Packers in the preseason win column

Packers Stage Comeback vs Colts

The Green Bay Packers overcame themselves as much as they did the Indianapolis Colts to earn their first preseason win in comeback fashion Saturday, 24-19. Green Bay committed 12 penalties for 95 yards, while Indianapolis balanced the flag fest by adding 11 for 103. Coach Matt LaFleur rested almost all starters for the game as planned.

The second-string offense opened the game with a promising drive against the Colts’ starting defense. The Packers converted two fourth downs en route to the fringe red zone. On a 4th & 1, Chris Brooks ducked left behind Jordan Morgan and Donovan Jennings for the conversion.

Then from midfield, Malik Willis bought time inside a clean pocket before John Fitzpatrick broke open over the middle. Willis fired the pass to him for the 4th & 5 conversion. However, the drive stalled and backup kicker Mark McNamee missed his first NFL field goal attempt wide left from 39 yards.

The sixth play on the Packers’ second drive epitomized much of the game for both teams. Facing a 3rd and 4 from his own 41, Willis – much like Jordan Love a year ago – opted for a low-percentage deep throw down the sideline into tight coverage. Willis dropped the ball beautifully into the bucket for receiver Julian Hicks who made a remarkable one-handed, sliding catch as he kept his knee in bounds. A holding call on Jennings negated the big play.

The Green Bay defensive backups held their own against the Indianapolis starters, though the Colts had plenty of their own self-inflicted mistakes. The Colts’ first drive stalled at midfield after a botched snap. Arron Mosby forced a holding penalty on Indianapolis’ second drive in the low red zone which led to a Colts field goal, 3-0.

Rookie tackle Anthony Belton’s awful second quarter began on the next Green Bay drive. He started the drive with a false start, and effectively ended it at midfield when he committed an inexcusable unnecessary roughness penalty. On the second Packer drive of the quarter, Belton committed a facemask penalty while the Colts recovered an Emmanuel Wilson fumble. Belton’s blunders continued to worsen.

Taylor Elgersma, now at quarterback, led the Packers to the Colts’ 20-yard line with under 30 seconds left in the half. On first down, Belton allowed a pressure that almost turned into a sack and fumble. On the next play, the mammoth lineman didn’t line up on the line of scrimmage. The miscue negated a touchdown pass Elgersma rifled down the middle between two defenders to Ben Sims. Green Bay settled for a field goal to end the half, and cameras showed LaFleur expressing his frustration to Belton as the team jogged to the locker room. Belton committed five penalties in the second quarter and directly cost the team four points.

Be sure to read our game recap for more!

Packers vs Colts: PRESEASON Reaction and review

CHTV co-founder Aaron Nagler chats with Packers fans worldwide after the team's preseason win over the Indianapolis Colts.

Curd is the Word: Penalties Can Taint Victories

A win is a win. Even when it's ugly, a victory still counts. This may be true in the regular season, but in the preseason, sometimes victories can feel a bit tainted. That's not to say that the team didn't deserve to win; they put in the work and pulled off the W. But when you walk away, realizing you have a lot of work to do before these games are real, the scoreboard reading in your favor at the end isn't quite as sweet.

That's what happened in yesterday's 23-19 preseason game 2 victory against the Indianapolis Colts. Now, don't get me wrong, Taylor Elgersma looked pretty good outside of an interception he threw, which ended up being called back, Izzy Abanikanda and Amar Johnson looked like they're going to make a big case for at least a practice squad position with the team, and Sean Clifford made a great TD run which ended up sealing the victory. But one of the most noticeable parts of the game was the consistent flags against the Packers' offense in the first half.

During the first 30 minutes of play, the Packers were penalized 11 times for a total of 85 yards. Usually, as a fan, when such things happen, your first impulse is to blame the referees, begging them to let the players play the game or accusing them of being biased. But when the majority of those penalties are either done pre-snap or are an obvious infraction, they become maddening and game-tainting. No matter the outcome, exciting victory or not, you know you have a lot of work to do.

It's Always All About Injuries

National Football League teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars on talent, coaching staffs, armies of scouts, and technology. The Green Bay Packers will employ no fewer than thirty coaches this year. Each one will spend countless hours this season breaking down video and formulating strategy. They will pore over analytics, trying to identify trends and percentages. They do this because any little edge they can find might make the difference between winning and losing. Winning games is the way they keep their jobs. The way they provide for their families.

And yet, despite all the hard work and finances invested, the fate of every team will almost certainly boil down to something over which they have little, if any, control. Injuries. How many players will get hurt, which players get hurt, how badly they get hurt, how many games will they miss. The answers to these questions will make the difference between a successful season and a disappointing one.

Which is maddening, especially since there is no definitive evidence that any particular practice or game strategy works better to avoid injuries, short of just holding players out. Even that is problematic. If you hold players out, they can’t improve. So you might as well play your guys, and let destiny play its hand.

The Saints, 49ers, Panthers, Patriots and Dolphins all dealt with the most massive injury issues in 2024. It’s no coincidence that all of them finished with losing records, falling short of expectations. According to the Sports Injury Control website, the healthiest teams in 2024 were the Ravens, Falcons, Vikings, Eagles and Broncos. All except the Falcons made the playoffs, the Vikings and Broncos far surpassed expectations, and the Eagles won the Super Bowl.

We bring this up because injuries have been a major topic of conversation in training camp. As fans, we probably give them too much emphasis because we are starved for information about our team during this time of the year. Often coaches choose to hold players out of training camp workouts out of an abundance of caution, to ensure their readiness for the regular season. Many would play if the games counted. Yet it’s hard not to cringe at the laundry list of key players who are missing valuable training camp time, a list that includes Jordan Love, Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks, Xavier McKinney, Nate Hobbs, Romeo Doubs and of course, Christian Watson. To this point, the injury gods have been reasonably benevolent. Of these critical starters, only Watson is confirmed not available to start week one, as expected. The Packers will need all the others to heal up quickly because the season starts with a bang as the Detroit Lions come to town.

We ruminate over which players are the best, which will break out, which will disappoint, the difficulty of the schedule, the competence of the coaches. We can make bold predictions and informed speculation. But you can’t predict injuries. To have a great season, you must be very good. And when it comes to injuries, you must be very lucky.

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Packers 23 Colts 19: Game Balls & Lame Calls

The Green Bay Packers will not go winless in the 2025 preseason, and it appears that the rumors of our demise were greatly exaggerated (if you had just been following along to a certain subsection of fans, you might have thought we lost both games by seventy).

There's a certain balance to be struck in the preseason, when deciding how much to care about performances. In the ultimate team game of football, it seems like preseason has a perfect storm of factors thrown around to muddy the waters. Are you resting starters? Are your opponents? Are you playing with scheme, or intention? Is your opponent? There's a lot to try to sort through when examining a team or an individual's performance in the preseason, but because we love each and every one one of you, Cheesehead TV is here to do it.

Despite numerous reports that the Packers' pass rush dominated the Colts offensive line during joint practice on Thursday (to the tune of ten reported sacks, many by Lukas Van Ness, who continues to stack success) that did not translate well into Saturday's game. Now, obviously Green Bay's pass rushers did not play Saturday, and it was not until the Colts' first team was done that the Packers began to get stops against Indianapolis. This is actually in parallel to the second team's performance last week as well, where despite giving up points early to the Jets and Colts, opposing offenses were stunted in the second half (six points for the Colts, thirteen against the Jets). Overall, the team tackled well, rallied to the football, and we even saw some attempts to strip the ball away that we were missing last week.

Offensively... well. The second half was a much cleaner product, but going into halftime the offense looked to be repeating the undisciplined habits highlighted in the game against New York. The team saved a lot of face with their comeback win on Saturday night, even with the lower stakes inherently involved.

Check out this week’s Game Balls and Lame Calls!

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