What’s Next: Upsetting Green Bay

The Indianapolis Colts shocked the world when they came out and beat the Green Bay Packers. They had an emotional bye week after learning their head coach was out indefinitely with leukemia and they turned that emotion into an impressive upset over the Packers.

The Jaguars have neither the talent nor the fire that the Colts had.

Wishing for an upset at this point is like hoping that the Jaguars are suddenly much better than they had been during the first half of the season.  There were too many issues prior to the team’s bye week and despite some progress there are still many issues left.  Here was what needed to be fixed before the Raiders game:

• Justin Blackmon needed to get more involved
• The offense needed to be more explosive
• Blaine Gabbert needed to be more productive
• The defense needed to stop the run
• The defense needed to stop the pass
• The team needed to get healthy

While the list is most certainly not comprehensive, there was some hope that improving these parts of the team could result in more competitive games.  The Jaguars managed to only complete 2.5 of those six goals.  Gabbert was much more productive than usual in his 1.5 quarters of play, the offense was explosive – at least when Gabbert was on the field, and the defense stopped the run.

At least the defense got to Carson Palmer a few times last week.  Source: Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE

Against the Packers the list is essentially the same.  Safety Dwight Lowery will be out once again, linebacker Daryl Smith could be back (though history says he won’t be), Blaine Gabbert could play with a torn labrum in his left shoulder, and Maurice Jones-Drew will be out.  That does not sound like a healthy team.  The losses of Smith and Lowery will continue to hurt a unit that allowed almost 300 yards passing to Carson Palmer last week.  Without Gabbert he can neither be productive and the offense has proven it can’t be explosive without him.  Justin Blackmon will need to play much better than one catch for seven yards on four targets.

When looking at this list I find myself seeking an answer to the question, is it possible to upset Green Bay?

Anything is possible on any given Sunday in the NFL, yet the answer to this question is leaning heavily in favor of “no.”  The Jaguars simply have too many issues going on at this point in the season to make the game against Green Bay anything  more than competitive.  Here I’ve outlined the issues with the Jaguars, a team that just lost to the Oakland Raiders, and have not touched on the reemergence of Aaron Rodgers, the plethora of receiving targets, the blitz-heavy defense, nor the strong scheming matchups that Green Bay has going for it.

It could get messy on Sunday.

Don’t expect an upset like the Colts had a few weeks ago.

– Luke N. Sims

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