GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers have been a hot mess to begin the season. If it’s required a mop and bucket to handle their 1-2 start, it’s taken a hazmat suit for the Buccaneers to deal with their 0-3 open.

The Packers will win on Sunday – right? – and here’s why.

1. Jordan Love vs. Jalon Daniels

Sometimes, the simple analysis is the best analysis. The Packers’ quarterback is Jordan Love. The Buccaneers’ quarterback is Jalon Daniels, an undrafted rookie.

We probably could leave it at that and move onto the next item.

To say Love has had a rough start to the season would be an understatement. It’s been a rocky and painful start to the season.

It starts with being beaten like a pinata.

Only Carolina’s Bryce Young has faced more under-pressure dropbacks, according to Pro Football Focus. By percentage, only Young and Chicago’s Caleb Williams have faced a higher rate of under-pressure quarterbacks. No quarterback has taken more hits than Love, and too many of them have been of the wicked variety.

“That’s an area that we’ve got to improve on is in pass pro just making sure we’re going to the right people and sustaining blocks for as long as we can, give me some time to pick the defense apart,” Love said this week. 

It was perhaps the most outspoken thing he’s said to the media in his career.

However, even while ranking last in the NFL in completion percentage, he’s fourth in yards and tied for 10th in touchdowns. He will be attacking against a Buccaneers defense that ranks 19th in opponent passer rating and will play without one of its top pass rushers, rookie first-round pick Rueben Bain.

“They're explosive,” Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles said this week. “Tucker Kraft is playing very well. They've got the two young receivers outside in (Christian) Watson and (Matthew) Golden that [are] playing unbelievable – both very fast, as well. Then, (Love) puts the ball on a dime. He knows how to get rid of it, and he understands the offense very well.”

Daniels spent six seasons at Kansas. During his final season, he completed 62.1 percent of his passes with 22 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He added 550 rushing yards (sacks not counted against him) but fumbled 10 times.

This was his NFL.com scouting report from Lance Zierlein: “Daniels hasn’t shown the ability to consistently dissect defenses and win with accuracy from the pocket. He has a decent arm but lacks consistent mechanics, timing and three-level ball placement. The vast majority of his interceptions were due to a lack of coverage recognition. Daniels’ running ability helps, but he appears ill-prepared for an NFL passing game.”

Packers defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon dove into Daniels’ tape from the preseason as well as in college to get a feel for this week’s matchup.

“We’ve got to turn over every stone,” he said.

Daniels is short (6-foot) and a good-but-not-great athlete with his 4.65 speed in the 40. When push comes to shove, he’d probably rather run than throw. The name of the game will be to confuse him and make him try to beat Green Bay’s secondary.

“It really don’t matter. If we can’t do our jobs, all 11, it don’t matter who’s at quarterback,” safety Xavier McKinney said. “Right now, everybody got to focus on doing their job, me, myself included, and we got to make plays when they’re there, but you got to trust the guy next to you to do his job. I think that’s all of what it really comes down to. So, we not worried about what they got going on in their side.”

2. New Offensive Line

Everybody knows the Packers’ biggest problem from the first three games.

Most importantly, general manager Brian Gutekunst figured out the Packers’ biggest problem from the first three games.

The offensive line was a disaster, starting with the play of the guards. Left guard Aaron Banks can’t get on the field or stay on the field. Jacob Monk, who was handed the job at right guard early in training camp, wasn’t up to the task. The next men up at left guard, Donovan Jennings and Jager Burton, were bad and worse.

So, Gutekunst pivoted by signing veterans Laken Tomlinson and Kevin Zeitler to the 53-man roster and Mekhi Becton to the practice squad.

Between regular season and postseason, Tomlinson has played 10,867 snaps at left guard and Zeitler has played 14,403 snaps at right guard. That’s more than 25,000 snaps at their positions compared to the season-opening totals of six at left guard for Jennings, zero (obviously) at left guard for Burton and zero at right guard for Monk.

It remains to be seen how much they’ll play against the Buccaneers. Remember, neither player had a training camp and both players got three practices to learn the offense.

“An absolute whirlwind in every possible way,” Zeitler said on Friday.

Nonetheless, indications are Tomlinson would start at left guard and Zeitler seemed confident that he’d be ready to go at right guard.

Even 20 or 30 snaps from Tomlinson and Zeitler would be 20 or 30 snaps better than the alternative, especially against a defense that excels at stopping the run and loves to blitz.

3. Bucky’s Not Bijan

Green Bay’s run defense, which dominated the Jets’ excellent tandem of Breece Hall and Braelon Allen in Week 2, got dominated by the Falcons’ Bijan Robinson in Week 3.

The Packers will have to tackle another quality running back on Sunday with the Buccaneers’ Bucky Irving.

“He’s a top-tier running back,” coach Matt LaFleur said.

Irving as a rookie in 2024 rushed for 1,122 yards and topped 1,500 total yards. In three games this season, he’s rushed for 180 yards (4.5 average) and caught 13 passes. He’s a quality player – but he’s not Bijan Robinson, who rushed for 194 yards last week, frequently turning no-running-room plays into explosive gains.

“I don’t think it’s like, go back to the drawing board, I just think we’ve got to coach and play better. I know that’s cliché but it’s the truth,” defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon said. “Obviously, give a lot of credit to Atlanta and what they did. I thought Bijan had a really good night. He made us miss some tackles.

“We had a lot of I would call them cup violations. We’ve got to do a better job caging the ball. When the ball circles you, it’s typically not good, and we had the ball circle us a couple times. But we’ve got the same challenge coming up between Bucky Irving and (Kenneth) Gainwell. If you give them your edge, they’re going to take your edge, so we’ve got to do a good job, set edges, building a wall and tackling.”

If the Packers play run defense like they did against the Jets, it will make it a one-dimensional game against a rookie quarterback. If that’s the case, the Packers should win – and perhaps comfortably.

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