As much as I had hoped for the Packers in my playoff preview, Sunday just wasn’t their day. They fumbled the opening kickoff, giving the Eagles a short field. In the first quarter, they lost star guard Elgton Jenkins to a shoulder injury, and his replacements committed three holding penalties.
Already without Christian Watson (torn ACL), they lost wide receivers Romeo Doubs and Jayden Reed during the game, leaving them with Malik Heath, Bo Melton, and Dontayvion Wicks as the remaining options at wide receiver.
Brandon McManus missed a 38-yard field goal that could have given the Packers a chance. While their defense did well to contain Saquon Barkley, three interceptions of Jordan Love sealed their fate, and the Eagles were simply the better team.
However, the Packers still have reasons to be optimistic about their future. They are the league’s youngest team and have made back-to-back playoff appearances. Despite being in a tough division, their defense made great strides under Jeff Hafley’s first year as coordinator. Jordan Love ranked second in the league in QBR during the last two months of the season.
Although Love didn’t perform well against the Eagles, one bad game, especially with multiple starters missing, shouldn’t overshadow the improvements made throughout the year.
If the Packers want to improve in 2025, they may need to consider leaning more on Love and reducing their reliance on the running game. This season, they were the most run-heavy team on early downs in neutral game situations. They only passed the ball 42.7% of the time in those situations, significantly more than the Eagles, who were ranked 31st in passing.
This run-heavy approach led to heavy usage of Josh Jacobs. His numbers seemed promising—1,329 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns, earning a Pro Bowl nod—but some advanced stats paint a different picture. By cumulative rushing expected points added (EPA) from NFL Next Gen Stats, Jacobs ranked 135th.
Henry and Barkley produced a lot of volume efficiently, while Jacobs had a lot of volume but was inefficient on a per-play basis. By EPA per carry, Jacobs ranked 25th out of 31 rushers in 2024.
What didn’t EPA like? Jacobs fumbled four times, and over 60% of his carries resulted in negative EPA. In comparison, Barkley and Henry had fewer negative plays. Jacobs didn’t have a run longer than 40 yards, while Barkley had seven and Henry had nine.
Jacobs was less impressive than his backups, like Emanuel Wilson, Chris Brooks, and MarShawn Lloyd, who combined to generate positive EPA on their 145 carries. Jacobs, on the other hand, had a negative EPA on early downs. Green Bay gained more EPA per play when Jacobs was off the field than when he was on it.
Sunday’s game showed how Jacobs can both impress and hold back the offense. His biggest play was a 31-yard run at the end of the third quarter, which set up his own 1-yard touchdown. However, his previous 16 carries only gained 48 yards and didn’t result in any first downs.
Jacobs broke tackles, but many of his runs didn’t keep the offense on track. He also fumbled inside the 10-yard line, though the Packers recovered it. Despite his big run, EPA showed Jacobs was still a net negative for the Packers in that game.
Jacobs had 18 carries for 81 yards, one touchdown, and three catches for 40 yards in the Packers’ loss to Philadelphia. With Jacobs struggling to make an impact, Love’s average pass distance on Sunday was 9.3 yards, which ranked 29th in the league for average distance to convert.
This didn’t work against the Eagles, especially with the injuries the Packers were dealing with. Love wasn’t effective on first and second downs, and the running game’s struggles were part of the reason they didn’t score on their first six drives.
If the Packers leaned more on Love early in the game, it might help make Jacobs more effective. One metric that favored Jacobs was rush yards over expectation (RYOE), where he ranked fifth among all backs with 217 RYOE. However, Jacobs’ carries were expected to gain only 3.7 yards per rush.
More passing attempts on early downs would help keep Jacobs fresher and could increase his yards per carry. This wouldn’t have changed the result against the Eagles, but it could help improve the Packers’ offensive efficiency in 2025.
