Can The Green Bay Packers’ Struggling Offense Find Answers Against Belichick And The Patriots?

The numbers aren’t pretty.

And that’s putting it mildly.

The Green Bay Packers have had 17 second half possessions this season and managed a paltry 10 points. That’s a measly 3.3 points per game and an average of just 0.59 points per possession.

Now, the Packers face the challenge of trying to improve those numbers against the greatest coach the NFL has ever seen. Green Bay hosts New England — and six-time Super Bowl champion head coach Bill Belichick — Sunday at 3:25 p.m.

“I think I’m always looking for in-game adjustments,” Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said. “I like to tease our staff sometimes when they make an in-game adjustment at halftime, (they) get really excited. It’s like momentum, some people believe in momentum, some people don’t. Some people believe in halftime adjustments, some people don’t.

“But we’re always making adjustments and tinkering and tiny little things to try and improve plays both in the heat of the battle and then off on the side and at halftime and a bunch of other times.”

So far, they haven’t worked.

And that’s a big reason Green Bay ranks 27^th in points per game at just 16.0 and 19^th in passing offense (228.7).

To date, Green Bay’s 17 second half possessions have included:

• Eight punts.

• Two lost fumbles and an interception.

• Three series in which the game ended.

• One series where the Packers turned the ball over on downs.

• One touchdown.

• And one field goal.

Green Bay had an impressive 7-play, 75-yard touchdown march on its second drive of the second half against Minnesota in Week 1. Since then, the Packers’ 15 second half drives have yielded just three points (0.20).

The ultimate frustration came last week when Green Bay led Tampa Bay, 14-3, at halftime then went scoreless in the second half and desperately held on for a 14-12 win.

The Packers ran 30 second half plays against the Buccaneers and had just 81 total yards — an average of just 2.70 per play. Green Bay managed just four second downs in the second half and Rodgers threw a rare interception.

“It’s crazy how momentum plays such a part in it,” Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said. “It’s like, you sit there and you’re like, ‘all right. We can stop this. We can get this going again.’ And it’s just, for whatever reason, it didn’t materialize the rest of the game.

“And you want to talk about frustrating. You’re sitting there scratching your head, what can we call to kind of jumpstart this thing? Because when you’re not moving the ball, you’re like, well, they’re outcoaching us because we can’t get anything going.”

Getting things going — and keeping them going — against Belichick and the Patriots will be an enormous challenge.

The Patriots don’t have elite personnel like many of Belichick’s great teams have enjoyed. But few, if any, have ever had a better defensive mind than Belichick himself.

The Patriots currently rank 10^th in total defense (314.7) and eighth against the pass (200.0).

Belichick’s teams have always been notorious for taking away what opposing offenses do best and making them go to Plan B or C. In Green Bay’s case, that likely means trying to shut down standout running backs Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon, but even the Packers admit they’re not sure how Belichick will attack them.

“You prepare for a lot of things, but everything could change in the game or before the game or at halftime or the third quarter or the fourth quarter,” Rodgers said. “They have a lot of scheme they can go to, they’re very well prepared, well coached, and you’ve got to be ready for every coverage, pressure, zero, drop eight, a lot of different things. A lot of respect for coach Belichick. Best coach in the history of the game, I think.”

That’s hard to argue.

Belichick was part of two Super Bowl championship teams when he was the New York Giants’ defensive coordinator from 1985-90. He’s won six Super Bowl titles in New England and was the NFL’s Coach of the Year in 2003, 2007 and 2010.

Belichick was named to the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 2000s and the 2010s and he was named to the NFL’s 100^th Anniversary team.

He holds NFL records for most Super Bowl wins (six), Super Bowl appearances (nine), playoff wins (31) and divisional championships as a head coach (17). And LaFleur’s challenge Sunday will win his personal chess game against the great Belichick.

“You just never know what you’re gonna get,” LaFleur said of Belichick. “He’s the best of the best regardless of sport. It’s not a shocker as to why he’s won so many Super Bowls and why he’s won so many games. He does a great job of taking what you do best away from you and keep you off balance. They can play a lot of different looks out of the same personnel groupings. I don’t know. He’s been doing it at a high level for a really long time.”

LaFleur, who’s gone 41-11 in three-plus seasons in Green Bay, has done it at a high level himself — but for a much shorter time.

Now, his challenge will be to fix what ails the Packers’ offense — especially in the second half — against the greatest defensive mastermind the game has ever known.

“You have to have some plans and adjustments up your sleeve in case they go in multiple different directions,” Packers offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said. “You’ve got to have some answers for anything. They test your rules and they test you up front, targeting, and they’re going to try to win their one on one matchups on the back end. So you’ve just got to be ready to go win.”

Which has been a lot easier said that done for the 2022 Packers.