Fantasy Football: Packers offense has become stale due to Tucker Kraft injury, uninventive play-calling
The Green Bay Packers entered Week 10 and a Monday Night Football island game with their offense under heavy scrutiny. The team was fresh off one of the biggest regular-season upsets in franchise history at the hands of the Carolina Panthers and staring down its first game without Tucker Kraft, who had not-so-quietly been their best offensive player this year. With all eyes on what the response would be, I'm not sure it could have gone any worse for Green Bay.
The Packers have now scored 20 points combined over the last two weeks, as Matt LaFleur has come under heavy fire for the product his side of the ball has produced. It's fair to say that, at best, the Packers are in a severe offensive slump at the moment.
Since LaFleur was hired in 2019 and through the 2024 season, the Packers offense ranked second in EPA per play, fourth in points per drive and fourth in success rate. Even if you just look at 2023 and 2024, when the team turned to Jordan Love as the starter, they ranked sixth in all three of those metrics. Under LaFleur's watch, they've been one of the most efficient offenses in the league. Even in what's been a frustrating campaign this year, the Packers rank no worse than ninth in any of those metrics.
[Upgrade to Fantasy Plus and gain your edge in player projections and much more]
Yet, it certainly doesn't feel that way at the moment. And there are a couple of reasons why.
For starters - and this is not meant to absolve anyone of how poor this team has performed of late - this offense has not been a fully healthy unit at any point this season.
On the offensive line, starters Zach Tom and Aaron Banks have missed games. In last night's game, starting center Elgton Jenkins went down with what looked like a serious leg injury and he was replaced by Sean Rhyan, who has never played the position before Week 10. I'm not sure the unit has played great football, even when the starters have been available, as they've been dominated up front in far too many games this season. Still, injuries have been a problem.
In my view, it's the cluster injuries in the pass-catcher group that have been far more problematic. The Packers went from a team where we said, How are they going to get all these guys the ball," to a mash unit in a flash.
Not said to absolve anyone of how poor the offense has played but it's worth being realistic about what the Packers are putting on the field from
- Matt Harmon (@MattHarmon_BYB) November 11, 2025
At no point was the plan to play Christian Watson, fresh off an ACL tear in January, as a full-time X-receiver, nor to have converted... https://t.co/skA1JQ5HlOpic.twitter.com/BwWo6plmMW
I'm higher than consensus on Jayden Reed as a player, but I think his absence for this team has been felt for months now. This is especially true since first-round wide receiver Matthew Golden, despite being efficient at times this season when targeted, has only been able to muster something of a poor man's impersonation of Reed on film for this team. Christian Watson has been more impressive than I expected this early after his ACL tear but primarily on downfield long-developing routes. Romeo Doubs has been a treat to watch as a route runner this year and creates excellent separation in the intermediate area. However, Reed is the best in all three areas of the field, as he creates layups in the short area, is their best player over the middle of the field and can get loose on deep posts/corner routes.
Kraft is the even more significant loss and you felt it right away on Monday night. It cannot be overstated how critical he was to the unit's efficiency and structure. He allowed them to run out of 11 personnel when he was the only tight end on the field because of his A+ blocking. He was also, by far, their most efficient receiver from 11 with a team-high 2.7 yards per route; no one else clears 1.4. Kraft's presence also created mismatches in heavier sets. Dontayvion Wicks averages 3.3 yards per route and 17.4% first downs per route from 12 and 13 personnel this season, while Doubs has a 40% explosive play rate and Watson 50%.
So I was super curious heading into this week how the Packers would respond from a formational perspective. Would they try to recreate Kraft the aggregate with more 12 personnel by using Luke Musgrave as the move tight end and John FitzPatrick as the pure blocker, or lean into more three-receiver looks? We got a firm answer in this one-week sample.
Despite losing Tucker Kraft and being this banged up at WR, Green Bay set a season-high in 11-personnel usage at 83.3% of their plays.
- Matt Harmon (@MattHarmon_BYB) November 11, 2025
-95% on passing plays (3.2 yards per play)
- 67% on rushing plays (3.6 yards per play)
- Had not cleared 70% in 11-personnel play rate at any...
The heavy 11-personnel usage took me off guard, considering some of the issues up front and pass-catcher injuries. The effectiveness of those plays, particularly in the passing game, left you really wanting. Considering the results, I imagine LaFleur will be going back to the drawing board going into Week 11 and beyond.
It's not the only area where I think the Packers playcaller needs some introspection. There's an over-reliance on a run game in Green Bay that simply doesn't have a lot of teeth at the moment, which is being masked because Josh Jacobs continues to score touchdowns for his fantasy football managers. The Packers have the ninth-highest rushing rate on first down this season at 52.8% and it's resulted in one of the least explosive units in the NFL. Just 7.5% of those first-down runs have gained 10 or more yards. Only the Texans at 6.9% are lower than Green Bay, and 32.8% have gone for five-plus yards, ranking 26th. That's led to some real problems on second down, where they have the fifth-highest run-play percentage at 44.2%, and the Eagles were all over it on Monday night.
Matt LaFleur on 2nd & 6+ thru the 3rd quarter:
- Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) November 11, 2025
5 RB runs
4 QB dropbacks
(56% run)
RB runs averaged 2.4 YPC
as a result of poor 2nd down decisions, the Packers averaged 9.1(!) yards-to-go on 3rd down thru the 3rd quarter
longest avg to-go in any GB game this season
My biggest critique of LaFleur right now is that he doesn't seem to have a good grasp on where this team is at the moment. He's coaching the unit with a conservative approach and leaning into a run game that's not going anywhere and certainly isn't creating explosives. The offensive line play is well underperforming, either big free-agent contracts or first-round pedigree, especially at the guard spots.
In some of their worst performances of the season, the Packers have leaned into this rushing attack and have paid the price for it.
Usually, I find "they're running too much" discourse pretty bad/shallow. However!
- Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) November 11, 2025
The Packers have a run rate over expectation of +10% or more in 4 games this season: v Eagles (L), v Browns (L), v Panthers (L), and v Cowboys (T)
MLF simply must get to faster scripts...faster.
The problem is, as mentioned above, they don't exactly have the horses at the moment to become some pass-happy up-tempo unit. Love is pretty clearly an above-average starting quarterback and all evidence supports that conclusion. However, he's not a metronome player who is a consistent player week-to-week or even within an individual game. He makes aggressive choices, sometimes needlessly, and isn't always on the positive side of that variance. Those livable flaws in his game become more magnified when the personnel around him is in the state in which it currently exists.
Kraft is gone. He's not coming back this year. There's been no update on Reed's return from IR. Those are their two best and most dynamic players on offense. You can square together a useful receiver room with Doubs (although he's now hurt) and Watson (probably not 100%) as your top-two outside receivers but there's a lack of layups to take the burden off a good, but volatile, quarterback. The team's best easy-button right now might be designed quick outcuts to Wicks, who is just now coming back from a calf injury.
By no means do I intend to paint a "sky-is-falling" narrative in Green Bay. LaFleur is still an offensive designer we should trust to find a pivot if he comes to terms with where this team is right now. However, it's pretty clear we've arrived at an inflection point in the Packers season and there needs to be some soul-searching to find the solutions to what appear to be crippling problems on offense. Those fixes won't be obvious to uncover and this could quickly go from a unit we normally trust to find some efficiency and useful matchup-based starters in fantasy, to one of the bigger disappointments on the season.