Patrick from Lakewood, IL

Silver lining? I'm struggling to find one?

I don't have one. Didn't have one last week, nor the week before.

Mike from Easton, PA

"One loss can go a long way" might be more appropriate for the situation?

I have absolutely no idea what you mean by that.

Alan from Los Angeles, CA

This team has shown zero improvement offensively for six weeks. Dropped passes, wrong routes run, missed blocks and penalties. On defense, this squad cannot get off the field on third-and-long. Injuries and inexperience are no longer in the approved list of excuses. This coaching staff is not getting the job done. Do you agree?

I don't think anybody's getting the job done. That's why the Packers look the way they look. This game was a step backward on many fronts, which is disheartening.

Joshua from Wilmington, DE

Where are we right now?

2-5, and three dozen days since the last victory. Yes, I counted.

John from Jupiter, FL

Morning Mike. First thanks for sticking with us in the blog. Can't be easy. We know for certain there are problems on every level, all phases and every position group, no one excluded. So where do we start to right the ship? Thanks.

I wish I knew. Honestly. It felt like the last two road losses, there were a couple of specific areas to pinpoint (slow starts, late-game execution, etc.). Those are no better, and now all sorts of other issues look glaring.

Matt from Gastonia, NC

Man, the NFL can be brutal. The Vikings get the win, but likely lost their QB in the process. It definitely changed my perspective on today's game.

Did we just see Cousins' last game in a Vikings uniform? I hate seeing players get hurt like that. But yeah, that's this game, and it is brutal.

Bob from Bella Vista, AR

Penalties. Personal penalties. Dropped passes. Are they at the point of trying too hard?

Maybe, but that's not how I see it. Penalties usually result from getting beat and trying to make up for it (such as holding), or from a lack of discipline (such as RTP). Dropped passes are simply an absence of concentration and focus, because receivers catch hundreds and hundreds of passes every week.

Andy from Wisconsin Rapids, WI

Mike, I understand it's players not plays. We knew the offense would have growing pains, but getting behind the chains just once seems like a drive killer. Where are the motions and creativity we expected to see? Or the running game we were supposed to lean on? It's tough to watch, and at this point is a trend.

When you can't execute the basics reliably enough, dressing up plays with motions and other creative elements is only an invitation to more confusion and even less execution.

Rick from Peshawbestown, MI

Hi Mike/Wes, 12:28 left to go in the second quarter and Aaron Jones finally touches the ball in the backfield. Are we sure he's healthy? I'm finding this hard to understand. GPG!

Jones is not 100%. Nobody has hidden that fact and we've written it and said it many times. He's doing what he can and they're giving him the workload he can handle without excessive risk to his injury.

Damien from Manning, Australia

I knew this young team would have growing pains, but I can't be the only one getting frustrated by ML constantly saying "We need to get better" or "We need to clean it up" because we haven't seen anything get better or get cleaned up. Jordan Love chiming in with "What are we gonna do to change that?" is a little worrying because it didn't seem rhetorical, it felt like he was wanting an answer.

He does want an answer, and he's looking inward but at the same time acknowledging it's a team game and he can't magically change everything himself. Love has missed some throws, missed some reads and held the ball too long at times. But he hasn't committed any penalties, dropped any passes or had a big play down the middle ripped from his arms for an interception. Everybody's tired of hearing "it's on everybody," but it really is.

Tyler from Stetsonville, WI

I know it's not a fun place to be, you guys have had your backs against a wall for over a month with poor game after poor game. So thanks for what you do. At this stage in the season what is this team actually consistently good at? At points they get close to getting a lead or getting back into a game, then fall flat. That's the only consistency I've seen and it materializes in different ways. We haven't really seen a good 60 minutes from this team and, for all our sakes, needs to come soon.

This offense hasn't found anything it's consistently good at, and that's a huge problem. As LaFleur said, when they can't move the chains early on, they can't even run the offense they planned for and prepped coming in. Plays in a game plan are meant to build off of previous plays, but when nothing works early, there's nothing to build on and then it's all two-minute, desperation mode in the second half. The Packers have been living that for five games now. Two was too many, but they're stuck in this rut and nobody has the answers. If they did, we wouldn't still be having this conversation.

Rick from San Diego, CA

Hi fellas, I find myself torn between wanting to be patient with Love since it's his first year starting, and impatient because the league has never been more QB friendly than it is right now and we see rookies come in and have success. The offense is a slog with very few splash plays. I was wondering what your opinion was on why that is. Stale offense? Lack of playmakers? To be fair, it looked this way at times with Rodgers too.

It's nobody being immune from a mistake that sets the offense back, from the QB on down. Read my **“Rapid Reaction” editorial**, which is where I tried to explain it as best I could. Pick a position on offense, the same guy who makes a play will botch something a couple snaps later. The mark of a true pro in this league, the most competitive in all of sports in my opinion, is consistency. The Packers are not performing consistently right now, individually, which spills into collectively. The frustrating thing is they all prove they can do it, but when you can't do it enough, this league is too tough. All that inconsistency leads to, ironically, very consistent results.

Matt from San Luis Obispo, CA

Jordan Love is not perfect, but he is not the problem. Cut the penalties, catch the catchable passes, and feed 33. Problem solved.

Jones should get the ball more the healthier he gets moving forward. Fingers crossed no more setbacks. The first two steps to your prescription are spot-on. The larger problem is that's not just a player or two. It's a long list of culprits.

Kerry from Lakewood Ranch, FL

Are the Packers the worst third-down defense in the league or does it just seem that they are?

Actually, the Packers came into this game ranked ninth in the league in third-down defense, but that display Sunday was incredibly aggravating. The Vikings were 9-of-14 until the play Cousins got hurt, and five of those nine conversions required 8 yards or more (plus an RTP on third-and-11 was another conversion that doesn't count statistically). That's a ton, and I mean a ton, of great chances to get off the field. The defense blew as many huge opportunities as the offense in this one.

Brett from Hoboken, NJ

I keep thinking back to Vic noting the trend in the NFL for a team to go up early, and then the inevitable charge when the defense starts trading yards for time. Unfortunately, I think that is what we are seeing here. The offense's "arrow" keeps pointing even further down, if that makes sense.

Valid point. To not have a first down for the opening 26½ minutes of the game is almost mind-boggling. The offense finally finding itself is becoming meaningless when the deficits are so large. The defense is going to try to take away explosives and make the offense execute long, time-consuming drives. That increases the leader's margin for error and shrinks the chaser's.

Kevin from Tinton Falls, NJ

Watching other teams around the league you see veteran WRs make a play on the ball in the air either around defenders or through them, and track the ball much better than I've seen these Packers WRs do so far this year. I'm not saying that won't get better, in fact we've seen it from Christian Watson last year. It's just frustrating to watch guys get bodied and boxed out by defenders on any 50/50 type of ball. Sorry, I guess that's not a question.

It's not, but I hear you.

Mike from Charlotte, NC

For whatever reason, and for however long these Packers just stink. The blame is a plenty to go around and it doesn't rest in one spot. Poor execution, silly penalties, and altogether erratic effort. Oh, and defenders beating their chests down 24-10 after a couple good plays. Comical. I was watching later in the day on NFL+ and turned it off at that point to just visit here. Checked the blog, felt bad for Spoff, and typed this up. At least I hope the coffee is still good, Mike. :)

I don't drink coffee. Wes will confirm.

Brian from Bemidji, MN

ML told Rock that "We're a mess." Good to know that he is seeing what we are. Just a truthful statement, or a public challenge to the locker room?

Why not both, as well as a public challenge to himself and every coach under his command? As I wrote last night, no one single person is the reason, and no one single person can be the savior. It's on everybody, it'll take everybody.

Nathan from Jackson, WI

Considering the Packers were "going all in" during Rodgers' last few seasons in Green Bay, just how bad is the Packers' salary-cap situation and how can they go about getting it healthy? I'll hang up and listen to your response.

The Packers are currently carrying around $60M in dead money on this year's cap ($40M on Rodgers and $8M on Amos accounting for 80% of that), all but a few pennies of which comes off the books next season. Another $20M in cap space is out for the year with Bakhtiari's injury. I don't know what's going to happen with Bakhtiari, but something likely will be done so he's not carrying a $40M cap number in '24. They will have other decisions to make on veteran deals/extensions/etc., but the cap picture is going to look much, much different. In short, this was the year of cap pain for all the efforts made with Rodgers.

CJ from Marshfield, WI

Mike, at the end of the BUF/NE game (last week), NE gained 41 yards on a swing pass to key their game-winning drive. A flag for illegal man downfield on the C was called, appropriately so according to the announcers and I thought it looked egregious. The refs picked it up without an explanation. I thought it would have been a big story this week but only a few articles mentioning the controversial flag pick-up. Kind of timely with recent II questions. Did you see any league explanation this week?

No, but when the league contacts teams after the fact about officiating calls, those conversations are supposed to remain confidential. Jim Irsay publicly airing the dirty laundry this past week regarding the league's response to the penalties at the end of the CLE/IND game was strongly frowned upon. As an aside, I've never seen as many ineligible man downfield penalties as I've seen this year, and the Packers continue to get bit by them. Clearly an unpublicized emphasis.

Scott from Sauk City, WI

I don't know why everybody is so upset about this Brewers curse. The fact of the matter is that the Brewers frequently beat themselves, and so one of these years, that's gonna turn into a World Series berth. In all honesty, 2023 should have been the year it happened. The beat themselves terribly in that series.

They didn't play well, and the odds of a playoff run weren't great anyway losing Woodruff from the rotation. But I would've liked to see what might've happened had Taylor's bases-loaded line drive in Game 1 and Frelick's two-on rocket in Game 2 gone for RBI hits instead of double plays. That's baseball. This World Series could be shaping up as a dandy, though.

Doug from Neenah, WI

Good morning, Mike. So, you guys were saying something about wins being hard to come by in this league?

They shouldn't be this hard. This league is hard. The Packers are making it harder on themselves. There's no denying that.

Darren from Wakefield, MI

Hey Mike, pretty sure you old enough to remember Saturday morning cartoons.? I found that instead of cursing under my breath, quoting Yosemite Sam works with some "frickin' frackin' rata-tratin'" out loud. Just trying to help folks. Have faith.

Something-something varmint Monday.