their defense to limit explosive plays and be disruptive against the pass, but the unit can’t do its primary job. The inability to be competent at the things it should be good at is one major reason this defense simply can’t work without a change in coaching staff and philosophy.
How often will Packers writers continue lamenting how lousy Barry’s defense is? As often as opposing offenses can turn a third-and-eight into a first down, apparently. Green Bay’s defense has had its share of game-changing moments, but long downs become automatic conversions for opposing offenses too often.
The Packers designed this defense to limit explosive plays and to be disruptive in the passing game. The philosophy behind their heavy zone scheme is to force opposing offenses to settle for short gains, requiring many plays to create a scoring drive. The more plays an offense has to make, the more opportunities for them to make mistakes.
How’d that zone defense do against Mayfield, a serviceable but hardly elite quarterback?
According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Barry played zone defense on 66% of snaps. Mayfield was 16/20 for 255 yards and two TDs, making him the most productive quarterback against Green Bay’s zone since ESPN began tracking zone coverage in 2017. The Bucs knew the Packers’ defensive strength and attacked it with aplomb.
You can make excuses about the personnel. Safety has been an afterthought for the Packers, who are starting replacement-level players. The cornerback group has had a ton of injuries. Its best player has missed six games in a row, and its second-best player plays for Buffalo. Green Bay’s starting corner group consists of a player returning from injury, a promising rookie, the team’s best kick returner, and a practice squad elevation. That makes the coaches’ job harder.
Harder, but not impossible. Barry isn’t putting the players in a position to succeed. The team has plenty of good man corners who don’t get to play man or be aggressive. It’s a recurring joke how far the corners are from the line of scrimmage on crucial downs.
Death by a thousand cuts is still death. This defense’s “bend-don’t-break” philosophy looks like “bend-and-also-break” on Sunday.
The defense can only work when the pass rush is getting home, and it isn’t able to consistently. One week after terrorizing Patrick Mahomes, the pass rush couldn’t sack a third-string rookie QB behind the league’s worst offensive line, and it wasn’t much better against Mayfield.
The run defense has been a longstanding problem for Green Bay. It was bad under Mike Pettine and is no better under Barry. The league is starting to run a bit more, thanks to the prevalence of two-high safety looks and the amount of teams running a Shanahan offense. But it’s still a passing league. If you’re doing well against the pass, you can forgive the run defense for making some mistakes.
Just like anything in life, football teams can’t be good at everything. If I want my wizard to be successful, I’ve gotta put my points into intelligence. That means strength is probably going to suffer. That’s how min-maxing works. It’s generally better to double down on what you’re good at — nobody can cover every weakness.
That’s why the Packers defense’s inability to be good at the one thing it’s designed to be is so damning. The philosophy behind the defense is already suspect. But it becomes even worse when the scheme can’t evolve and achieve its goals.
On Monday, Matt LaFleur said that Joe Barry would continue to run the defense. However, LaFleur will take a larger role with that group to improve communication. Whether or not LaFleur should retain Barry for these final three games or allow him to walk is another conversation. But it’s looking increasingly likely that LaFleur will make a change following the season. A few short weeks after writing that Barry likely would return next season, these two botched games might finally be the turning point.
Moving forward, the Packers need a clear vision for their defense and the coaches and players that can bring that vision into reality. It’s clear that can’t happen under the current regime.
