Packers look to keep it rolling in Cleveland

Time to Give Brian Gutekunst the Credit He Deserves

The Packers are now 2-0 and proving to be one of the best teams in the NFL. After a commanding Thursday night win over the Washington Commanders, the Packers have some extra time off to recover and reflect on their start. This extra time allowed for a Sunday full of football without any emotions attached. It also led to musings about how lucky Packer fans are to have Matt LaFleur and Brian Gutekunst at the helm. The Packers have one of the most talented and deepest rosters in the NFL. They are consistently a competitive franchise. There are quite a few teams around the league with rosters in much worse shape than Green Bay’s roster, yet Brian Gutekunst’s name never seems to come up when discussing the league’s best general managers.

That seems flat-out wrong.

Let’s rewind to January of 2018. The Packers had just gone 7-9 and missed the playoffs. It was the first time a Mike McCarthy-coached team finished under .500 in a season since 2008. Fans were starting to call for his firing. The Packers also were starting to see the returns of the last three draft classes, and they weren’t good. It was becoming evident that Ted Thompson was losing his magic touch. Things were trending in the wrong direction, so Mark Murphy made a decision, one that continues to look better every day.

Mark Murphy decided to hire Brian Gutekunst as the general manager (GM) of the Green Bay Packers on January 8, 2018. Eliot Wolf and Russ Ball were also strong candidates for the position, but Murphy ultimately went with Gutekunst. Over the last eight years as the GM of the Green Bay Packers, the Packers have been one of the best organizations; a model for success. Despite having an impressive record, Gutekunst isn’t often brought up when thinking of the best general managers in the NFL. It’s often names like Howie Roseman, Brett Veach, Les Snead, Eric DeCosta, or Brad Holmes, but Brian Gutekunst deserves to be in the conversation.

What makes for a good GM? Ultimately, the best GMs construct rosters that win football games. They are elite talent evaluators who use multiple avenues to build balanced and deep rosters that can sustain success year after year. Brian Gutekunst has done exactly that. He’s helped build a winning franchise, one that has won and is well-positioned to keep winning. He uses strong drafting to maintain the foundation of the roster, but isn’t afraid to make big splashes when opportunities arise. Gutekunst has proven to be elite at evaluating talent and roster building, yet he’s still not given the respect he deserves. It’s time for Gutekunst to get his flowers and be recognized among the league’s best.

Packer Transplants 303 — Leading with defense

CHTV co-founders Aaron Nagler and Corey Behnke are back for Packer Transplants LIVE! The guys examine the Packers 2-0 start after the team's 27-18 victory over the Commanders and look ahead to Sunday's showdown with the Cleveland Browns.

Do the Packers have a run game problem?

We are officially through the first two weeks of the season, and so far the Packers offense has looked absolutely top notch. They’ve scored 27 points twice, looking sharp as Jordan Love has commanded the passing attack with deep throws and in improved chemistry with his receivers, who look fantastic to start the season. Losing Jayden Reed for 6-8 weeks is a blow, but may also give him the opportunity to heal up his foot fracture that he otherwise would have been playing through every week.

If there has been a wrinkle in the offensive dominance, it’s been a bit of a slow start with getting the run game going. When I say that, I want to be clear that I don't mean I think the run game has been absolutely terrible, because it hasn’t been! But let’s take a look at a few raw numbers to get an idea of where the team stands.

Through these first two games, the team has rushed for 213 yards total (with seven total rushers), two touchdowns, no fumbles, and a 3.9 YPA (Yards per Attempt). Again, not terrible. But the YPA is really the area I’d love to focus our attention on. A 3.9 YPA is just slightly below league average, which usually hovers around a 4.0- 4.5 kind of range. 3.9 has the Packers in 18th place right now, which tracks with those statistical averages. As I mentioned though, that 3.9 YPA includes seven total rushers, so what does that number turn into when we look at just the running backs? It drops down to a 3.5 average, now well below the NFL average, and would land the team at 21st in the league, just behind the Buffalo Bills. Josh Jacobs himself holds a 3.6 YPA average, with 150 yards over 42 attempts.

Looking back at last year, the team finished with a 4.7 YPA, which was eighth in the NFL. The running backs together held a 4.5 YPA, and Josh Jacobs himself ended with a 4.4 YPA. So clearly, through these first two games, there has been a dropoff regarding the efficiency of the run game as a whole. So where exactly does the fault lie? 

A huge Beer Company copied OUR popular local beer

Aaron and Corey discuss how a mega beer corporation copied the design style of Carry the G beer. Cheesehead TV and Gathering Place Brewing's popular local beer made by Packers fans, for Packers fans.

The Packers should not be sellers in the trade market

At the beginning of the league year in 2026, the Packers will be $380,630 over the cap, and that’s before attempting to re-sign any of their pending free agents. Now, the Packers have tons of tools at their disposal to get comfortably under the cap, including restructures, void year contracts, and player cuts. Plus, an absolute wizard of a cap guru in Russ Ball. There’s no need to worry about how the Packers will navigate adding Parsons to the mix. The point I’m trying to make is that there won’t be a lot of room to re-sign their own free agents, come March. Trading away some of those pending free agents for compensation now, instead of waiting to let them walk in free agency, could make sense from a financial / draft standpoint.

Ready why the Packers shouldn't even consider it.

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The Evolution of the Next Man Up

Injuries to key players are some of the absolute worst things to happen in professional sports. They can derail a team's season before it even gets started. You're a hot team heading into the middle of the season at 6-2, but then your star left tackle goes down for six weeks. How are you going to protect the blind side of your quarterback now?

Years ago, it wasn't uncommon to see a team immediately look elsewhere for replacements, whether it be free agency, the waiver wire, or to their best trade options at the deadline. They had to, because whoever else was on their depth chart to replace the injured player just wasn't going to cut it as a starter to maintain the high level the team is used to receiving from the position for that many games.

Around the league today, you still see a “go get someone” mentality with other franchises. Once a key player goes down, a new player is brought in. That demonstrates a lack of quality depth. For the Packers in the latter half of the last 20 years, this has not been an issue. It's always been the next man up. From Mike McCarthy to Matt LaFleur, whenever they're asked who will replace an injured player, they always look to the next player on the depth chart. And for the most part, that depth player fills in just fine.

Just one game into the 2025 season, the Packers immediately had their offensive line depth tested. With Zach Tom suffering an oblique injury and Aaron Banks dealing with an ankle and groin injury, the team had two holes to fill on its offensive line within a few days. Disaster right? Not for a team that invests in the depth of their roster. Former first-round pick Jordan Morgan filled in nicely at left guard in place of Aaron Banks, and this year's second-round pick, Anthony Belton, filled in fairly well also at right tackle. Across from these two young players was one of the most experienced defensive fronts in the league, and they held their own and then some. Many fans glued themselves to the fact that Anthony Belton was flagged for offensive holding on the first drive of the game, and had a few struggles early, but overall, he played 28 pass-blocking snaps and didn't allow a single pressure.

Belton and Tom may not be the only "next man up" examples we see early this year. With Jayden Reed's injury and obvious future absence for several games, the Packers' wide receiver depth will need to step up. Given all the options they have at the position, Reed probably won't just be replaced by one person, but there is a chance third-round pick Savion Williams could see some extended time on the field with Reed out. In the first two games of the season, Williams was kept more as a situational gadget player than a rotating wide receiver, only seeing 11 offensive snaps, but between him and Malik Heath, we could see an increase in action.

The evolution of the next-man-up mentality in Green Bay has allowed them to keep up their momentum as well as team chemistry. Quickly replacing the next man on the depth chart with an outsider before they truly get a chance does not do well in the locker room. Promoting the next man on the depth chart shows confidence from the coaching staff and front office in those they have in the locker room. It shows players that, despite not starting, they could still have a place on this team should the time come. The team that lifts the Lombardi trophy at season’s end is the one overflowing with confidence and chemistry.

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Defense Is Playing Like There Are 14 Guys on the Field

Aaron and Pack-A-Day Podcast creator Andy Herman break down why this defensive unit feels unstoppable right now, from Micah Parsons wreaking havoc and a defensive line that’s winning everywhere. They discuss Jeff Hafley’s “11 hats to the ball” vision coming to life, how the Packers completely shut down Washington, and why this defense finally has the speed, depth, and attitude fans have been waiting for.

Extended Break Offers Time to Reflect

The Packers enjoyed the first of their two mini byes this week. The time offers some extra opportunity for rest and recuperation, but also some reflection, especially in the wake of everything else that transpired over week two in the NFL.

After two weeks, there is no other team in the NFL that has been as impressive as the Green Bay Packers. Yes, the Philadelphia Eagles remain the defending champs and thus the team to beat in the NFC–but they had close calls against a mediocre Dallas team and against a Chiefs team that many expect to no longer be the class of the AFC.

The Packers physically dominated a previously physically dominant Lions team, and then did it to a Commanders team that was in the NFC Championship a season ago and was a trendy Super Bowl pick in the preseason.

Watching the Lions rack up 52 against the Bears was hilarious, of course, but it was also a reminder of the significance of what the Packers did in week one. Either the Packers are so good that they fully shut down a dominant Lions offense, or the Lions were so tilted by their first game against the Packers that they took all their anger out on the Bears.

Either way, the Packers are now in their heads rather than the other way around, as it’s been for the last several years.

And consider this: not since 1995 have the Packers opened their season by holding consecutive opponents to fewer than 250 yards of total offense.

It’s been a very long time since we’ve seen a Packer team open with this degree of dominance. While the 2011 season saw the team reel off a ton of consecutive victories, that defense was entirely hapless and was shredded weekly by opposing offenses. This is the most well-rounded team the Packers have had to start a season since the mid-90s.

So the question becomes, of course, will they be able to maintain? There are several factors that go into this. Health, obviously. Every team’s fate is determined in part by luck, and that includes luck with injuries. But it’s also coaching. You have to make sure the players are still pushed and driven to achieve the same level of excellence every single week. And that can be easier said than done, even when working with professionals. But if that’s already this team’s biggest (or one of its biggest) problem or question mark after two weeks (can they keep being this great?!) then we’d say they’re in a good spot.

CHTV Nation Packers vs Browns Preview

For our Die Hard subscribers, CHTV co-founder Aaron Nagler and Pack-A-Day Podcast creator Andy Herman preview the Green Bay Packers showdown with the Cleveland Browns…

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