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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — While mostly everyone in the visiting locker room inside MetLife Stadium scurried to leave as soon as possible, Keisean Nixon sat in his stall, nearly motionless, still in full pads for almost 10 minutes after reporters entered.
He wasn’t the only culprit in the Green Bay Packers’ deflating 24-22 loss to the New York Giants, but Nixon was left to ponder how two plays he was directly involved in proved so detrimental on Monday night.
The first was a botched punt return, which Nixon muffed early in the third quarter before falling on the ball, getting back up and fumbling the ball again off his knee before the Giants recovered at Green Bay’s 31. The Packers led 10-7 at the time, but the Giants scored a touchdown three plays later.
“When I muffed it, when I picked it up, I felt nobody around me,” Nixon said. “You’ve got to just jump on the ball, stay on the ground, basically. … It’s just all feel. When I got up, I felt like I had the ball, so I took off and then the ball hit my knee.
“It was just myself. I should’ve just stayed on the ground.”
Giants flip the field on the punt return fumble
📺: #GBvsNYG on ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/0LeBKvPPxF pic.twitter.com/xiF28NWvxh— NFL (@NFL) December 12, 2023
Nixon almost escaped blame since the Packers took a 22-21 lead with 1:33 remaining after wide receiver Malik Heath sneaked the ball over the front-left pylon for the go-ahead score on third down, but it was Nixon again faltering in a critical moment on the Giants’ game-winning drive. On second-and-1 from the Giants’ 46-yard line with 49 seconds remaining, receiver Wan’Dale Robinson aligned just to the right of Green Bay’s defensive formation and ran right at Nixon, who had inside leverage in the slot. Robinson faked an inside move before burning Nixon outside, and quarterback Tommy DeVito found Robinson for 32 yards to the Packers’ 22-yard line to set up kicker Randy Bullock’s eventual 40-yard, game-winning field goal.
“It was just against the leverage,” Nixon said. “It was an inside leverage on a call and he went out route. It was a call we’ve been in 100 times. They just had the right play, I guess. It’s football.”
While Nixon played a pivotal role in the Packers’ three-game winning streak ending as they fell back below .500, so too did plenty of others. That didn’t stop the Packers’ nickel cornerback and primary return specialist from shouldering the blame.
“We’ve just got to play better, simple as that, starting with me,” Nixon said. “I think I played like s–t, honestly … can’t play down to nobody. Games we’re supposed to win, we’ve got to put people out, and it started with me. I gotta play better. Simple.”
GO DEEPER
Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs have a problem (and no, it’s not the refs): Sando’s Pick Six
In addition to Nixon’s decline from his often productive returns and game-changing interception of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes eight days prior, quarterback Jordan Love looked far from the gunslinger who dissected defenses the last three weeks. He lost a fumble making the ill-advised decision to cut back on his third-down run instead of darting toward the edge and underthrew a deep ball that was intercepted by safety Jason Pinnock, both in Giants territory in the second quarter. He also missed on several other throws we’ve seen him make with ease.
On his lost fumble on third-and-2 from the Giants’ 27-yard line, Love seemed to have the edge with tight end Tucker Kraft blocking cornerback Adoree’ Jackson out front after Love kept the ball on a read option play. Instead, Love cut back, right into Pinnock and outside linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux, who stripped the ball.
“I thought the D-end played it pretty well, got out of it,” Love said of Thibodeaux recovering from initially biting on the fake handoff to running back AJ Dillon. “I thought he was going to be able to make a play, so I tried to cut, but he made a good play … critical mistake, giving the ball up right there.”
On his interception the next drive, Love underthrew the ball right into Pinnock’s safety help after wideout Dontayvion Wicks beat cornerback Cor’Dale Flott on a stutter/go route.
“It was a bad read,” Love said. “Kind of got hung up too long, just held my eyes to the left a little too long. The safety was able to play over the top and just not a good read. Not a good ball.”
Giants S Jason Pinnock intercepts Love
📺: #GBvsNYG on ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/0LeBKvPPxF pic.twitter.com/hh1fLtXGxA— NFL (@NFL) December 12, 2023
It didn’t help, either, that the Packers’ offensive line looked more like Swiss cheese in pass protection to the tune of eight Giants quarterback hits, or that the Packers went back to the Jayden Reed gadget play on a crucial two-point conversion up 22-21 with 1:33 remaining when the Giants had already sniffed it out multiple times after relative early success with it.
“It’s just obviously a bad call,” head coach Matt LaFleur said of the stuffed two-point play.
Green Bay’s same old porous run defense resurfaced, too, allowing a dreadful 209 rushing yards on 34 carries, good for 6.1 yards per rush. Green Bay held running back Saquon Barkley largely in check — he ran 16 times for only 49 yards before his 33-yard scamper late in the fourth quarter, at the end of which he fumbled. But the Packers struggled to defend the read option and allowed DeVito to repeatedly escape a collapsing pocket, which helped the undrafted rookie amass a career-high 71 yards on 10 carries.
“The tape showed when he feels pressure, he will get out of the pocket,” outside linebacker Rashan Gary said. “He will extend plays and he did today.”
According to TruMedia, the Giants entered Week 14 with by far the NFL’s highest sack rate allowed (16.4 percent). The Packers didn’t sack DeVito and only mustered two quarterback hits, both by Gary, on a night in which DeVito completed 10-of-13 passes for 119 yards and a touchdown when taking more than 2.5 seconds to throw, according to Next Gen Stats. (DeVito only threw 21 passes, so 62 percent of his attempts were released in more than 2.5 seconds, and with resounding success.)
“We got back there and just didn’t finish on the quarterback and the quarterback had some rush lanes and he made some plays,” defensive tackle Kenny Clark said. “When you got the run game going, you don’t have to pass. They did a good job all day with the run game. When you do that, play action and all that kind of stuff, you can have whatever you want.”
And Nixon’s blunder wasn’t the only costly play on special teams. Rookie kicker Anders Carlson missed a 45-yard field goal in an eventual two-point loss.
In other words, this was the opposite of a team win, which the Packers have enjoyed several of recently. It was a team loss, rather, with each phase failing the Packers.
“You can look and nitpick each phase of the game,” LaFleur said. “Special teams wasn’t good enough. Offense wasn’t good enough. Defense wasn’t good enough. All three collectively, and when you’re bad in all three phases, that’s what happens. You lose the game.”
Even after Monday night’s largely pitiful showing, the Packers still hold the NFC’s No. 7 seed and final playoff spot through 14 weeks.
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) December 12, 2023
Five teams — the Packers, Rams, Seahawks, Falcons and Saints — are 6-7, but Green Bay owns multiple tiebreakers and would be in the postseason if the season ended before Week 15. It does not, however, and we saw Monday night why there’s a stark difference between games on paper and results on the field. Because just as Green Bay knocked off the Lions and Chiefs as heavy underdogs the two weeks prior, the Giants did the same to a rolling Packers team.
The NFC South-leading Buccaneers (6-7), NFL-worst Panthers (1-12), No. 6 seed Vikings (7-6) and Bears (5-8) remain on the Packers’ schedule. Winning out would make the playoffs. Three of four might even do the trick. But while the Packers have proven they could win all of their remaining games, they’ve also shown they could lose three of those four, too (if they lose to the Panthers, just close up Lambeau Field for good).
If the Packers of the three weeks before Monday night show up over this final stretch, they’re in the clear. If they continue playing like they did against the Giants, however, the clock will soon strike midnight on their 2023 season.
“I think our team learned a valuable lesson,” LaFleur said. “You don’t play your best, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing, where you’re playing ‘em, when you’re playing, you’re not going to win the game.”
(Photo of Kayvon Thibodeaux sacking Jordan Love: Dustin Satloff / Getty Images)
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