Consistent Inconsistency Should Cost Barry His Job

Barry talks frequently about the necessity of limiting “explosion” plays. According to Sport Radar, the Packers have given up the second-most “big plays,” which it defines as runs of 10-plus yards and passes of 20-plus yards.

Some games, the run defense has been good but the pass defense has been bad. Some games, the pass defense has been good but the run defense has been bad. Some games, there are coverage breakdowns. Some games, the tackling goes in the tank.

It’s always something, which is understandable if you’re lacking talent or experience but the Packers have plenty of both.

The consistent inconsistency has been maddening.

“Some weeks it’s been there, some weeks it hasn’t. Some periods of games it’s been there, then a period of the game it doesn’t,” Barry said. “That is ultimately, in the chair that I sit in, that’s the ultimate frustration.”

A variety of numbers tell the tale of a defense that has underachieved and is ready for a change at the top.

- Criticized even by LaFleur for playing too much soft coverage on third down, Green Bay has allowed a conversion rate of 57.8 percent on passing plays on third-and-1 to third-and-4, eighth-worst in the league. Mayfield was 4-of-5 passing for 80 yards and four first downs last week.

- Overall, Green Bay’s third-down defense is eighth-worst in the league, even though the average distance required of 6.2 yards is third-longest in the league.

- The Packers are 26th in opponent passer rating at 95.1. That includes Mayfield’s perfect 158.3 on the heels of Tommy DeVito’s 113.9 the week before.

- After getting destroyed by Mayfield for nine completions of more than 20 yards, the Packers have allowed 48 completions of 20-plus yards. That’s seventh-most in the league.

- And yet, they can’t stop the run, either. Green Bay is 28th with 4.55 yards allowed per carry and 30th with 138.8 rushing yards allowed per game. The Packers have given up 200-plus rushing yards in four games – no other team has more than two – and at least 140 rushing yards in a league-worst eight games.

For bad teams, it’s a repeated process of two steps forward and two steps back.

- After allowing 2.0 yards per carry against the Vikings and 2.6 against the Rams, the last six games they’ve allowed a 31st-ranked 5.2 yards per carry.

- After flirting with top 10 in yards allowed per passing play for most of the season, the Packers even with five sacks allowed 12.6 yards per attempt against the Buccaneers. That was their worst since 1998. In those two games, they allowed a 79.6 percent completion rate and 146.5 passer rating, worst in the league by significant margins (Commanders, 75.9 percent and 127.2 rating).

- After allowing a red-zone touchdown rate of 47.1 percent through the first 10 games – a number that had been the team’s salvation – that’s ballooned to 62.5 percent the last four games. It might have been 68.8 percent had the Buccaneers not run out the clock.

Added together, a defense that counts eight first-round picks among its ranks has never come close to consistently being the sum of its parts.

“I think any coach, the thing that he’s always striving for is consistency,” Barry said. “You don’t want it to be up and down and there’s obviously been too much of that. Getting that consistency, getting that flow, getting that quarter-in, quarter-out, game-in, game-out consistency, that starts with me. And it’s the constant search for getting that. There’s been too much up-and-down. Bottom line. And that’s what’s cost us.”

And what’s probably going to cost him his job.