GREEN BAY – The head coach called it out.
In the first answer Matt LaFleur gave at his usual day-after-game press conference Monday, he called what the Packers played in Sunday's loss to the Vikings "sloppy football."
As he continued, he wasn't just referencing the pre-snap penalties that once again reared their ugly head in the 27-25 defeat. He also talked about certain fundamentals on each side of the ball that didn't measure up against one of the NFC's elite teams.
Defensively, LaFleur gave Vikings QB Sam Darnold credit for playing "a hell of a game" in throwing for a career-high 377 yards, but neither the pass rush nor coverage was good enough on Green Bay's end.
While Darnold wasn't pressured much, at times that was due to the Vikings keeping a running back and/or tight end in to help with protection, at least in the initial moments after the snap. Those are called "max protect" scenarios and make it very difficult for a traditional four-man rush to get home.
But if seven blockers are protecting, that means only three targets are downfield against as many as seven defenders, and Darnold was still finding holes. If an offense is max protecting, "you should glove whatever (route) concept" is being run, LaFleur said, and that wasn't happening.
"There were some tight-window throws he made (but) we've got to keep depth," he added, referring to the middle level of the zone coverage. "There's got to be depth on the second level. You can't have these big discrepancies between your second and third levels."
That said, the Vikings didn't max protect on all of Darnold's 44 drop-backs, and the Packers generated just one sack and four QB hits, which made for a long day.
"Your coverage is going to get better if you can get a better pass rush, as well, so it all goes hand in hand," LaFleur said. "The rush goes with the coverage.
"We've got to do a better job of trying to get pressure on the quarterback, moving him off the spot."
The defense wasn't helped by its injury situation, particularly in the secondary when safety Zayne Anderson exited with a concussion. That forced rookie Javon Bullard, who had just returned from a two-week ankle injury and had been practicing only at slot corner, to take Anderson's safety spot. That created "musical chairs," as Keisean Nixon bounced between outside and slot corner, not conducive to defensive continuity.
But injuries are a fact of life, and the expectations are to play better in the face of them.
Offensively, LaFleur lamented the inability to beat the Vikings' man-to-man coverage, which they played more than the Packers anticipated. As a play-caller, LaFleur views man coverage as a chance for a receiver to flat-out beat his defender to potentially gash the defense, but the overall execution on those plays rarely came together.
"When you get those opportunities vs. man, which they played a bunch of man, somebody's got to win," he said. "You got to win with your protection, (then) wideouts, tight ends, backs, somebody's got to win in their route, and then we've got to make the throw."
The more the Packers struggled with the Vikings' man coverage, the more Minnesota kept changing things up with their rush and coverage patterns to keep the offense off-balance. The result was QB Jordan Love throwing for just 64 yards through 3½ quarters before getting 121 on the two late TD drives during the frantic comeback attempt.
"I didn't feel like it was to our standard," LaFleur said of the overall performance. "That was disappointing."
