Eagles vs. Packers game preview: 5 questions and answers with the Week 12 enemy

The Philadelphia Eagles are returning to Lincoln Financial Field this week to host the Green Bay Packers. In order to preview their Week 12 Sunday Night Football matchup, I reached out to our enemies over at Acme Packing Company. The judicious Justis Mosqueda took the time to answer my questions about this upcoming battle. Let’s take a look at the answers. [For my answers to Justis’s questions about the Eagles, check out APC.]

Our friends at DraftKings Sportsbook have all of the odds for this week’s games.

1 - What’s the confidence level in Aaron Rodgers right now? I’ve heard you criticize him on The SB Nation NFL Show for freelancing too much and not running the offense.

It’s really frustrating watching Rodgers miss wide-open players downfield. It looks like he’s rushing through his progression, or even skipping steps, with this young receiver unit and the rotating offensive line he’s had in front of him. About once a week we get a screenshot of Rodgers just not looking at Christian Watson, who is open for a touchdown. With that being said, he’s thrown five touchdowns to Watson over the last two weeks now so maybe that problem is fixing itself.

2 - To what extent is Matt LaFleur and his coaching staff to blame for the Packers’ struggles?

I’m not sure how much you can blame on LaFleur. They schemed a way to make Von Miller and Micah Parsons virtually unnoticeable. They had some problems running the same few plays out of the same formations earlier in the year, but they’re a lot more diverse than they were in September now. If anything, people are mad at LaFleur for not putting defensive coordinator Joe Barry’s feet to the fire earlier in the season.

3 - What is the Packers’ biggest strength? How should they be attacking the Eagles?

Their biggest strength is easily their running game. Aaron Jones is having an amazing year and might be the team’s only Pro Bowler in 2022. They run a lot of off-tackle runs with him and spam their pin and pull play that they hardly used up until this year. Opposing edge defenders have had a hard time dealing with that all season.

4 - What is the Packers’ biggest weakness? What should the Eagles be looking to exploit?

Their biggest weakness is their receiver talent. They had a lot of problems with beating man earlier in the season until Watson consistently beat Cover 1 against the Dallas Cowboys. Rodgers isn’t moving that much anymore, either, which is another thing hurting them when they get man coverage. That’s kind of been the recipe to beat the Packers from a schematic perspective, but they’ve also lost to teams like the Washington Commanders. The Commanders played little man coverage all game and the Packers still shot themselves in the foot.

5 - Who wins this game and why? With DraftKings Sportsbook listing the Eagles as 7-point favorites, what’s your score prediction? And what are your expectations for the rest of this Packers season?

It’s gonna be the Eagles. This is a must-win game for the Packers but the tone of the season really took a hit with the loss to the Tennessee Titans on Thursday Night Football in a “classic Lambeau” game that they’re supposed to win because of the weather. Instead, they gave up 333 passing yards to Ryan Tannehill. It feels like the secondary is over the Barry experience and is just waiting for a new defensive coordinator in 2023. Give me a 35-17 Philly win that sends the Packers into draft season. I have little to no expectations for the rest of the season other than hopefully getting a look at some young guys like Zach Tom, Devonte Wyatt, Kingsley Enagbare, Romeo Doubs and Watson down the stretch.

BONUS PODCAST

If you’re looking for even more Eagles-Packers crossover content, check out this podcast I did with Justis for APC. Fun conversation that you might enjoy:

Also, stay tuned to the BGN podcast feed for John Stolnis’s interview with Justis.