After last Sunday’s win over the Patriots, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said that playing as inconsistently as they did was not a sustainable way of winning games.
Rodgers was proven correct on Sunday. After building a 20-10 lead in the first half, the Packers were outscored 17-2 after halftime in a 27-22 loss to the Giants. Rodgers was 7-of-15 for 75 yards after the break, including a pair of passes that were batted down to end the final Packers scoring chance on offense.
After the game, Rodgers returned to the need for the Packers to be steadier if they are going to win as many games as they’d like to win.
“We need to handle adversity a little better. We’re a little bit of a roller-coaster team at times,” Rodgers said, via Jason Wilde of Madison.com. “Our best teams have been more steady, so we’ve got to find that rhythm and that steadiness. The biggest issue — and again, I wish I had this perfect answer or explanation of this — we haven’t played consistent football in all three phases, and the margin of error for us in winning is small. So, we have to make those plays, especially when you’re playing against a good football team — and the Giants are a good football team. I’ve got to make the throws that are necessary, we’ve got to come up with the catches, we’ve got to run the ball, we’ve got to force some turnovers on [special] teams or on defense. When we get those opportunities, we’ve got to make those plays. We’re just not sharp enough yet to have a wider margin of error.”
One thing that the Packers might explore is relying on the run game for more of their offensive needs. Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon combined to run 19 times for 97 yards, but they only ran 20 times and dropped back to pass 40 times despite leading by 10 points at the break.