New season, same Packers: Another embarrassing collapse in 39-22 loss to Vikings

MINNEAPOLIS — The cut-and-paste buttons on this computer look likely to get a lot of work this season.

That’s the best way to describe what happened on Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium.

This may be a new season for the Green Bay Packers. But right now, after a 39-22 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, this looks like the same old team.

Packers 13, Bears 3, 33 seconds left in the third quarter

Packers 21, Bears 3, halftime

Packers 22, Vikings 10, 5:09 left in the third quarter

Not counting a meaningless Week 18 game last season in which the Packers rested their starters against the Vikings, those are Green Bay’s last three games against NFC North opponents. They had double-digit, second-half leads in all three. Week 16 last season with the division on the line; the wild-card round with their season at stake; Week 1 in 2026 with a golden opportunity to start anew.

The Packers lost each of those games.

All offseason, they emphasized finishing better, but that appears to have been all talk. The Packers still can’t walk the walk. Instead, they stumbled, tripped and fell flat on their faces yet again.

“It’s going to be a topic of conversation for all you guys until we do it,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “That’s the bottom line.”

Collapses come in different shapes and sizes. They can be defined by a muffed Romeo Doubs onside-kick recovery, blown coverages on the back end against Caleb Williams or an offensive line that looks more like a set of subway turnstiles than five 300-plus-pound behemoths paid to keep a $220 million quarterback on his feet.

Does LaFleur deserve blame? Of course. He’s not on the field, but he’s in charge of setting the culture and identity for one of the most iconic franchises in sports. The Packers’ identity is that of a team that can’t shut the door, one that crumbles when momentum turns in a hostile away environment. This would be a Week 1 overreaction, but we saw it all last season, too, and a lot of the same core players remain with the head coach.

Have there been exceptions to this identity? Yes, like on Thanksgiving in Detroit last season, when the Packers did the opposite. But in their last six road non-wins (while playing their starters), the Packers led by at least nine points in each: at Cleveland (loss) and Dallas (tie) early last season, at Denver (loss), twice at Chicago (losses) and then at Minnesota on Sunday.

Phrases like “we have to finish better” and “we are the only ones who can beat us” and “we have to go do it now instead of just talking about it” carry little meaning now. They are simply hollow words yet to be backed by meaningful action.

We all attended a movie Sunday in Minnesota that we’ve seen before. If you were surprised by the ending, that’s on you.

“Gotta be able to go out there and … look across the line of scrimmage and say, ‘That guy is not going to beat me,’” tight end Tucker Kraft said. “It pisses me off just as much as it does the coaches when we’re out there, and we’re just error after error — like we’re just beating ourselves. I emphasize that all the time. The only people who can beat us are us. That’s it. We’re the best team in the NFL, but if we don’t go out there and play like it, no one’s going to believe us.”

As things stand, nobody believes that. And nobody should.

Much like a handful of Packers losses last season, this one began with a tease. One of the team’s least-appreciated players by fans, cornerback Keisean Nixon, had a tackle for loss and interception on the first two defensive plays of the season. Rookie kicker Trey Smack made a 59-yard field goal on his first regular-season attempt. Wide receiver Christian Watson caught all five targets for 131 yards and two touchdowns in the first half. No Micah Parsons, no problem, as the defense was flying around and making plays. Quarterback Jordan Love, despite constant pressure in his face, showed why he’s one of the NFL’s best.

But the Packers let Carson Wentz and the Vikings hang around by settling for too many field goals or no points at all. As more time passed and Minnesota remained within striking distance, nightmares of last season morphed into reality.

“You look at that fourth quarter, they got the momentum, and they started rolling, and that’s where we kind of fell apart,” Love said. “I think obviously being in this away environment, the noise … the communication has got to be 100 percent. That’s where the momentum gets going, and we’ve got to be able to be at our best still and overcome that stuff. And I don’t think we did.”

The momentum shifted after Smack made a 40-yard field goal to put the Packers up eight with 13:17 remaining. The Vikings were flagged for offside on the fourth-and-6 kick attempt, so LaFleur accepted the penalty and kept his offense on the field for fourth-and-1. Love’s QB sneak was stuffed to keep the lead at 22-17.

“We’re going to be aggressive,” LaFleur said. “It was going to be an eight-point game. If it would have been a two-possession game, I probably would have thought otherwise. … Sometimes you live and die by that, but we’re going to be aggressive, and we’re going to try to go for the throat in that situation.

“They gave us a look for the quarterback sneak. We checked to it, and we didn’t get it.”

On the ensuing Vikings drive, the Packers made three third-down stops, but each one was negated by a defensive penalty (the Packers committed 12 penalties in the game for 98 yards). Illegal contact by defensive back Javon Bullard took away a third-and-11 sack that would’ve forced a punt. Roughing the passer by rookie defensive tackle Chris McClellan killed a third-and-3 incompletion that might’ve forced another punt. And defensive holding by safety Xavier McKinney cost Green Bay a third-and-5 interception in the end zone by safety Evan Williams.

The very next play, future Packers Hall of Famer Aaron Jones ran in for the go-ahead score. Justin Jefferson caught the two-point conversion for a three-point lead, and the Vikings never looked back. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores turned up the heat on Love, who turned the ball over twice in the final five minutes. He stood no chance in the pocket. This might be a topic for another day, but the offensive line is a problem. We knew it might be entering the season, and that skepticism came to fruition.

The Packers have known Flores and his chaotic pressure schemes were first on the schedule for months. But it looked at times like Green Bay’s players and coaches found out last night. According to Next Gen Stats, Vikings linebacker Blake Cashman generated seven quick pressures, the most by an off-ball linebacker in a game since at least 2018. NGS also noted that the Vikings’ 78.3-percent blitz rate was the fourth-highest in a game by any defense since at least 2018. Love threw for 189 yards and two touchdowns in the first half when blitzed, but the Vikings had four sacks and an interception on second-half blitzes. The Vikings tallied a whopping 15 quarterback hits, led by edge rusher Dallas Turner’s seven.

“You never know where it’s coming from, when it’s coming, because they make it all look the same,” right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele said. “That’s kinda like their whole M.O.”

The good news for the Packers? It’s only Week 1. They have plenty of talent and plenty of season left.

The bad news? Why should we believe anything will be different? That they’ll consistently hold onto big leads if and when they get them? Parsons’ return might help rectify that problem since he’s the ultimate closer — former Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley likened him to Mariano Rivera last season — but are Green Bay’s problems too deep for a single player to fix?

Perhaps there should be more urgency, even if it’s just one game. Because with this all-in roster, the Packers can’t afford another season of mediocrity.

“We need to figure this out ASAP,” linebacker Edgerrin Cooper said. “We didn’t finish. I’m tired of saying this every time. I don’t wanna talk about it no more. It’s what we gotta do. We gotta figure it out.”