The Green Bay Packers are 9-3 on the campaign and will be traveling to play the 11-1 Detroit Lions in a pivotal NFC North showdown on Thursday Night Football.
The Packers are rolling heading into Week 14, winning three straight games. Although they are playing some great football, there are always areas where teams can improve. And first-year defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley is annoyed with the defense for making the same ‘infuriating’ mistake.
“It’s infuriating.” — Jeff Hafley
“It’s become such a problem and it’s going to kill us.” — Matt LaFleur
The Packers have *lined up* offsides four times in the last two games and they lead the NFL in offsides penalties.
Story: https://t.co/p2biFtCxiu
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) December 4, 2024
The Packers have found trouble lining up behind the line of scrimmage throughout the season. Over the past two games, Green Bay has been called for offsides on four different occasions.
Defensive end Kingsley Enagbare has been called for two offside penalties. Rashan Gary and Lukas Van Ness were called for the other two. The Packers also lead the NFL with eight offsides penalties that have been accepted, including 12 total offsides calls (four were declined).
Not to mention that Green Bay has been called for five neutral zone infractions and three encroachment penalties.
These mistakes don’t sit well with Hafley.
“It’s infuriating. You want to talk about just giving away free yards and free plays? You know how hard it is to get somebody stopped on third and fourth down? I mean, we had two red-zone stops last week because we stopped them. They were going to go for a field goal, we jumped on a field goal and then we stopped them again. You go back to the last Lions game, we had a four-point swing, obviously stopped them and jumped offsides on the same deal. That can’t happen. I mean, it can’t. Like, to me, pre-snap and post-snap penalties are totally inexcusable. You’re just giving away free yards and free plays. It can’t happen. It’s being addressed and it’s not OK and we have to do something about it. We’ve got to clean those up.”
– Jeff Hafley on Monday
As the regular season draws closer to an end and postseason football continues is near, these mistakes can’t happen.
Every yard matters, so the Packers can’t get into a habit of giving the opponent free yards. This will certainly be a point of emphasis going forward and something Green Bay needs to clean up.
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