Green Bay travels east for a Sunday afternoon game at the New York Giants.
Packers’ offense vs. Giants’ defense
The Giants’ defense as a whole is not really good, but they seem to have a staple for every team they’ve ever built.
They can rush the passer.
The Giants strengthened perhaps their biggest strength in the offseason when they selected Abdul Carter with their first-round pick.
Carter joined a tandem that includes Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux, two other first-round picks.
Despite the fanfare, however, Thibodeaux and Carter have not piled up numbers in the sack department.
Maybe that’s because all of the sacks are going to Brian Burns, who entered play in Week 10 with 11 sacks on the year.
Nobody else on the team has more than 2.5, which Thibodeaux has.
The rest of the defense has been a revolving cast of characters, with a few names you might recognize.
The biggest of those is defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, who was one of the premier run defenders in all of football in his prime.
When they’re not sacking the quarterback, their defense is in a lot of trouble.
They rank in the bottom third of the NFL in points allowed, yards allowed, passing defense and rushing defense.
To put it bluntly, their defense is not very good.
Perhaps that will help Green Bay’s offense find some consistency.
The highs have been high for Green Bay’s offense.
The lows, well, they’ve been pretty low.
Two of those lows happen to come in two of their losses.
They could only muster 23 points combined against the Carolina Panthers and Cleveland Browns.
Jordan Love and the passing game will continue to try to find its way against two-high defenses as well as mitigating the loss of Tucker Kraft.
Kraft’s first full game absence came on Monday against the Philadelphia Eagles, which may have been the worst possible timing considering the quality of opponent.
That being said, this should be a game where the Packers can find some success in the passing game provided they are able to block the Giants’ front.
Green Bay’s run game continues to struggle, and that may just be who they are throughout the course of this season.
Josh Jacobs remains a quality player, but there are limited holes for him to run through.
Packers’ defense vs. Giants’ offense
The Giants’ offense looks drastically different than it did to start the season.
Russell Wilson was the starting quarterback when the Giants’ season began. He was throwing passes to Malik Nabers and handing the ball to Cam Skattebo.
Nabers and Skattebo have both been lost for the season with different gruesome lower body injuries.
Wilson had one game where he turned back the clock against the Dallas Cowboys, where he threw for more than 400 yards on the day.
Since then, he’s been benched for first-round pick Jaxson Dart.
As is the case with any rookie, there are highs and lows for Dart, but he does look like he has the goods to be a franchise quarterback.
The best game of his young career came at home against the Philadelphia Eagles, where Dart was brilliant through the air and on the ground. His ability to extend plays gave Vic Fangio and company fits, and the Giants beat the defending champions by three scores that night.
Dart’s mobility helps a leaky offensive line, but he still has taken a beating, getting sacked 19 times on the year entering Week 10.
That should be good news for Green Bay’s pass rush, which was quiet against the Carolina Panthers and was rewarded with a date against dual-threat quarterback Jalen Hurts.
Micah Parsons and Rashan Gary have formed one of the best duos in football, and they could be getting some help back with Lukas Van Ness potentially ready to return from a foot injury.
The Giants’ passing game does not have a dominant receiver in it, but Green Bay’s secondary has struggled of late.
Despite their struggles, Green Bay’s defense is far and away the best unit on their roster right now. If they can continue their stellar play, the Packers’ offense should have an opportunity to score enough points to secure a victory.
Special Teams
Green Bay was supposed to have one of the most stable situations in football at kicker.
That’s what you expect when you give out a three-year contract in the offseason to a veteran like Brandon McManus.
Instead of stable, the Packers’ kicking situation has been in flux most of the year.
McManus entered play against the Philadelphia Eagles as one of the worst kickers in football.
Meanwhile, the Packers have another kicker on their roster in Lucas Havrisik.
Havrisik made all of his kicks while McManus was sidelined with a quad injury.
Prior to the Eagles game, Matt LaFleur allowed both kickers to kick, calling it a competitive situation.
Allowing his tenured kicker to be placed in a competitive situation begs the question as to how healthy McManus truly is, and whether the Packers should have kept trotting him out there in the previous two games.
Those are questions that cannot be answered at this point, and the results were mixed to say the least.
In the return game, Green Bay has not used Keisean Nixon on returns despite his track record at the position, and Romeo Doubs is now the team’s primary punt returner.
The whole situation is in flux.
The Giants situation is similar, as they’ve placed Graham Gano on the sidelines with an injury.
Their return game has been pretty quiet for most of the year.
Nothing is guaranteed, especially with Green Bay’s special teams, but this should be an opportunity for them to play well.
