The Green Bay Packers defense has allowed only six total touchdowns and ranks seventh in the NFL in points allowed and drives ending in a score after four weeks, but defensive coordinator Joe Barry is still rightfully searching for the ever-elusive consistency that all dominant defenses covet.
Barry pointed to last week’s win over the New England Patriots as the perfect example: For nine drives, the Packers were dominant, but the Patriots – behind a pair of backup quarterbacks – stung the defense for a couple of scoring drives that exposed recurring holes.
“I think consistency is probably the biggest thing we’re looking for,” Barry said Wednesday. “We played dominant at times the other day, for nine drives…I think the biggest thing is consistency. We’re still looking for, obviously, just that complete game. As I said, we played 11 drives the other day and I think nine of them were pretty darn good. The opening drive given up the three points. They punted seven times. We got a takeaway. But those two drives, we had some lapses. We turned it into much more of a dramatic game than it needed to be.”
The Packers gave up a pair of touchdown drives in the second half but then held the Patriots to just 15 total yards over three-straight three-and-outs to finish the game, including a pivotal stop in overtime.
The 2022 defense keeps morphing back and forth between the 1985 Bears and the late era Dom Capers defenses.
Overall, the Packers have allowed scores on the opening drives of each of the first four games (20 points in all), the run defense is giving up 5.0 yards per rush and opponents have created 12 passing plays of 20 or more yards, including six from Kirk Cousins in Week 1.
The dominance, however, is certainly easy to see: Rashan Gary and Kenny Clark have played at an All-Pro level, the Packers rank No. 1 in third down defense (including 0-for-21 on third-and-long), and opponents have entered the red zone only eight times.
Green Bay has faced 42 drives on defense and forced 22 punts. The Packers have faced only 226 plays, the second-fewest in the NFL.
The difference for Barry’s group has been nothing more than a couple of bad drives a game. It’s usually one early and one late. If the Packers can start faster on defense and clean up some of the recurring issues, especially against the run, Barry’s defense could go from good to great over the rest of the 2022 season.
