Game Preview – PHI at GB

The inconsistent Philadelphia Eagles will play the inconsistent Green Bay Packers on Monday night. Both teams are good, but also highly frustrating. The Eagles lost to the Giants. The Packers lost to the Browns. It feels like that is representative of the entire NFL season. Any team can beat any other team. That feels more true this year than most.

Green Bay has a bad habit of playing to the level of the competition. They lost to Carolina and Cleveland. They tied Dallas. The Packers have significantly more talent than those teams and should have won all three games, two at the very least. Some blame this on coach Matt LaFleur.

Truly believe Matt LaFleur’s ideal NFL season is a 17-0 record with a +17 point differential https://t.co/td7ePhjWCj

— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) November 2, 2025

LaFleur won 13 games in each of his first three seasons. Since then GB has been more erratic. And he’s only 3-5 in the postseason. He’s clearly a good coach, but he hasn’t been able to take the Packers to the next level since 2021, and that team didn’t win a playoff game. With GB coming off a frustrating loss, I would expect them to play with a chip on their shoulder on Monday night.

At their best, the Packers run the ball well, get explosive plays in the passing game and play stout defense. They just haven’t done those things with any consistency this season. Part of the problem was missing WR Christian Watson, their best deep threat. He’s healthy now and should give a boost to the deep passing game. The flip side is that speedy rookie Matthew Golden is banged up and TE Tucker Kraft is out for the season.

QB Jordan Love can look great in wins over Dallas and Pittsburgh and then lay an egg in a loss to Carolina. He is aggressive to some, reckless to others.

7) Here’s an example of Love just trying to do too much. I think the Packers are pretty good at tackle, but they can be beaten with inside pressure. The Eagles will need to get pressure quickly up the middle, so this could be a good week for Jalen Carter to get back to his best! pic.twitter.com/MwR0BVjaWr

— Jonny Page (@JonnyPage9) November 9, 2025

I’m guessing Vic Fangio will try to play a lot of Cover 2 or Cover 4 to keep GB from going deep. I think that makes Drew Mukuba a key player. He’s been up and down with deep coverage this season, but it does feel like he’s been better recently.

GB is 5th in the league in rush attempts, but only 16th in yards. That stat is more about the OL than Josh Jacobs.

Josh Jacobs is averaging a career-low 0.7 yards before contact — & just 3.8 YPC, below league average.

While not great, he’s getting hit BEHIND the LOS 45% of the time — the highest rate of his career.

The run blocking? Worse than his Raiders years. Let that sink in. pic.twitter.com/rXoNGpUIMC

— TitletownTalks (@TitleTownTalks) November 5, 2025

That actually sounds awfully familiar. The Eagles OL has struggled this year, with Saquon Barkley getting hit behind the LOS way more than you want. The Packers OL has not played as well as expected. Rookie RG Jordan Morgan will have his hands full with Jalen Carter. RT Zach Tom is a really good player, but he”s banged up right now.

The normal goal is to get teams into third down and then attack. The Packers are good on third and long so getting into that situation isn’t good enough. You have to play good situational football to get them off the field.

Pay attention to third-down defense on Monday.

GB is No. 2 in the NFL on third downs at 49 percent.

What’s interesting about this: They’re No. 25 in the NFL in third-and-short conversions and No. 14 in the NFL in third-and-medium conversions.

They kill teams on third-and…

— Zach Berman (@ZBerm) November 7, 2025

It will be interesting to see what Fangio does with his pass rushers and his corners. I’m guessing Nolan Smith and Jalyx Hunt start, with Jaelan Phillips and BG coming off the bench. That could be fun. Jaire Alexander won’t make the trip to GB so it will be Kelee Ringo or Adoree Jackson. Unless Fangio goes with Michael Carter in the slot and Cooper DeJean outside. Jakorian Bennett still hasn’t been activated as of this writing.

The Eagles offense played really well against the Giants in the last game. GB has a better defense, to put it mildly. This will be a much better test. The offense will get AJ Brown back, but will have another week without Cam Jurgens. The big question is if the run game can have another big day. The Packers are 5th in the league in rush yards allowed. The Eagles are coming off a game where they ran for 276 yards. GB allowed 163 rushing yards in their last game.

Brett Toth played well at center last week. The Eagles figured out how to use him and got a good performance from Toth. He is at his best on the move. You don’t want him doing reach blocks. GB has studied the tape and will have some ideas on how to deal with him.

Micah Parsons will attack from all over. He will line up on the edge, inside or off the ball. Where’s Waldo? But Waldo runs 4.3 and can wreck games. The Eagles have faced him a lot, just not as a Packer. Hurts and his blockers must do a good job of identifying the front and where Parsons is. Then they have to make sure to have him blocked. Parsons has 6.5 sacks and 14 QB hits so far this season.

GB, like the Eagles, is good at limiting explosive plays.

Fangio/Hafley Effects. ’24-’25 Coverage

20+ Air Yard Comp %
1. HOU 24.2%
2. PHI 26.4%
3. GB 28.9%

20+ Yard Completions
T-1. ATL 58
T-1. PHI 58
3. GB 62@danorlovsky7 both these units do NOT allow many deep completions or explosive pass plays. Tough groups.

— Ben Fennell (@BenFennell_NFL) November 7, 2025

If the Packers can limit the Eagles run game and take away deep balls, Jalen Hurts will have to beat them with the short and intermediate passing game. That’s not his strength so this will be a challenge for him. Hurts struggled against them in the playoffs last year, going 13-21-131. The Eagles won that game 22-10, but had 4 takeaways and GB missed a FG. The Packers offense didn’t get the job done, but the defense was tough in that game. They made the Eagles earn that win.

Kevin Patullo is coming off his best game of the season. His reward is getting to face Parsons and a tough GB defense. Feed Saquon the ball and throw it to Dallas Goedert. That formula worked back in January.

There is a lot to like about the Eagles in this game. They are coming off a bye, which means the players are rested and the coaches were able to make some tweaks. The Eagles added some talented players to the roster. Nick Sirianni has never lost to an NFC North team. All that said, this game makes me nervous. The Packers got embarrassed last week. That will have them fired up. They lost to the Eagles twice last year and that left them pissed off. I think they’ll play with a real edge in this game.

I’m curious to see what the Eagles look like coming off the bye. A strong showing by them would start to fill up the bandwagon and generate a lot of postseason talk.

_