Green Bay Packers: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly vs. Philadelphia Eagles

It depends on whom you ask, but some would say there was hardly anything good about the Green Bay Packers' 39-26 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Saturday.

It was a meaningless preseason game, where the schemes are vanilla and the starters limited, but between the showing by the defense and special teams and the injuries that continue to pile up, this matchup is one the Packers would sooner forget. 

After allowing the dust to settle, we can cast an objective eye on the matchup, give credit in the (few) places it was due and go into deeper detail on what went wrong and how Green Bay might correct it before Week 1. Let's break down the good, the bad and the ugly from the Packers' first preseason home game. 

The Good

Let's begin with the best news the Packers have received in weeks: After dealing with injuries to multiple starters, including a season-ending ACL tear for No. 1 receiver Jordy Nelson, it appears the shoulder injury Randall Cobb suffered on the Packers' first series of the game is "minor," as Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reported on Sunday: 

ESPN.com's Rob Demovsky reported that the team is optimistic Cobb will be available for the Week 1 matchup with the Chicago Bears.

"It's been very unfortunate these few weeks for us," Cobb said after the game, per Demovsky. "At least there's a silver lining in this injury." 

Cobb couldn't be more right about that, which is why this news tops "the good" column. 

But there were other encouraging outcomes from Saturday's matchup. 

Rookie Brett Hundley, in his first NFL start, was solid. He went 22-of-31 for 315 yards and two touchdowns with one interception, which earned him some high praise from head coach Mike McCarthy. 

"I thought he had excellent command of the huddle and the line of scrimmage," McCarthy said after the game, per the team website. "He made some adjustments, trusted his feet, his timing playing in the pocket and out of the pocket, which is what you’re looking for." 

McCarthy also noted that Hundley looked natural when extending plays, which is of course a skill that's an essential part of the Packers offense under Aaron Rodgers. 

The Packers have to be hoping that the injury bug is done laying siege to the team, but if the worst-case scenario were to occur and something happened to Rodgers, Scott Tolzien and Hundley have proved to be capable. 

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McCarthy also had words of praise for veteran wide receiver Myles White, who is fighting to make the final roster. White was the team's leading receiver against the Eagles, with nine receptions for 89 yards on 12 targets, and certainly helped his cause. 

"You talk about a young man that has just busted his butt the whole time he’s been here," McCarthy said regarding White. "It’s really exciting to see him have success and he made a number of big plays."

White and Jeff Janis could find themselves rounding out the Packers' receivers group with the No. 4 and No. 5 spots come final cuts on Sept. 5. 

The Bad

Unfortunately, there was more bad than good overall in the Packers' third preseason showing. 

In addition to Cobb's shoulder injury, defensive back Micah Hyde suffered what McCarthy termed a neck spasm and starting right tackle Bryan Bulaga left the game with an ankle sprain, per the team website. 

Bulaga's injury isn't incredibly serious—a sprain is highly preferable to a break or a torn Achilles—but compounded with the rest of the injuries on the offensive line, the situation has become serious. 

Left tackle David Bakhtiari (knee), left guard Josh Sitton (ankle) and right guard T.J. Lang were all already sitting out the Packers' preseason matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles, as Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. 

With Bulaga joining their ranks, the only healthy starter left was center Corey Linsley. 

The situation prompted a joke from left guard Josh Sitton, as Jason Wilde of ESPN Wisconsin shared via Twitter: 

However, it's not a crisis-level...yet. It appears Linsley will at least be joined by right guard T.J. Lang in Week 1; McCarthy believes he'll be ready to play against the Bears, per the team website.  

That Hyde, who was taken off the field on a cart, had a neck spasm and not a more severe injury is very good news for the Packers, but there is no timeline yet on how long he will take to recover. Hyde figures to have an important season in 2015 as the potential nickel cornerback if Casey Hayward moves to the outside with Sam Shields. 

The Ugly 

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There's no denying it; both special teams and the defense had a pretty ugly showing on Saturday. The units were universally panned. 

"Dom Capers' defense couldn't hold, and Ron Zook's special teams couldn't stop holding," Demovsky quipped. 

"Defense has no excuse for its pathetic showing against Eagles," Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel titled a particularly scathing piece. 

McCarthy relinquished play-calling duties to associate head coach Tom Clements this offseason so that he could be more involved in the relationship between the three phases of the game: offense, defense and particularly special teams. 

However, with the play the team left on the field Saturday, it appears McCarthy, defensive coordinator Dom Capers and special teams coordinator Ron Zook still have their work cut out for them. 

The Packers defense made Sam Bradford look like a star. The quarterback, recovering from a twice-surgically repaired knee and trying to prove he still has what it takes to be a starter, went 10-of-10 for 121 yards and three touchdowns for a passer rating of 156.7. 

Green Bay allowed the Eagles to score on five of their six possessions in the first half and gave up 325 yards in those first two quarters alone. 

The Eagles were a perfect 5-of-5 in the red zone. 

McCarthy indicted both the run defense and coverage in his postgame statements. 

"We looked a little flat in our run defense. We had some communication errors in our coverage. We’ll evaluate that, get all the corrections and calls and adjustments that were made throughout the game and plot the video," he said, per the team website. 

Indeed, most Packers defensive players had negative grades in coverage by Pro Football Focus on the day. Safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix was overloaded with tackling duties given how many opponents were escaping into the third level of the defense, and though he played aggressively, he allowed five receptions on five targets thrown into his coverage, per Pro Football Focus.  

Projected starting inside linebacker Sam Barrington was leaky as a sieve, with a missed tackle, and got beat for two touchdown passes. 

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Then, there were special teams. Get ready for this shocking statistic pointed out by Demovsky: The Packers had eight special teams penalties called against the Eagles. The team, which had the worst special teams unit in the league in 2014, had 12 accepted special teams penalties total in 2014. 

Second-year player and core special teams member Jayrone Elliott attempted to offer an explanation. 

"I really don't know what it was, but I think guys were trying to play faster than what we were doing, out there thinking too much," he said after the game, per Demovsky. "It wasn't our scheme. We were prepared for everything. I think we've just got to settle down."

Let's hope the team has settled down for its fourth and final preseason matchup against the New Orleans Saints on Thursday.