The Green Bay Packers dealt with a plethora of problems on Sunday afternoon at Lambeau Field in their 16-13 loss to the Carolina Panthers.
Defensively, the Packers' pass-rush was basically nonexistent, and Jeff Hafley's unit could do absolutely nothing to stop the Panthers' rushing attack, allowing a season-high 163 yards on the ground, 130 of which came from Rico Dowdle.
The Green Bay offense somehow managed to tally 369 total yards, but we're still not quite sure how that happened, as Matt LaFleur's conservative play-calling for much of the game had even Greg Olsen questioning his thought process during the Fox broadcast.
But we're not here to talk about any of that. No, instead, we're here to discuss the other big problem Green Bay had, that being yet another missed field goal from kicker Brandon McManus, which obviously turned out to be a costly miss, as the Packers lost by just three points. He doesn't deserve all the blame, but seeing as how he's missed three field goals in the last two games after missing the previous two with a quad injury, this is an issue.
Matt LaFleur continues to downplay Packers' kicking problem, plans to stick with Brandon McManus
But LaFleur, who made excuses for McManus following his two misses against the Pittsburgh Steelers last week, has continued to do so this week.
And while many Packers fans are clamoring for the team to make the switch back to Lucas Havrisik, who made all six of his extra-point attempts and all four of his field goal tries when McManus was sidelined, including a franchise-record 61-yarder against the Arizona Cardinals, LaFleur, who on Sunday vaguely said his kicker was "battling through his own issues," said during his Monday press conference that he believes those issues are health-related. Nevertheless, he says the plan is for McManus to be his guy moving forward.
"He didn't kick for two straight weeks," LaFleur said. "But that's a process we're working through. We felt confident, in terms of what we've been seeing out at practice, and just his ability to make them. That's where it all starts for us."
That certainly can't be what Cheeseheads are wanting to hear at this point. Making kicks in practice is great and all, but that doesn't really matter during actual games. I mean, McManus made his first 25 kicks during training camp, but that success rate obviously hasn't translated to the regular season, as he's connected on just 11 of 16 field goals and has also missed an extra-point attempt.
Now, to be fair, he did have a couple of kicks blocked. But again, this is a problem. And the fact that LaFleur just continues to downplay things only makes it worse.