Packers: 5 takeaways from the loss to Chiefs in Week 9

The Green Bay Packers‘ seven-game win streak came to an end on Sunday with a discouraging 13-7 loss against the Kansas City Chiefs.

This was an ugly one from the jump, essentially everything that could go wrong, did go wrong (aside from the defense). Special teams couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time, and the Packers had no answer for the Chiefs’ pass rush, making it hard to establish an offensive rhythm of any kind.

What makes the loss all the more disappointing though, is that despite everything I just mentioned, the Packers were clearly the better team on Sunday. Green Bay was without seven preferred starters, most notably quarterback Aaron Rodgers and still had every chance to win. In all honesty, I feel better about this Packers team now than I did coming into the game.

The offense will be fine when Rodgers returns to the lineup, and for the first time in quite a while I feel comfortable saying that Packers might just have a legitimate defense.

In effort to omit the memory all together, I’m not going to even bother rehashing in detail how terrible the Packers’ special teams were, or how god awful Royce Newman and Lucas Patrick played on Sunday.

So, without further ado, here are my five main takeaways from the week nine loss to Kansas City.

Jordan Love wasn’t dealt a fair hand

It’s fair to say that Jordan Love wasn’t good enough on Sunday, because truthfully he wasn’t. But, he also wasn’t nearly as bad as most of the talking heads will have you believe.

When the Utah State product had a clean pocket to throw from he did well, completing 14 of 19 passes for 115 yards. Love made some nice throws when he was able to set his feet and let it rip, and he also did a good job using his feet to escape the pocket when it was crumbling around him to pick up additional yardage.

Under pressure was a different story, he wasn’t good – not even going to mince words. When Love was under pressure he completed just five of 15 attempts for 75 yards. Although it’s hard to expect one to thrive when you face an unblocked rusher on 14 of his 34 passing attempts, but I digress.

While some of the inaccuracy problems were indeed his fault, there were several factors that played against Love that weren’t. Matt LaFleur did little by way of in-game adjustments to help his 23-year-old quarterback navigate the relentless blitzing from Kansas City.

Moreover, Lucas Patrick and Royce Newman were turnstiles half the time, and picking up the wrong defender the other half. Love barely had a chance to set his feet and read the field without being flushed out of the pocket and having to improvise.

The special teams also did Love no favors by ending two drives with no points because of mistakes made by the long snapper, holder, or Mason Crosby himself. Had the Packers’ special teams converted those two field goals, and not handed Kansas City points because of a separate special teams blunder, the Packers very well could have won that game.

This wasn’t a terrific outing for Jordan Love, but this loss was far from his fault.