How many offensive linemen does a team have to lose before it starts talking about playing the tight end at tackle?
We found out the answer two weeks ago, and it wasn’t a hypothetical. Green Bay is 1-1 heading into Thursday night against the Falcons, and being the favorite over an 0-2 team starting a quarterback who hasn’t played all season should still read like a formality. It isn’t one. What actually decides Thursday at Lambeau isn’t the Packers’ record. It’s whether an offensive line that was down to four healthy bodies four days ago has found enough of itself back to hold up for four quarters.
Against the Jets, the collapse went fast. Right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele left with a knee injury, and left guard Aaron Banks, who’d entered the game already managing a knee issue of his own, went down with a separate toe injury in the second quarter. Banks’ backup, Donovan Jennings, came in and then left himself with a hand injury. Center Jacob Monk got pulled aside for evaluation, and Green Bay had no healthy linemen left on the sideline to replace him. (This is the same roster that opened the season being described as one of the deeper units in the NFC.) My dad and I FaceTime through every Packers game, and I remember going quiet for most of that fourth quarter, not over the score, but over who kept limping to the sideline.
That’s where Matt LaFleur ended up saying the quiet part out loud: “there was a time we were down four o-linemen. We were talking about having to put Tucker Kraft in at tackle when Monk was getting evaluated.” Kraft isn’t a blocking body who happens to wear a tight end number. He’s Green Bay’s best receiving option at the position, the guy the Packers want running option routes against a linebacker, not anchoring against a Jets pass rusher. The staff discussing him at tackle, even for a few sideline minutes, says more about that offensive line’s depth than anything in the final score.
Fans watching the tape noticed the same math LaFleur was describing:
https://twitter.com/Zirksee/status/2102770217818677345
Monk got cleared before Kraft ever had to take a real tackle snap, so the switch never actually happened. But the plan getting drawn up left a mark on the rest of Kraft’s afternoon anyway. He finished with two catches for fifteen yards, a line that has nothing to do with a game plan shift and everything to do with spending most of his snaps blocking instead of running routes. (Two catches for fifteen yards from your starting tight end is a math problem, not a scheme decision: Green Bay didn’t have enough linemen to let him do his actual job.)
The Packers stabilized things with rookie fifth-round pick Jager Burton and second-year tackle Anthony Belton stepping in alongside left tackle Jordan Morgan and Monk, who ended up handling more than his usual share once he returned. (Rookie fifth-round picks holding together an NFL offensive line in September is not what a team cruising toward 3-0 looks like.) Green Bay still won in overtime, which is a real point in its favor. Finding a way through that is not nothing. But finding a way once and solving the problem are different sentences, and Thursday is going to test which one is true.
Atlanta isn’t walking into Lambeau riding momentum. The Falcons are 0-2 and were blown out 34-3 by the Panthers in their own home opener. But Atlanta gets a different look this week: Michael Penix Jr. has been cleared to make his first start of the season, taking over for Cooper Rush after sitting out the first two weeks to finish recovering from a torn ACL. That traces back to the quarterback competition that put Penix here in the first place, and it’s a real variable walking into Thursday, not a footnote. A healthy return from injury against a line that just admitted it was down to its last bodies four days ago is exactly the type of matchup that turns a blowout loser into a live opponent.
Green Bay isn’t walking in at full strength either. Wide receiver Jayden Reed is dealing with an injury of his own heading into Thursday, which only adds to an offense that already has less margin for error up front than its record suggests.
So which is it: a healthy favorite hosting a broken 0-2 team, or a Packers offense whose actual floor got exposed against the Jets and hasn’t been fully repaired? I think the second read is the more honest one. Green Bay’s talent and its overtime win are both real. So is the fact that four different linemen went down in the same game and the fallback plan involved moving the tight end. A short week doesn’t fix a depth chart. It just means whatever Green Bay has healthy Thursday is what Green Bay has for four quarters, against a quarterback debuting off a torn ACL.
Watch the offensive line reps before anything else Thursday night. If Banks and Bako-Bewele are full go and the rotation looks like Week 1 again, Green Bay’s status as the favorite holds up on its own merits. If Burton and Belton are still logging real snaps, Green Bay’s floor is lower than being favored suggests, and Atlanta’s first live shot of the season gets more interesting than the matchup on paper would suggest. For more on how the Falcons and the rest of the league look heading into Week 3, the rest of our NFL coverage is a good place to start.
