Did the 2024 Packers measure up to expectations?

[Scott4Pack]

This 2024 Packer squad can hardly stand by itself. Seems like everybody is comparing it to the 2023 squad, that had all playoff teams quivering. (Or so it was thought.) Let's just analyze how this 2024 Packer team measured up against whatever EXPECTATIONS that you personally had. Thanks for the chat!

[Scott4Pack]

I still haven't figured this out yet. I loved it for many reasons. But I also was as frustrated with this team overall as with any other squad. Losing to the Eagles also leaves a sour taste in my mouth anytime.

The stuff that I consider:
1. Undisciplined as almost any team I've ever seen.
2. Still considering how their ceiling might bear fruit next year.
3. 11 wins!
4. 3rd in the division.
5. Lose in first round of playoffs.
6. Injuries.
7. Ascending players.
8. Descending players.
9. Special Teams gets a consideration of its own!

[NCF]

I think it fell a little bit short for me, but I was pretty bullish heading into the season. Having said that, I think it also fell within an expected high-low range that I was prepared to accept.

[NCF]

I also expected the offense to become elite and a #1 receiver to emerge. I also wanted the defense to improve and produce a star or two (maybe we have that now with McKinney and Cooper). We definitely still need an MF'er or two on offense. That unit, as a whole, is a little too emotionless, IMO. I think the three separate Love injuries, although all relatively minor, really impacted the offense all season long and made it difficult to build on any momentum.

[go pak go]

The defense met/exceeded expectations.
I would even say the STs met expectations as have a guy I could trust kick the ball (and even blocked a FG)
The run game met/exceeded expectations.

The recievers were a disappointment.
The quarterback was a disappointment.
The dumb and persistent mistakes were an incredible disappointment.

Ovearll I just expected more ascension and output from our WRs and quarterback. I am not overly disappointed in the season but I am also not going to say it was a successful season. I expected/hoped for more.

[Labrev]

I came into the season thinking the SB window opened for this team, look how close they got last year.

Now I think this may be a longer-term project than I thought. Youngest team in the league, two years straight. A few of those guys need to grow into leadership roles and become cornerstones. We have a new young D-Coord; he needs to grow into that role and be given the personnel to run his system. Love showed progress but he also showed that he still has a lot of stuff to learn, as Year 2 QBs always do. We also suffered a pretty significant set-back at WR.

I feel like, while we are not a "rebuilding" team, that the real dividends will begin to come in like 2026-28, with the way we've built this squad.

[go pak go]

Even at WR's:

Watson by and large met expectations until the injury
Doubs exceeded expectations as I expected him to be 3rd/4th on the depth chart
Jayden Reed's fizzle really hurt. I would say he came short of expectation.
Dontavian Wicks fell short of expectations. The dude saw the most targets. He is getting open. He just needs to catch the ball.

Overall I still feel Reed and Wicks are your potential 2nd contract guys. Waton's injury and Doubs mental health and concussions are big concerns for me to commit any big dollars.

[YoHoChecko]

We definitely still need an MF'er or two on offense. That unit, as a whole, is a little too emotionless, IMO.

I think Tucker Kraft agrees and is working on it

[YoHoChecko]

I expected the Packers to be one of the two best teams in the conference by record, by the eye test, and by the outcome--making it at least to the NFCCG.

Instead I think we were clearly the 4th best team in the conference, and a bit closer to being the 5th than to being the 3rd.

That's still darn good, but short of expectations; similar to NCF. And similar to GoPackGo, the offense was the source of my disappointment, particularly the passing game and the WR developments and connection with Love.

Still think we're in a window and will compete year in and year out for top billing and Super Bowl consideration, depending on things like injuries and randomness and team development and whatnot.

[go pak go]

I came into the season thinking the SB window opened for this team, look how close they got last year.

Now I think this may be a longer-term project than I thought. Youngest team in the league, two years straight. A few of those guys need to grow into leadership roles and become cornerstones. We have a new young D-Coord; he needs to grow into that role and be given the personnel to run his system. Love showed progress but he also showed that he still has a lot of stuff to learn, as Year 2 QBs always do. We also suffered a pretty significant set-back at WR.

I feel like, while we are not a "rebuilding" team, that the real dividends will begin to come in like 2026-28, with the way we've built this squad.

I think it can turn around quickly. I always feel it's easier to flip your offense from mediocre to great compared to defense. Defense you need to have no weaknesses and stars. Offense you can get away with weaknesses as long as you have a good system and the right stars. You add another playmaker, upgrade 1 to 2 players on Oline and your Wicks/Reeds of the world catch the ball and this offense is cooking.

[lupedafiasco]

The defense exceeded expectations. The offense fell short of expectations. The team as a whole failed my expectations. They finished with 11 wins but still just ended up as the 7 seed for a second straight season but this time without a playoff win, and an embarrassing playoff loss at that. I cant even say we werent the true 7 seed. I think all 6 teams give us a good pow pow in the playoffs if we played any of them.

The standard to me is winning the division title. At a minimum the team should be competitive for the division title. This year we were not competitive in the division. We finished 3rd in the division and 1-5 against our division opponents.

I think for the Packers organization and their own goals they think this season was a success. I am quite confident they feel they were good enough to maintain their jobs without the threat of being fired and raise the ticket prices.

[Papa John]

I said no, simply for the fact that 2023 left me with some degree of expectations for the 2024 season. At this moment, I have no idea what my expectations are for 2025. I could plausibly see things going either way for this team.

[mnkcarp]

My expectations involved beating playoff caliber teams, so no.

[Yoop]

I came into the season thinking the SB window opened for this team, look how close they got last year.

Now I think this may be a longer-term project than I thought. Youngest team in the league, two years straight. A few of those guys need to grow into leadership roles and become cornerstones. We have a new young D-Coord; he needs to grow into that role and be given the personnel to run his system. Love showed progress but he also showed that he still has a lot of stuff to learn, as Year 2 QBs always do. We also suffered a pretty significant set-back at WR.

I feel like, while we are not a "rebuilding" team, that the real dividends will begin to come in like 2026-28, with the way we've built this squad.

I think it can turn around quickly. I always feel it's easier to flip your offense from mediocre to great compared to defense. Defense you need to have no weaknesses and stars. Offense you can get away with weaknesses as long as you have a good system and the right stars. You add another playmaker, upgrade 1 to 2 players on Oline and your Wicks/Reeds of the world catch the ball and this offense is cooking.

ditto, our defense, with the additions last year of X, Cooper, Wiliams really jump started that secondary, add a stud corner, another pass rushing DT and we might have a top 2 or 3 defense, really impressed with Hafley.

I still think to many voices in Jarrod Loves ear this last season, might be what led to Toms retirement, but I'am just speculating, either way there is such a thing as being over coached, and at times Love looked so indecisive, some of us didn't like the idea of bringing Saleh aboard,but again jmo.
I prefer more balance, actually a 52-48 pass heavy offense, so we need to improve our pass production, and I think we will.

[go pak go]

I came into the season thinking the SB window opened for this team, look how close they got last year.

Now I think this may be a longer-term project than I thought. Youngest team in the league, two years straight. A few of those guys need to grow into leadership roles and become cornerstones. We have a new young D-Coord; he needs to grow into that role and be given the personnel to run his system. Love showed progress but he also showed that he still has a lot of stuff to learn, as Year 2 QBs always do. We also suffered a pretty significant set-back at WR.

I feel like, while we are not a "rebuilding" team, that the real dividends will begin to come in like 2026-28, with the way we've built this squad.

I think it can turn around quickly. I always feel it's easier to flip your offense from mediocre to great compared to defense. Defense you need to have no weaknesses and stars. Offense you can get away with weaknesses as long as you have a good system and the right stars. You add another playmaker, upgrade 1 to 2 players on Oline and your Wicks/Reeds of the world catch the ball and this offense is cooking.

ditto, our defense, with the additions last year of X, Cooper, Wiliams really jump started that secondary, add a stud corner, another pass rushing DT and we might have a top 2 or 3 defense, really impressed with Hafley.

I still think to many voices in Jarrod Loves ear this last season, might be what led to Toms retirement, but I'am just speculating, either way there is such a thing as being over coached, and at times Love looked so indecisive, some of us didn't like the idea of bringing Saleh aboard,but again jmo.
I prefer more balance, actually a 52-48 pass heavy offense, so we need to improve our pass production, and I think we will.

I think Saleh is THE reason Toms Clement retired. He was so sick of all the voices in Jarrod Love's head that he just had it. Only plausible explanation. Age???...nah. It was the voices. The consultants.

You should spread this around the entire internet so everyone knows the TRUTH. Oh and also don't forget to bring up that we only TALK about things. We don't practice things.

[texas]

First I answered that it was overall a disappointment, but now I am changing my answer.

The one big question that could have easily gone wrong, that didn't, was that Love didn't get "figured out".

Going into 2023, the only question was whether Love would be the 3rd franchise QB in a row, or whether we might finally descend into the place where most other franchises often find themselves. If it turned out that he played more like he did against KC in year 2 than Philly in year 3, then we'd have to move on and who knows how long it would take for us to be relevant again.

And to that question, there were several checkpoints, in order of increasing standards, that I sort of set up for him in my mind

1) Could he ever show flashes of something more?
2) Could he ever play a good game?
3) Could he ever look good for an extended period of time?
4) Could he lead us to a playoff berth?
5) Could he be competitive in the playoffs?
6) Could he be elite?
7) Could he maintain his ability in year 2, after defenses had a whole offseason to figure him out?

Going into 2023, he was arguably not even past the first checkpoint. As the year progressed, he slowly advanced through the list and it looked like we still had a question mark on our hands although we could be cautiously optimistic. And then obviously the Dallas playoff game finally made us all confident, but there of course was still 1 more checkpoint because you see rookies or new QBs all the time take the league by storm before being "figured out" and never reach their rookie peak again. Generally it happens moreso with running QBs, but it can happen with pocket guys too.

I think the answer to 2024's biggest question was that Love didn't get figured out and thus we should be set. I think a lot of us were correctly optimistic heading into this season but until we actually saw a full 2nd season, there was always a reasonable chance that Love would regress due to the other teams learning how to stop him. In some ways, people are arguing that he did regress, but the way he regressed (if it is even true that he did, because remember how bad he was for most of 2023) wasn't due to NFL defenses learning how to stop him, it was moreso that he was hurt a lot and also some of the throws that got dropped by defenders in 2023 weren't dropped in 2024.

He obviously has shortcomings in his game that will either need to be fixed or covered up, and it is questionable whether or not he has what it takes to win 4 straight games against tough opponents in the playoffs without reverting to 2023 SF 2nd half Love, but at this point he is a 3rd straight franchise QB. He's better than Dak, I put him about top 10 right now. Watching Stafford last night I thought that Stafford was more competent than Love, but I think Love is better than Purdy and Dak and those types of guys, and I think we can build a team around him. He's no Rodgers but he is about as talented as you can be for a game manager who just runs the offense given to him by the coach (which is what we want anyway)

[Papa John]

First I answered that it was overall a disappointment, but now I am changing my answer.

The one big question that could have easily gone wrong, that didn't, was that Love didn't get "figured out".

Going into 2023, the only question was whether Love would be the 3rd franchise QB in a row, or whether we might finally descend into the place where most other franchises often find themselves. If it turned out that he played more like he did against KC in year 2 than Philly in year 3, then we'd have to move on and who knows how long it would take for us to be relevant again.

And to that question, there were several checkpoints, in order of increasing standards, that I sort of set up for him in my mind

1) Could he ever show flashes of something more?
2) Could he ever play a good game?
3) Could he ever look good for an extended period of time?
4) Could he lead us to a playoff berth?
5) Could he be competitive in the playoffs?
6) Could he be elite?
7) Could he maintain his ability in year 2, after defenses had a whole offseason to figure him out?

Going into 2023, he was arguably not even past the first checkpoint. As the year progressed, he slowly advanced through the list and it looked like we still had a question mark on our hands although we could be cautiously optimistic. And then obviously the Dallas playoff game finally made us all confident, but there of course was still 1 more checkpoint because you see rookies or new QBs all the time take the league by storm before being "figured out" and never reach their rookie peak again. Generally it happens moreso with running QBs, but it can happen with pocket guys too.

I think the answer to 2024's biggest question was that Love didn't get figured out and thus we should be set. I think a lot of us were correctly optimistic heading into this season but until we actually saw a full 2nd season, there was always a reasonable chance that Love would regress due to the other teams learning how to stop him. In some ways, people are arguing that he did regress, but the way he regressed (if it is even true that he did, because remember how bad he was for most of 2023) wasn't due to NFL defenses learning how to stop him, it was moreso that he was hurt a lot and also some of the throws that got dropped by defenders in 2023 weren't dropped in 2024.

He obviously has shortcomings in his game that will either need to be fixed or covered up, and it is questionable whether or not he has what it takes to win 4 straight games against tough opponents in the playoffs without reverting to 2023 SF 2nd half Love, but at this point he is a 3rd straight franchise QB. He's better than Dak, I put him about top 10 right now. Watching Stafford last night I thought that Stafford was more competent than Love, but I think Love is better than Purdy and Dak and those types of guys, and I think we can build a team around him. He's no Rodgers but he is about as talented as you can be for a game manager who just runs the offense given to him by the coach (which is what we want anyway)

Good post but the first 3 checkpoints on your list could basically be condensed into 1. I think that the criteria that would be required to meet each would be very, very similar, if not the same. And I would argue that meeting that criteria would be sufficient to deem a QB "NFL ready," nothing more.

I have always thought it was a mistake to separate health from other skills when evaluating QB's. Staying healthy is a skill, and should weigh in the evaluation process accordingly. Based on his post-deal body of work so far, the Jordan Love contract was a colossal mistake. He is not close to being on Stafford's level, even now. Stafford is lightyears ahead of him. I have been a big Purdy critic, but I would take Purdy ahead of him in a playoff situation. He is about on the same level as Dak. 12-15 in the league. Maybe lower. He has not, by any reasonable standard, shown himself to be worth anything close to the money that we agreed to pay him.

[texas]

First I answered that it was overall a disappointment, but now I am changing my answer.

The one big question that could have easily gone wrong, that didn't, was that Love didn't get "figured out".

Going into 2023, the only question was whether Love would be the 3rd franchise QB in a row, or whether we might finally descend into the place where most other franchises often find themselves. If it turned out that he played more like he did against KC in year 2 than Philly in year 3, then we'd have to move on and who knows how long it would take for us to be relevant again.

And to that question, there were several checkpoints, in order of increasing standards, that I sort of set up for him in my mind

1) Could he ever show flashes of something more?
2) Could he ever play a good game?
3) Could he ever look good for an extended period of time?
4) Could he lead us to a playoff berth?
5) Could he be competitive in the playoffs?
6) Could he be elite?
7) Could he maintain his ability in year 2, after defenses had a whole offseason to figure him out?

Going into 2023, he was arguably not even past the first checkpoint. As the year progressed, he slowly advanced through the list and it looked like we still had a question mark on our hands although we could be cautiously optimistic. And then obviously the Dallas playoff game finally made us all confident, but there of course was still 1 more checkpoint because you see rookies or new QBs all the time take the league by storm before being "figured out" and never reach their rookie peak again. Generally it happens moreso with running QBs, but it can happen with pocket guys too.

I think the answer to 2024's biggest question was that Love didn't get figured out and thus we should be set. I think a lot of us were correctly optimistic heading into this season but until we actually saw a full 2nd season, there was always a reasonable chance that Love would regress due to the other teams learning how to stop him. In some ways, people are arguing that he did regress, but the way he regressed (if it is even true that he did, because remember how bad he was for most of 2023) wasn't due to NFL defenses learning how to stop him, it was moreso that he was hurt a lot and also some of the throws that got dropped by defenders in 2023 weren't dropped in 2024.

He obviously has shortcomings in his game that will either need to be fixed or covered up, and it is questionable whether or not he has what it takes to win 4 straight games against tough opponents in the playoffs without reverting to 2023 SF 2nd half Love, but at this point he is a 3rd straight franchise QB. He's better than Dak, I put him about top 10 right now. Watching Stafford last night I thought that Stafford was more competent than Love, but I think Love is better than Purdy and Dak and those types of guys, and I think we can build a team around him. He's no Rodgers but he is about as talented as you can be for a game manager who just runs the offense given to him by the coach (which is what we want anyway)

Good post but the first 3 checkpoints on your list could basically be condensed into 1. I think that the criteria that would be required to meet each would be very, very similar, if not the same. And I would argue that meeting that criteria would be sufficient to deem a QB "NFL ready," nothing more.

I have always thought it was a mistake to separate health from other skills when evaluating QB's. Staying healthy is a skill, and should weigh in the evaluation process accordingly. Based on his post-deal body of work so far, the Jordan Love contract was a colossal mistake. He is not close to being on Stafford's level, even now. Stafford is lightyears ahead of him. I have been a big Purdy critic, but I would take Purdy ahead of him in a playoff situation. He is about on the same level as Dak. 12-15 in the league. Maybe lower. He has not, by any reasonable standard, shown himself to be worth anything close to the money that we agreed to pay him.

I put him higher than you do. I think he is obviously better than Purdy, and he doesn't make as many mistakes as Dak.

And as far as the contract goes, it's not like we can pay him $30 million on average or whatever he is probably "worth". We either have to commit with big money or not, and I think committing was and is obviously the correct decision.

Here is my rough categorization of QBs. If they're not on the list then they have no value. There are only 5 QBs who are clearly better than Love. The middle category is a mixed bag, and this year you would rather have Goff or Mayfield or possibly even Darnold but can you really say you would rather have any of those going forward? I doubt it.

Clearly Better QBs than Love
Lamar
Burrow
Mahomes
Allen
Stafford

Competent QBs
Love
Herbert
Wilson
Mayfield
Darnold
Rodgers
Tua
Stroud
Dak
Hurts
Daniels
Goff
Purdy
Geno
Murray

Rookies of Note
Williams
Nix
Maye
Young (2nd year but I am putting him here)

[Scott4Pack]

Speaking strictly as a fan, I look at 11 wins and I'm not thrilled but I can be satisfied with that. But then, there's that nagging issue that we got swept by the Lions, swept by the Vikes, and barely squeaked out one of two against da Bears. That's a very nagging feeling and raises concern about the actual direction of the team. Maybe we are staying even and steady. But when the rest of the division is improving, is that good enough?

So, I think we did not meet MY expectations. That's more on perceived situation than actual performance. We have to face it, this is a competitive league. We simply can't try to win more games. But we need to win the SEASON against more opponents.

[Scott4Pack]

@texas I like how you are thinking with Love.

At first, he was a guy with undeniable arm talent. Could he turn that into something special in a short span? We got a glimpse of that, as you mentioned, in the latter games of 2023.

To start 2024, could he turn into a guy who confidently operated our offensive scheme, by audibling well, beating the blitz packages, handle clock management, and so forth?

Going forward, I'm looking for a guy who can throw more receivers open, masters the sidelines, and can carry the offense on his shoulders. And yes Virginia, he needs to increase his willingness to scramble/run in opportune moments.

He can still be very special. But he isn't there yet. By now, he's had his share of big games too. So he is getting some real good experience. We have reason to be very optimistic. Did he perform at or above par for most year-2 QBs? Let's just say (hope) that he's on track!