Packers Back In The Win Column

Packers Handle Bengals, 27-18

Entering Sunday, the Green Bay Packers hadn’t won a football game in one month and one day. While their 27-18 home win over the Cincinnati Bengals was far from perfect, coach Matt LaFleur felt “a sense of relief” to have his club back in the win column.

“You always get punched in the face in this league and our guys kept responding,” he said. “That’s what we need to be (resilient), and you have to go through those moments in order to be that. Bottom line, we found a way.”

The defense pitched a nearly perfect shutout in the first half, only to allow Cincinnati to score on three straight second-half drives. Meanwhile, after a disjointed, 10-point first half, the Packer offense delivered three consecutive second-half scoring drives of its own to keep the Bengals at arms’ length.

The defense started the game with the same suffocating presence it displayed in the first three weeks of the season. Quarterback Joe Flacco – traded from Cleveland to Cincinnati five days ago – looked bewildered trying to execute a new playbook with new teammates against a fast Packers defense. The Bengals amassed one first down on their first four drives.

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Gut Reactions: Packers Take Care of Bengals

CHTV co-founder Aaron Nagler chats with Packers fans worldwide after the team's 27-18 win over the Bengals.

Packers 27 Bengals 18 Game Balls & Lame Calls

While it was not the beat down, get right, "put em away early" game that many were hoping for, the Packers took care of business against the Bengals, and move to 3-1-1 on the season.

The Bengals were able to keep the game close due to an early interception from Love, and a ten minute drive to start the second half off. Take those two factors out of the equation, and this was a fairly dominant performance by the Packers against an inferior team. They were in control of this game basically from the start, and won by two scores.

But they were still a late fourth quarter third and long conversion away from handing the ball back to Cincinnati, only up six.

There's a odd schism in the identity of the 2025 Packers, and it's a major factor in the fans' frustrations with the team. This is a team that feels like it should be a veteran, world-wise unit, capable of disciplined play and able to put away any kind of opponent. We feel this way because, for the most part, the core of this team is at least in its second or third year. We know these faces, and we've seen them grow, from the scrappy 2023 version of themselves that rode house money all the way to the divisional round to now.

But the reality of the Packers is that they are not a veteran team. In fact, for the third year in a row, they are the youngest team in the entire league. By proxy, that makes them the most inexperienced team in the entire league. These ebbs and flows that we've seen from the team are a feature, not a bug. By design, there's going to be a lot of self improvement for the entire roster to make before January.

Dive in to this week’s Game Balls and Lame Calls.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Bengals vs Packers

Aaron Nagler hands out the Good, the Bad and the Ugly from the Green Bay Packers Week 6 win over the Cincinnati Bengals.

Packers Snap Counts Vs. The Bengals: Week 6, 2025

The Packers signed Kicker Lukas Havrisik to the 53-man roster. They signed OT Brant Banks, who was a street free agent after the Titans waived him after renting him for a week, to the practice squad while releasing DE Deslin Alexandre from the PS to make room. The Packers did not elevate anyone from the PS. OT Anthony Belton, Kicker Brandon McManus, and DE Devonte Wyatt were inactive due to injury. Kamal Hadden was a healthy scratch.

Check out who played against the Bengals and how much in this week’s installment of Packers Snap Counts.

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The Lass Word: Staying In The Thick Of It

You’d love it to be prettier, cleaner, more convincing.  But clunky, tenuous victories such as this are critical to the Green Bay Packers chances of staying in the thick of the playoff picture while they struggle to become a complete team.  The 27-18 win over the Bengals improves their record to 3-1-1.  That puts them ahead of five teams who stand at 4-2, with potentially a sixth team if the Commanders win Monday night.  Only the Bucs, who stand at 5-1, are currently above them in the NFC. 

That’s pretty good shape for a team that is clearly not hitting on all cylinders.  The Packers have been oscillating between being a defensive menace and an offensive juggernaut, but can’t seem to find the path to being both at the same time.  In fact, the identity of the team can rotate within the same game, as it did Sunday. The defense dominated the first half, then largely disappeared as the offense found its dynamic after the break.  The result is a team that can’t put games away, but doesn’t capitulate either. 

Green Bay didn’t play well enough to beat a good team.  But they weren’t playing a good team.  They were playing a battered Bengals outfit that was reduced to starting a 40 year old quarterback they had acquired six days ago, who was playing behind one of the worst offensive lines in the league. Then they lost all pro defensive lineman Trey Hendrickson in the first quarter.  An elite team would have blown them out.  The Packers merely got the job done.  It buys them another week to find the keys to that elite penthouse….

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