Falling Short Down South: Why Green Bay Packers lost to Atlanta Falcons

Dropping INTs

The Packers used to be one of the best teams at the league at picking off passes, but those skills just aren’t there any longer.

From 2008-2015, Green Bay had only one season where they didn’t average at least one INT per game (2013), and were ranked no lower than #9 in that metric in all of those seasons. That included a four-year run of at least 22 INTs and ranking no lower than #3 in total INTs (2008-2011).

Right now, the Packers have only 5 INTs in 2016; prorate that across a 16-game season, they are set to end up with about 11 on the year. What’s worse, those INTs aren’t coming in the secondary; only two of those five have come from guys on the back end (Damarious Randall and Morgan Burnett each have one), with the linebacking corps showing a better affinity for coming down with the ball to this point (Blake Martinez, Joe Thomas, and Nick Perry each have one of the other three picks).

This isn’t for lack of chances, either. Multiple guys have had numerous chances all season at INTs, but even when they get their hands on the ball they just cannot seem to come down with the ball. Ever since the team picked off Russell Wilson four times in the eventual NFC Championship Game at Seattle to end their 2014 season, these misses and drops have felt like a rampant problem, one which could have flipped the script and turned handfuls of games on their heads and let the Packers come away victorious.

Just think back to last year’s playoff loss to Arizona, where there were three dropped INTs by Sam Shields alone; any one of those may have given the Packers enough to prevent their eventual loss. Take a look at the games this year too. Dak Prescott offered up a few ducks, but Green Bay only came up with one of them. Eli gave them multiple bad throws, but they couldn’t hold on and were trapped in a game until the end when it could have been a blowout. Really, all these game has had at least one chance where Packers players had their hands on the ball but couldn’t pull it in, and this Atlanta game was no different.

Up 32-26 on Atlanta’s final drive, all the team needed to do was get a stop somehow to give the Packers a win. It was going to be difficult to stop a Falcons’ offense which only ended drives without a score twice in seven meaningful tries to that point, but there were at least two chances to grab a turnover to seal the game.

The first was on the second pass of that drive to Sanu. Ryan was off-target with the short toss, putting it towards his back shoulder and forcing Sanu to whip around awkwardly to try grabbing it. Gunter was right there, and he nearly came away with the ball and nothing but open field in front of him. He just couldn’t grab it through Sanu’s arm though, and it fell to the turf. From there, Ryan completed four straight passes to move his team from behind midfield to the Green Bay 23.

That’s where the second chance happened. Ryan looked for his main man Julio on a pass over the middle. It was in tight coverage and not perfect, so it ended up being bobbled around. The coverage had Ha Ha Clinton-Dix coming down over the top on Julio, so he arrived to help prevent the completion, and in the scuttle there was a shot for Clinton-Dix to come down with the ball. Of course, as has been the case with this secondary, he could not manage to make the play, and it fell incomplete. Three plays later, the Falcons scored the deciding TD.

With all the injuries to the top of the secondary depth chart (as well as the high level of positional overturn at that spot in recent years), it probably shouldn’t be surprising that the INT production has dropped off to a degree from those league-best days. Regardless, it is troubling to see the guys out there constantly struggling to come down with the ball. With the stunning array of injuries leaving multiple weak points for opposing offenses to attack, they have find a way to capitalize when opportunities present themselves, or more losses like this are on the table regardless of whether the offense can hold onto their current rhythm.