The Athletic’s Matt Schneidman on the “Dire” State of the Green Bay Packers

Rich asked Matt Schneidman to fill in the blank. State of the Packers is what? The man who covers Green Bay for The Athletic needed exactly one word.

"Dire," Schneidman said. "I understand it's only week three. I understand they're one and two and there's a lot of season left. But their biggest issues have no clear solutions."

He showed up the morning after the Falcons ran Green Bay out of Lambeau with what Rich called a playoff beard. "It's the playoffs for this team, not the one I covered," Schneidman joked. The team he covers is in a very different place.

Schneidman's case starts up front. "Their offensive line is horrific, to put it lightly," he said, citing an ESPN analytics number: a 16% pass block win rate through three games, the lowest team mark through the first three games of a season since the stat began in 2017.

Then he kept stacking. The best offensive lineman is out for the season. The second best can't stay on the field. There is no running game, so Green Bay is always in third and long. "Oh, and their feature running back currently on the commissioner exempt list. And who knows when or if he'll play this season."

Micah Parsons is probably going to start practicing next week, he said, and will probably be back in the coming weeks. "But what can that really fix with this Green Bay Packers team where a lot of things are wrong and there aren't many solutions."

Rich's response: "All right, Matt. Thanks for joining us."

Rich asked whether it was really possible Josh Jacobs might not return at all this year. Schneidman was careful. "I don't pretend to be a legal expert. What's probably going to happen is he'll get suspended and he'll be back later in the season."

The wild card, he explained, is a video. A local judge denied the victim's request to seal the records, which leaves the decision with the Hobart-Lawrence Police Department. Police said in their incident report there was probable cause that the video shows Jacobs shoving his former girlfriend to the ground, though Schneidman stressed the report didn't state specifically that's what it shows.

"Look, we saw what happened with the Ray Rice video," he said. "If that video gets out, who knows what the Packers do? Who knows if he's ever able to play in the league again?"

Is the hangover from last season still there? "They're still hungover," Schneidman said.

He walked through the collapse. Green Bay was 9-3-1 going into week 15 in Denver, second in the NFC and first in the North, with Jordan Love third in MVP odds. Then Parsons went down, and the Packers have lost six of seven since. They blew double-digit leads last year and again in week one.

The line was a known issue. "It's an even worse issue than I imagined," he said. Love, who Schneidman called a top 10 caliber quarterback, "looks so frenetic and dare I say scared back there cuz he's just anticipating getting hit on every single play." He was hit 15 times in week one. The Falcons had 12 quarterback hits Thursday. Green Bay has the second fastest average time to throw in the league at 2.5 seconds.

"He has to get rid of the ball or else he's going to get killed. That's not a philosophy or a method for success."

So what are the options? "They're running out of them," Schneidman said.

Zach Tom, one of the best right tackles in football, fully tore his patellar tendon at MetLife and is done for the year. Aaron Banks, signed to a four-year, $77 million deal to start at left guard, can't stay healthy. Jordan Morgan, the 2024 first-round pick, is playing left tackle for the first time and hasn't started well. Right guard Jacob Monk, a fifth-round pick, "has been terrible." Center Sean Rhyan is fine.

The blame, in Schneidman's view, starts at the top of the personnel department. "It's a Brian Gutekunst's problem first and foremost, I think. This is a draft and develop organization and they haven't done a good enough job drafting and developing at the position." Add what looks like a swing and a miss on Banks, and it is "a very, very unenviable spot."

Rich pointed to what is working. Christian Watson is healthy and scoring. Matthew Golden had a 100-yard night. Schneidman agreed the two are "studs" and "a really good one-two punch."

The problem is Love doesn't have time to get them the ball deep. And both Matt LaFleur and Love said after the game they couldn't pinpoint one thing the offense is doing well. "That's alarming," Schneidman said.

Rich laid out the runway: a trip to a Tampa team that is 0-2 before hosting Minnesota, then the Bears at Lambeau in week five, which he called a must-win, then Dallas. Schneidman went further. Every game is a must-win for a team that pushed its chips in on the Parsons trade and gave itself a three-year window, "which they're in year two of now."

Then came Tucker Kraft. Schneidman said he's covered every game LaFleur has coached in Green Bay, and he isn't sure any player has been more beloved by the fans. "He says the right thing all the time. He carries himself unbelievably on and off the field."

Not this time. "Yesterday was the first time I've seen him misstep. And this is just my opinion. I think it's a completely tone-deaf statement."

He gave Kraft some room. Maybe it was heat of the moment. Maybe he feels differently today. But the argument didn't land. "They spend hundreds of dollars of their hard-earned money to come watch you play. You didn't play well, the Packers played terribly."

And Kraft was on an island. Watson and the team's rookie starting corner said the opposite. Watson's version: "If we don't want them to boo, we got to play better."

Rich offered his read from the Packers fans he knows. They aren't booing the players. They're booing the decision to run it back with the coach and the GM.

Schneidman nodded along. On his own show, The Green Bay Beat, they reached the same conclusion that morning. "I think where it really comes from is booing the stagnancy that one of the most iconic franchises in sports has come to." The Packers have been the seventh seed with an early playoff exit in each of the last three years, then extended LaFleur and Gutekunst anyway. Schneidman noted he was in favor of that decision.

The fan base, he said, spent the offseason in apathy. Fans wondered, rightfully in his view, why they should expect anything different with the same head coach and GM back again. "And look how this season started." LaFleur's approval rating right now? "Dismal." Gutekunst isn't much higher.

Rich pushed back a bit. This team was 9-3-1 before Parsons went down, and LaFleur hasn't forgotten how to coach. How long was the extension?

Nobody knows publicly, Schneidman said. Not the length, not the figures, not whether there's an out if Green Bay misses the playoffs. But he knows team president Ed Policy, and Policy has said he won't make emotional decisions. Policy has been with the Packers since around 2012, served on the committees that hired both Gutekunst and LaFleur, and has been at every game LaFleur has coached.

After the playoff loss to the Bears, Schneidman recalled, Policy said he wasn't judging LaFleur on one game or even one season. "He was making it on seven years worth of evidence."

So even a 5-12 season might not do it. "He just doesn't seem like a guy to base these big decisions off of one year or a fragmented period of time," Schneidman said. "Fans will hate hearing that."

Rich couldn't resist the parallel: a proud franchise, a restless fan base, a coach and GM the fans are tired of. "Sounds like the baseball team you're rooting for, too, Matt."

"Number 28 this year," Schneidman said. "Let's go."