Packers Week in Review: A Scrappy Road Win, a Rebuilt Offensive Line, and the Bears Are Coming

Not pretty, but a win is a win — and the bigger story might be what the front office did to the offensive line in the space of four days. Green Bay is 2-2, and Chicago is coming to Lambeau on Sunday for a game with some history attached.

17-14 at Tampa Bay

Green Bay beat the Buccaneers in the Florida heat and had to sweat out the ending.

Jordan Love threw for 197 yards and two touchdowns, both from two yards out — one to Matthew Golden on fourth down, one to Tucker Kraft on the opening drive of the third quarter to make it 17-7. The defense picked off undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels twice, making his first career start in place of the injured Baker Mayfield, and those turnovers led to 10 points.

Then Green Bay spent the fourth quarter trying to give it back. Two drives reached scoring territory and both ended in turnovers: Kaleb Johnson fumbled inside the 5-yard line, and MarShawn Lloyd put one out of bounds.

It came down to a defensive stop near midfield inside two minutes. Jonathan Gannon dialed up pressure, safety Evan Williams came unblocked for a sack on second down, and then forced an incompletion on fourth to end it.

Beating a winless team starting a rookie quarterback shouldn’t be this hard. It still counts.

The Offensive Line Got Rebuilt in Four Days

This is the real news of the week. After the Atlanta disaster — nine carries, 17 rushing yards, two starters already out — Brian Gutekunst went shopping and didn’t stop.

In the space of four days Green Bay added three veteran offensive linemen: guard Laken Tomlinson, former first-round tackle Mekhi Becton, and guard Kevin Zeitler.

Zeitler is the headline signing — a one-year deal worth $4.05 million (up to $5 million), for a player Pro Football Focus graded as the 13th-best guard in football last season. He’s also a Wisconsin story: raised in the Milwaukee area, played his college ball at UW. At 36 he’s not a long-term answer, but he doesn’t need to be.

Zeitler and Tomlinson went onto the 53; Becton went to the practice squad.

Only Tomlinson actually played at Tampa — Zeitler was inactive and Becton wasn’t elevated. The line was Morgan, Tomlinson, Sean Rhyan at center, Travis Glover, Anthony Belton.

And the running game showed a pulse: Kaleb Johnson and Chris Brooks combined for 72 yards on 12 carries. After nine carries for 17 yards against Atlanta, that counts as a transformation.

Jayden Reed’s Season Is Over

The Packers placed Reed on injured reserve. He’s out for the year and will undergo surgery, though LaFleur said the injury is not expected to be career-ending — which is the part that actually matters.

A correction from last week. We passed along ESPN’s report that Reed had suffered a back injury rather than the neck injury first described. The team’s IR announcement and the reporting around it describe it as a neck injury. We should have flagged how much the reporting was moving instead of picking one; apologies.

The receiver room is now Christian Watson, Matthew Golden, Skyy Moore, Bo Melton and J. Michael Sturdivant. Reed’s roster spot is what made room for Zeitler.

Parsons: Now Looking at November

Last week we said Week 6 against Dallas still felt like the target. That’s changed.

LaFleur confirmed Parsons will not practice this week either, and the Packers still haven’t opened his 21-day window. Tom Pelissero reported his first game action may not come until November. There have been no setbacks — he’s simply not ready, and Green Bay isn’t rushing a player nine months out from an ACL reconstruction for a 2-2 season.

Frustrating, and almost certainly correct.

Next Up: The Bears, at Noon

Sunday, Oct. 11 — 12:00 p.m. CT / 2 p.m. Brasília time, at Lambeau Field, on FOX.

⚠️ Note the time. This game was originally set for 3:25 p.m. CT and the NFL flexed it to noon — the league’s first use of flex scheduling this season. If you’ve got a watch party planned, it starts three and a half hours earlier than you may have thought.

As for the game: these are the Bears who came to Lambeau in January, went down 21-3 at halftime in the Wild Card round, and won 31-27. It was Chicago’s first playoff win since the 2010 season, and it ended Green Bay’s year. The Bears have taken three of the last four in this series.

Both teams are coming off wins, and Chicago is favored on the road. At Lambeau. In this rivalry.

That should be all the motivation anyone needs.

Go Pack Go. 💛💚

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