Besides a few phantom offsides penalties on crucial downs, the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line played their best game in a long time.
Coincidentally, it was a game that saw Yosh Nijman start over Rasheed Walker, and Sean Rhyan played some snaps in relief of Jon Runyan Jr. These were changes we speculated could elevate the unit weeks ago, and they seemed to pay off.
Of course, it took continuous struggles for Walker and an injury to Runyan for these changes to occur. And this isn’t a new problem, especially on the offensive line. The Packers are historically slow to make lineup changes that seem obvious to everyone outside the building, only making changes when fate forces their hands.
Matt LaFleur loves to say that Green Bay will play their best five offensive linemen, but that rarely feels true. Why are the Packers so reluctant to make lineup changes?
Green Bay rarely likes to throw rookies into the fog of war. Generally, they prefer to let their investments learn the game behind experienced veterans and jump into a bigger role in Year 2 or 3. But sometimes, the rookies are just better than the veterans they’d be replacing.
While Rhyan is the latest example, it’s not a new issue. Recall when it took a Lane Taylor injury to get Elgton Jenkins into the lineup, or how Royce Newman and Jake Hanson got the edge over Zach Tom and Nijman.
Last year, Green Bay’s offensive line took weeks to settle in, with David Bakhtiari and Jenkins recovering from their respective injuries. Week after week, we knew that Newman and Hanson weren’t the answer, and Green Bay has more promising players on the depth chart. Injuries and weeks of poor play finally saw Nijman entering the starting lineup, and Tom got the nod as the primary backup.
Once again, the offensive line has struggled week after week. Despite having a mini bye before the Las Vegas Raiders game and a full bye before playing the Denver Broncos, the Packers still went forward with the same struggling group. When Jenkins was hurt, Newman got the nod and continued to struggle. Rasheed Walker struggled, yet the experienced Nijman remained on the bench. It wasn’t until this week, when Nijman and Rhyan entered the lineup, that the offense started clicking.
Having injury and circumstance make these decisions for you doesn’t make sense. The team has far more data than we do, yet the fans continue to be correct about the ideal alignment before the coaches catch on.
In a year of evaluation, why turn to Newman over Rhyan as the primary backup at guard? We know what Newman can do at this point. After a fairly promising rookie season, Newman has regressed and hasn’t looked like a primary starter. Rhyan had a rough rookie year, but he’s made a Year 2 jump and looks promising. If you’re trying to evaluate your future core, why not give the higher-ceiling third-round pick a chance?
The Walker and Nijman circumstance has the opposite issue. Walker showed some good things in preseason and the first three games of the season, but he’s struggled since. While you want to evaluate your young linemen, Walker’s struggles make evaluating Love’s progress and the run game much harder. Nijman gives Love a better chance of success and has a good history of success at the tackle position. Why should he not be the one protecting Love?
I recognize that actual football isn’t like a game of Madden. You can’t just throw in the player with the higher number and know that he will immediately impact the line for the better. Continuity matters. The more the group of preferred starters plays together, the better their cohesion will be. Benching a player you view as a starter can also stifle growth and kill his confidence. And you don’t want to be a prisoner of the moment. Sometimes, your best players have bad games, but that doesn’t mean you need to bench them. Each individual game matters, and each performance leads to a player’s growth.
But when the team is losing games for a clear reason, and there is an obvious solution, isn’t it worth exploring?
Let’s look at the example of the Japanese productivity method of Jidoka, a technique used in manufacturing to recognize problems quickly. This method says that a team needs to identify a problem, immediately stop production, get to the root of the problem, and solve the issue. Even considering the human element, we can see how this applies to the offensive line. Your line is struggling at protecting your quarterback and opening holes in the run game. There was time to evaluate the problem (bye weeks, time between games). There is a clear solution (bring in the players who are playing better). See if those players can help lead your team to victory.
We saw the offensive line stop being a problem last season once changes were made. Yet, in the same situation this season, Green Bay was again slow to make decisions that could improve the line.
And while the offensive line has been the most frequent example, and it’s very topical right now, it’s far from the only position group where this happens. We’ve seen Aaron Jones neglected in the running game (through multiple coaching staffs), Dean Lowry playing over Devonte Wyatt, and Kevin King playing over Eric Stokes as other recent examples.
While it’s a one-game sample size thus far, maybe seeing how well Rhyan and Nijman played will force LaFleur to take a more active role in optimizing his best lineup. It’s a truly baffling process to keep seeing the same mistakes made year after year.
