GREEN BAY – While the Packers' defense played its steadiest and best game to date in Sunday's win over the Texans, it wasn't just the offense that went through wild swings of strong and subpar play.
The special teams did, too.
Most of the good came from punter Daniel Whelan, who played a major factor in field position by averaging 56.8 yards (51.6 net) on five punts, repeatedly flipping the field when the offense was backed up and couldn't move the ball.
Whelan also got a low snap down and held properly for new kicker Brandon McManus to drill the game-winning 45-yard field goal as time expired.
But the Packers committed two sizable miscues in the punt-return game that very easily could've cost them that chance to win, and those will be a focus of discussion throughout the week before the team heads to Jacksonville for its Week 8 matchup.
First, Keisean Nixon let a high, hanging punt drop in front of him in the second quarter, and the bounding ball glanced off of blocker Corey Ballentine, making it a live muff the Texans recovered to set up their first touchdown.
Matt LaFleur hadn't yet spoken directly with Nixon when the head coach met with the media Monday, but he emphasized it's on the punt returner to be decisive in that situation to prevent what occurred.
"You've got one of two options," LaFleur said. "You have to either catch the ball, or you have to call everybody off and get everybody out of the way."
Nixon did neither, and disaster struck.
The second punt-return error came from a different returner, Jayden Reed. On a booming 66-yard punt in the third quarter, Reed was originally stationed around the 15-yard line and backpedaled all the way to the goal line to catch the punt, rather than let it bounce into the end zone.
He wound up getting tackled on the 4-yard line, costing the Packers 16 yards of field position compared to a touchback. Green Bay went three-and-out and punted from deep in its own territory.
"He just obviously lost track of where he was because that's a no-brainer," LaFleur said. "You let that ball go when you get too far inside that 10-yard line.
"So obviously two big mistakes that we have got to get corrected."
Fortunately, the special-teams units successfully navigated the mid-week arrival of McManus and made the necessary adjustments for him to be comfortable with the placekicking operation on short notice.
Despite the lack of familiarity and McManus' short time in Green Bay, the sideline was full of confidence the 11-year veteran would put the game-winner through the uprights.
"Somebody was standing next to (assistant special teams coach) Byron (Storer) and Byron's like, 'Yeah, no problem. He's gonna make it,'" LaFleur said. "So yeah, I think we had a lot of confidence in him."
LaFleur would rather not have a game come down to that, though, particularly when a do-or-die moment was avoidable if the offense and special teams hadn't been so up-and-down throughout the day.
The offense scored three touchdowns and put together the two-minute drive at the end to get in field-goal range, but it also went three-and-out five times and threw two interceptions.
That's what LaFleur was thinking about as the game came down to McManus' kick.
"It was unfortunate, I would say, in the moment that we had to be in that situation," he said. "A lot of times you're just rolodexing the mistakes that you made, or missed opps, to put yourself in that position.
"So you never want to put somebody in that position, but I mean, shoot, a lot of these games are going to go down to a last-second field goal. You saw it in the Detroit-Minnesota game as well."
