The Green Bay Packers defense made Patrick Mahomes love Lambeau a little less after the Sunday Night win over the Chiefs. Having come into Wisconsin professing an admiration for the Packers home field, Mahomes not only left with a loss. He left the Packers as the single biggest team that he continues to struggle against.
Green Bay Packers Against Mahomes
For someone that has the resume and accolades of Patrick Mahomes, the Green Bay Packers defense under Joe Barry has done a good job of making the star QB not only look far from an MVP caliber player, but they make him look below average.
Their last meeting was in 2021, a game that Jordan Love also started, and that defensively also had Joe Barry as the coordinator. While the coordinator has come under fire for some past performances lately, it cannot be denied how well he has had his defenses prepared for the skillset of Mahomes.
In their first encounter, Mahomes had a 74.8 rating, with only 160 yards passing, and one touchdown. This past Sunday, he only managed a slightly better 79.1 rating, while throwing again for only one touchdown, and a adding a pick. While able to complete more passes for a higher 210 yards, what really hurt was this teams ability to sack him three times.
Even on plays that they were not able to bring Mahomes down, this defense made him uncomfortable on pass plays, putting him under pressure, and forcing him to move out of the pocket without busts in coverage that other defenses would let up for big plays.
Green Bay Packers Limit Scoring Plays
Averaging on the season only 20.3 points per game against, this defense has been good at not allowing opponents to score touchdowns when they enter the red zone. As was the case against the Chiefs, they forced two field goal attempts, and allowed the two touchdowns on very short yardage plays from inside the 5. All of this while snuffing out the two point conversation that proved to be a valuable conversion stop.
While they did give up some gains in the running game, overall the defense did a nice job of limiting the Chiefs offense. In particular, keeping discipline while Mahomes extended plays, the secondary did a nice job of not losing their assignments. Even when the shorter completions were made, the Green Bay Packers defense, rallied to the football, and tackled well in space.
Green Bay Packers Defensive Stars
From a list of people that had good outings on the defensive side of the ball, here were a few standouts.
Corey Bellentine had double digit tackles with ten, while also under constant pressure as a corner, containing the big QB runs, and keeping his coverage assignment. Kenny Clark was all over the field, making life as uncomfortable as possible for Patrick Mahomes. He had five total tackles, half a sack, and one tackle for a loss. But what really stood out was his ability to get in the face of the QB, and this showed on the stat line as he had two QB hits.
Darnell Savage only allowed one completed pass in coverage all evening with his pass breakup from his safety position. Keisean Nixon came up with with his first interception of the year, and Quay Walker led the team with 13 total tackles.
For a defense that passed the test against a Chiefs team that realistically can go off at any time, it will be interesting to see if the Green Bay Packers are able to keep up this level of play as the games get more important the deeper we get into the season.
