Packers Offense Finally Shows Signs of Life in TNF Win, but Will It Last?

At first glance, it might appear that quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers fixed what ailed their offense in Thursday's 26-10 win over the Chicago Bears.

Rodgers passed for 326 yards and tossed three touchdown passes at Lambeau Field. Wide receiver Davante Adams had a career night, reeling in 13 catches for 132 yards and two scores. And most importantly, the Packers finished their four-game homestand with a win over their most hated rivals.

But look a little deeper and you'll see many of the issues that have dogged the Green Bay offense all season were still evident—problems that could haunt them in weeks where it isn't playing an injury-ravaged, one-win Chicago team.

Sure, there were bright spots.

Dylan Buell/Getty Images

In the second half, the Packers dominated a spent, overmatched Chicago squad. The Green Bay defense held the Matt Barkley-led Bears to a dismal 189 yards of total offense. Despite being without its top three cornerbacks (Sam Shields, Damarious Randall, Quinten Rollins), Green Bay stymied Bears wideout Alshon Jeffery, limiting him to 33 yards on three catches.

Offensively, wideout Ty Montgomery, serving as Green Bay's lead runner due to its litany of injuries at running back, picked up 126 total yards on 19 touches. Randall Cobb hit double digits in catches with 11.  And Rodgers righted his ship after a rocky performance against Dallas last week, posting a passer rating of 102.2 and topping 300 passing yards for the first time this season.

The star of the night, though, was Adams, who had nearly as many catches against the Bears as he had to date for the season (15). Adams was the first Green Bay receiver ever to record more than 10 catches, more than 100 yards and two touchdowns at Lambeau Field.

Rodgers lauded his 23-year-old receiver while speaking to Tracy Wolfson of CBS Sports after the game, saying "(He showed me) what he shows me every day in practice. I'm so proud of him. He's a tough kid. Played through an injury last year and didn't complain or make excuses the entire time. He did a great job tonight—got open and made some plays."

There's no denying the third-year pro had the best game of his career. Or that Montgomery, in his second year, did about as well as you can expect a wide receiver playing tailback to perform.

But there's also no denying that a Packers team that not too long ago was an offensive juggernaut continues to sputter as often as it purrs.

Yes, injuries have beset the Green Bay ground game. But they aren't solely to blame for the Packers' entering Week 7 as a mid-tier running team. Green Bay picked up 103 yards on the ground against the Bears, but 30 of those came on one play.

And that's the thing: It isn't that Green Bay can't run the ball at all. It just can't do it consistently, and it isn't a new problem.

The real problem came at the opposite end of the offensive spectrum, though.

Simply put, the Packers had no vertical passing game. Rodgers' 326 passing yards came on a staggering 56 attempts. His longest completion was 25 yards. That was a catch-and-run by Cobb, who dropped one touchdown and failed to get two feet down on another.

The Packers' so-called deep-threat receiver, Jordy Nelson, had one catch for nine yards.

Some will blame Nelson's inability to get open on the torn ACL that cost him the 2015 season. It's hard to deny when watching Nelson that he appears a step slower.

But earlier this week, Bleacher Report's Doug Farrar explained in great detail that there's a bigger issue: Head coach Mike McCarthy's simplistic offense is placing both Rodgers and his receivers in an untenable position:

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I’ve written at length about Green Bay’s offensive issues over the last two seasons, and here’s what I believe to be true: McCarthy and his coaches have designed and are implementing an overall offensive game plan that is unsustainable in the modern NFL.

Over time, Rodgers has overcompensated for the things that offense doesn’t provide to the point where it’s broken him as a mechanically consistent player. And when you’re a modern NFL quarterback, mechanical consistency is the most valuable attribute.

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I read Doug's piece the day it was published, and his words rang in my ears as I watched Green Bay struggle mightily on offense in the first half. The Packers averaged five yards a pass attempt over the first 30 minutes. They ran 12 plays in the first half from inside the Chicago 30 and came away with two field goals.

Let's put it this way: The highlight of the first half for TV viewers was a rebroadcast of an old Miller Lite commercial starring John Madden.

I'm not kidding.

Yes, the team got it going in the second half, and Adams had no problem getting open against the Bears. But that was against an exhausted, undermanned defense.

Adams told the NFL Network's postgame show he thinks concerns about the Green Bay offense are overblown:

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We've had our ups and downs. But we've done a lot of things (especially two years ago) where we put a lot of things on film and raised the expectations. I think that has a lot to do with the whole, 'Is there something wrong with the Packers offense?' thing. But we've got playmakers out there and we've got the best quarterback in the game, so it's just about putting the pieces together and executing.

"

Adams is right. The Pack did set the bar high offensively during Rodgers' MVP season in 2014, a year where they came oh so close to making it to the Super Bowl.

But Green Bay's offensive numbers aren't just down this year relative to that campaign. It entered the night with the lowest total yardage per game and fewest points scored per game of Rodgers' entire tenure as a starter.

Maybe the answer lies in using Montgomery and Cobb as de facto tailbacks and using short passes and screens to compensate for its depleted backfield. Maybe it lies in more Adams and less Nelson.

But while the Packers got a badly needed win Thursday, there wasn't anything to indicate that those fixes will stick against a team that doesn't stink. That the Packers can do anything consistently on offense but throw quick passes. That the "fixes" were anything more than smoke and mirrors.

And a week from Sunday in Atlanta, smoke and mirrors probably won't cut it.

Gary Davenport is an NFL analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter: @IDPSharks.