Miscues the Packers need to clean up in the back half of the year

The Green Bay Packers are coming off a rocky but successful first half of the season. With Jordan Love battling through leg injuries, the offense has yet to hit its stride or take that "next step" that many expected they would coming into the year.

In an odd turn of events, the Packers' defense is seemingly securing their victories, a role generally assumed by the offense over the past decade. With the massive contributions from new safety Xavier McKinney, the defense under new coordinator Jeff Hafley has been mostly flourishing.

However, in the back half of the season, as the Packers journey through a fairly demanding schedule, they must overcome some self-inflicted problem areas to lock in their playoff spot in a now-crowded NFC.

While Love has yet to live up to the expectations he set after a dominant end to last season, it's been evident the leg injuries are slowing him down and preventing him from stepping into throws as comfortably. While he needs to clean up his accuracy and make better choices on forced throws, there are a few more glaring issues with the team.

Here are three things for the Packers to clean up.

3 areas Packers must improve coming out of their bye week

Penalties

Uncharacteristically, for a Matt LaFleur-led team, the Packers are committing the seventh-most penalties per game this season (7.3), most of which come at costly moments or after significant plays. A trend to keep an eye on is that the penalties didn't start adding up until Love took over at quarterback.

After finishing last season with the eighth-most penalties (103), their 67 penalties after the first half of the season were the 10th-most in the league. For context, they only had 89 penalties in 2022 and 69 in 2021.

It's been both sides of the ball, too, primarily due to holding. The nine defensive holding calls tied for most after the first half of the season. Meanwhile, their 11 offensive holding calls are tied for the fifth-highest total.

Most concerning has been the red zone penalties, as the Packers have had 18 penalties inside the 20-yard line. The costly red zone penalties play a prominent role in the Packers being a bottom-five red zone scoring offense as they come out of the bye week.

RELATED: Matt LaFleur issues a blunt warning to Packers players about penalty issues

While left tackle Rasheed Walker has been the most panelized player, he's actually improved quite noticeably since his early woes. A trend that would be extremely helpful to continue, as his struggles in the first few games wiped away numerous runs from Josh Jacobs.

Knowing that the Packers have generally played clean games under LaFleur, it's mission critical they get back on track in the remaining games.

Pass-rush production

Had it not been for an outlier game against the Tennessee Titans when the Packers recorded eight sacks, they'd be averaging one of the lowest sacks per game totals in the NFL. Still, after 10 weeks, only 11 teams produced fewer sacks per game than the Packers' 2.4.

After trading away Preston Smith due to an agreed-upon poor fit in the new scheme, the Packers have only 36 combined pressures from their remaining top three edge-rushers, Rashan Gary, Lukas Van Ness, and Kingsley Enagbare. For context, the individual league leader in pressures, Trey Hendrickson, has 52 heading into Week 11.

Oddly enough, the Packers are utilizing stunts regularly, finishing with the second-most stunt usage in football after 10 weeks. However, it commonly leads to Gary and Van Ness working too deep inside and taking too long to push up towards the quarterback. Whereas both players have dominant bull rushes coming off the edge, there have been noticeably fewer pass-rush wins from either player as the Packers increasingly use stunts.

While Hafley's scheme design has successfully limited big outside rush gains or quarterbacks from beating the Packers with their legs, they did not pay Gary top dollar to set the edge and not blow up the pocket as often as he's proven capable.

Van Ness and Enagbare, who showed promise last season, have also taken a step back into irrelevancy in the new scheme. If it were one player, that'd be one thing, but no Packers player has consistently been getting home to the quarterback.

With the Packers having another critical matchup with the Lions and Vikings in the back half of the year, it's imperative they get more out of their pass rush to secure victories that will heavily influence playoff standings. Hafley needs to use his first bye week as an NFL defensive coordinator to recalibrate in this department.

Drops

The Packers' receiving corps entered the season with rightfully enormous expectations after a wildly successful group effort down the stretch last season. While Jayden Reed shined early, even his stardom has faded as he has fallen victim to similar drop jitters as teammate Dontayvion Wicks.

After only two drops last season, PFF has credited Wicks with six already this year, exhibiting similar struggles as year two Davante Adams. In fact, of all players with at least 10 targets on the season, Wicks is running away with the highest drop percentage in the NFL (27.3). However, it's Reed who heads into the back half of the season, leading the team in drops (7).

As the Packers offense looks to get back on track to the tune of their second half to last season, Wicks and Reed will both need to get right after the bye week. Reed has still been mostly reliable this season and has produced plenty of chunk plays for the Packers, but his 16.3 drop rate is the eighth-most of receivers with at least 10 targets.

As Wicks remains one of the best in the NFL at creating separation and as Reed is used all over the offense, Love will continue to look both of their way plenty. It will be awfully tough for the Packers to go as they did last season without two major contributors hauling in passes at the reliable clip they've exhibited previously.

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