The Green Bay Packers dropped a second consecutive game and fell to 6-8 after losing to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday at Lambeau Field.
Provided a golden opportunity to solidify themselves as playoff contenders, the Packers fell on their face over the last two weeks, losing to Tommy DeVito’s New York Giants and Baker Mayfield’s Buccaneers in games with huge postseason implications.
Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly coming out of the Packers’ 34-20 loss to the Bucs in Week 15:
Rookies Dontayvion Wicks, Jayden Reed, Tucker Kraft and Malik Heath combined to catch 19 passes for 235 yards and two touchdowns.
Jordan Love completed 79 percent of his passes, averaged almost 10 yards per attempt and had a passer rating of 135.2 when targeting the four rookies.
All five of Love’s completions of 20 or more yards went to Wicks, Reed and Kraft, and Heath caught a 15-yarder on 1st-and-20.
Wicks had three catches of at least 20 yards and finished with career highs in catches (six), targets (seven) and yards (97).
Reed had an incredible toe-tap touchdown from Love and drew a 32-yard pass interference penalty.
Kraft had another explosive play and scored his second career touchdown.
The Packers scored a pair of touchdowns in the red zone, but one required a do-over via turnover after Jordan Love threw wide of Jayden Reed on fourth down, and the other needed an incredible throw from Love and an incredible catch from Jayden Reed on 3rd-and-14.
Overall, the Packers scored just 20 points on five trips inside the 20-yard line.
The offense moved the ball consistently, but a turnover on downs and two short field goal attempts kept the Packers from keeping up with the Bucs in a shootout.
After going 4-for-10 scoring touchdowns in the red zone over the last two games, Green Bay’s offense now ranks 23rd in the red zone at 50 percent touchdowns this season.
The obvious, no-brainer pick.
Barry’s defense gave up 22 completions for 384 yards and four touchdown passes to Baker Mayfield in one of the worst coverage performances in recent team history.
If the defensive front didn’t disrupt the play, the Packers back seven got torched.
It was consistently easy for Mayfield, who averaged 13.6 yards per attempt and 17.4 yards per completion.
Many of the completions were uncontested to wide open receivers in soft spots of zone coverage.
Terrified to play man coverage and terrified to get beat over the top, Barry let Mayfield slice and dice his way to a truly historic performance; the Bucs quarterback became the first visitor with a perfect passer rating in Lambeau Field history.
This should be the end of the line for Barry in Green Bay.
