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Key Takeaways From Green Bay’s Win in Tampa Bay
"It's a win, but it don't feel like a win."
It's been a difficult start to the season for Jordan Love and the Packers. Green Bay needed a win just to avoid its first 1-3 start in two decades, and the matchup looked about as favorable as it gets — a winless Buccaneers team that had just lost its quarterback to a dislocated thumb the week before. It was the perfect spot to get back on track. The Packers got the win, but it was, once again, a frustrating day at the office.
Plenty of people had this team pegged as a Super Bowl contender coming into the season — this was supposed to be the window. But through the first few weeks of 2026, the Packers haven't looked like a great team. They haven't even looked like a decent one. They self-imploded in Minnesota to open the season, needed an Aaron Glenn miscue to avoid losing in New York, got dog-walked by a struggling Atlanta team on national television, and then let undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels have a real shot to win the game late on Sunday.
Green Bay got past Tampa Bay in the end, but it's hard to feel great about it. "I feel like we played better," Love said. "We put some good drives together, the run game had some good plays there, some explosive plays. There's still so much we can clean up, though. A lot of stuff we control. We're hurting ourselves right now."
Frustrating or not, the win still left plenty to unpack. Where to start — Green Bay committed ten penalties, the third time this season they've hit double digits. The offense struggled on third down again and was inefficient in the red zone. They also turned the ball over a couple of times, suffered another significant injury, and still couldn't find consistency on the ground.
"You're never going to apologize for winning, no matter how it looks, but our focus has to be on daily improvement and that's where it will remain," LaFleur said. "And each week you're trying to go 1-0." The Packers did exactly that on Sunday. A win, just not a comforting one. Let's dive in.
The Rise of Evan Williams
Let's start with something positive. There wasn't a player on the field better than Evan Williams on Sunday. The third-year safety was everywhere, doing a little bit of everything — seven total tackles, a sack, two quarterback hits, a couple of pass breakups, and an interception. His first career pick, off Jalon Daniels, came late in the first quarter and set up Green Bay's first touchdown of the day. Then on the final drive of the game, he recorded a sack and a pressure that led to a turnover on downs.
"Yeah, I think he did a great job," LaFleur said. "I think he's whether it's on the back end and obviously had the pick and then you blitz him off the edge and he's getting pressure on the quarterback. He's a very intelligent football player, really instinctive. He does some stuff that you can't coach. So I think he does a great job."
Williams has had a strong start to the season overall, but Sunday was arguably the best game of his career. He filled up the box score and came through exactly when the Packers needed him most. Without Micah Parsons or Edgerrin Cooper on the field, the young safety is quickly becoming Green Bay's best defensive player — and he's not taking that lightly. "For him to call my number in that type of situation, it means a lot to me," Williams said after the game. "To understand that type of coach has that type of trust in you in the big situations when you have to make a play, and you're the number he calls, it means everything."
Evan Williams was well aware it was his first career sack that sealed this win. “To understand that type of coach has that type of trust in you in the big surgeons when you have to make a play, and you’re the number he calls, it means everything.” https://t.co/8ZyuR9d0Zl
— Ryan Wood (@ByRyanWood) October 4, 2026
The Offensive Line Finally Looked Like a Line
The 2026 Green Bay Packers were being defined entirely by their offensive line — or lack thereof. It was bad, historically bad. The most quick pressures allowed in the league. The worst pass-block win rate. The worst run game in football. Jordan Love was the most hit quarterback in the NFL, with the lowest time to throw to boot. There's no softer way to put it — it was just bad.
Something had to change. The holes up front had been visible since the offseason, but the Packers couldn't keep ignoring it, and they finally brought in reinforcements. Since September 17, they've added four veteran linemen — Cordell Volson, Laken Tomlinson, Mekhi Becton, and Kevin Zeitler. Throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.
Something stuck, and his name is Laken Tomlinson. The 34-year-old guard was thrust into the starting lineup Sunday and was an immediate upgrade — 60 snaps played, one pressure allowed. He was called for a couple of penalties, but all in all, that's a strong debut for a veteran who hadn't played in nearly a year.
At the other guard spot, it was Travis Glover, not Volson, Becton, or Zeitler, who got the start. It was his first game action since 2024, and he quietly had a solid day too — playing all 60 snaps with just one pressure allowed. The real question is why it took this long to give him a shot. "Glove, he's been here. He knows all this stuff. That's what we expect," Love said after the game. "We expect guys to step up. He's been here. You know what to do. I think he did a great job."
With both guard spots finally stabilized, the whole line looked better. Love was pressured on just three dropbacks and took only two hits all game, a massive shift from the previous three weeks. It wasn't a perfect performance, and the offense still has plenty to clean up, but there's no denying how much better this group looked on Sunday. "It felt like a normal week coming through it, and that's usually not the case when you've got a guy who just got here this week and a guy who hasn't played," Love added. "But I think [Tomlinson and Glover] did a great job."
"When we came here today, we just were focused on playing ball," Sean Rhyan said postgame. "I wasn't worried about, 'Oh, it's his first start, he got here on Monday.' I wasn't worried about that. That's the left guard, that's the right guard and we're going that way."
Despite Glover’s quality performance, Zeitler is expected to be the starting right guard going forward, but he wasn't quite ready to play yet. "The guy just got here this week. I think it was unfair to him. We got to ramp him up, give him a ramp-up period," LaFleur explained. "That was our decision. We just got to get him acclimated with what we're doing. I think it would have been pretty unfair to put him in these conditions today with three practices under his belt."
The Injury Bug Bites Again
Now for the not-so-positive takeaways. Jordan Love put it best — "I'm sick."
The Packers won the game, but they suffered an even bigger loss on Sunday afternoon. In the third quarter, star linebacker Edgerrin Cooper went down with a non-contact Achilles injury that will end his season. He was up at the line showing blitz, went down shortly after the snap, and immediately grabbed the back of his leg. He pounded his fists into the ground right away — he knew. He couldn't put any weight on it and had to be carted off.
Cooper's absence leaves a massive hole in the middle of this defense. He'd been as impactful as anyone on the roster, and his teammates felt it after the game. "I'm still hurt about it. It's one of those things that it's a win, but it don't feel like a win," Zaire Franklin said. "Coop is a special player. You don't just replace him in the middle of the week."
There's no sugarcoating this — the Packers are going to struggle to replace him. LaFleur was asked after the game how the team plans to make up for Cooper's absence, and he was blunt: "Yeah, I don't know." Isaiah McDuffie will likely absorb most of the workload, but his skill set is different enough that it'll limit what Jonathan Gannon can call defensively.
The injury luck over the last 12 months has been brutal, and Sunday only added to it. Cooper's injury was the headline, but Aaron Banks (toe/knee), Jacob Monk (quad), and Anthony Campbell (ankle) were all already inactive. Green Bay also lost Brandon Cisse (neck/concussion) and Devonte Wyatt (ankle) at different points in the game — Wyatt returned, Cisse didn't.
Injuries are part of football, but the Packers have now lost three key players to season-ending injuries, and it's only Week 4. Along with Cooper, Jayden Reed (neck) and Zach Bako-Bewele (knee) both required surgery back in Week 2. "It's terrible," McDuffie said. "That's the sh–tiest part about this game, guys going down, your brothers going down. I hate to see that."
In the last 336 days: Micah Parsons: Torn ACL + meniscus Zach Bako-Bewele: Torn patella Jayden Reed: Neck surgery Edgerrin Cooper: likely torn Achilles Tucker Kraft: Torn ACL
— Andy Herman (@AndyHermanNFL) October 4, 2026
Back to Bad Habits
After cleaning up some of the penalty issues in Week 3, the Packers slipped right back into their sloppy habits on Sunday. Ten penalties for 68 yards, routinely putting themselves in bad spots. LaFleur acknowledged it after the game: "I mean, we're it feels like you were in 1st-and-20 quite a bit, and that's that's not winning football."
First down was a real problem for this offense. Green Bay faced first-and-20 three separate times. The first came right after a 24-yard explosive catch by Christian Watson, erased by an offensive pass interference call on Watson that put the offense right back behind the sticks. Later, Laken Tomlinson was flagged for illegal use of hands, wiping out strong field position. A holding penalty on Travis Glover set up the third first-and-20 of the day.
Unsurprisingly, none of those three drives resulted in points — two punts and a turnover. That’s not how a team that wants to sustain drives and control the clock is supposed to operate. "It's just the focus," Love said. "We gotta obviously lock in and focus more. The pre-snap penalties, the false starts, that is 100% a focus thing. We gotta listen in the huddle, focus on when we get to the line of scrimmage, and just not jump."
Ball Security? What’s That?
Keeping the ball secure was an issue once again. As a team, the Packers fumbled twice, dropped three passes, and threw an interception. Hard to say exactly what's causing it — sloppy play, lack of discipline, lack of focus, trying to do too much — but either way, it's becoming a chronic problem that needs fixing.
Most of the attention offensively has gone to the offensive line, and rightfully so, but the skill players haven't exactly picked up the slack either. Through four games, the Packers have put the ball on the ground ten times. Ten. They haven't lost all of them, but that's still an unacceptable number. On top of that, Green Bay's pass catchers have also dropped 12 passes on the season, per PFF — and it's been some of the team's best players doing most of the dropping. Matthew Golden has four drops, with Christian Watson and Tucker Kraft each adding three.
Mistakes like these almost always put Green Bay in bad spots and kill drives, and Sunday offered a couple of painful examples. The first came in the second quarter on third-and-5 — Love hit Golden for a gain of ten, but Golden fumbled. The play was ultimately ruled an incomplete pass, but it still killed a drive on a mistake Golden can't keep making. The second came midway through the fourth quarter, with the Packers in the middle of a strong eight-play, 65-yard drive. They got all the way down to Tampa Bay's 3-yard line before a Kaleb Johnson fumble ended it, handing the ball right back to the Buccaneers with a chance to tie or take the lead.
Green Bay's offense has enough problems already, so the skill players need to clean this up or they won't be on the field. LaFleur didn't mince words after the game: "A great teacher is the bench. If guys don't start holding onto the ball, they're going to be sitting on the bench."
Red Zone Woes on Both Sides
The red zone continues to be a problem for Green Bay, both offensively and defensively. Sunday was actually the most efficient LaFleur's offense has been down there all season, converting two of three trips into touchdowns. That brings the season rate up to 46.7% — still bottom-third in the league. A far cry from 2020, when this offense converted 80% of its red zone trips.
Defensively, it's been even worse all season, and Sunday was more of the same. Tampa Bay converted both of its red zone chances, pushing Green Bay's defense to 12 of 14 allowed on the year. Opponents are scoring touchdowns in the red zone at an 85% clip — for context, even the worst red zone defenses in the league are usually still below 70%. The Packers are currently sitting at a historically bad rate.
The problem compounds itself. If the offense is going to struggle finishing drives, the defense needs to pick up the slack. And if the defense is going to be this porous once teams reach the red zone, the offense needs to be better to offset it. Either way, something has to give in both phases, especially with the schedule still ahead.
Filed Under: Packers NewsFeaturedGreen Bay PackersCarter SembGame Recaps
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Carter Semb is a lifelong Packer fan, shareholder, and season ticket holder. He is a contributor for Cheesehead TV and Packers Talk. For commentary surrounding Wisconsin sports, he can be found on X at @cmsemb.
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NFL Categories: Green Bay PackersTampa Bay BuccaneersTags: Matt LaFleurJordan LoveEvan WilliamsEdgerrin CooperLaken TomlinsonTravis Glover
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