2026 Week 8 TNF Recap: Packers Play With Their Food, Outlast Panthers

Sent back to the left side of Love, he takes the snap, hits a block, lost the left side, got Golden this time. Touchdown, Green Bay! 24-yard pass play to Matthew Golden. Zaki Wheatley beaten on the play, and the Packers.

Have a 19-10 lead.

That's the voice of Wayne Larravee on WRIT. This is the voice of Greg Rosenthal with my friend Jordan Roderick. We're not in Paris anymore. We're back in Los Angeles talking about a 27-19 victory by the Green Bay Packers over Carolina on Thursday night football. You got to be pretty good, Jordan. to keep getting the ball thrown to you when you just keep dropping passes. Matthew Golden had a couple drops in the game, including on the play just before the one you just heard. But you know what?

You are, if you're dropping a lot of passes, open all the time. He gets open again. Jordan Love. Trust him on a night where Jordan Love throws three touchdown passes, almost gets to 300 yards. And ultimately, the Packers sweat out kind of a victory that should have been much easier. And they go to five and three. The Panthers lose their second straight after the bye. Falling to three and four, you went to visit this team. You talked with Jordan Love in August and you had to be proud of the young man out there balling out for most of Thursday night once again.

And the Packers defense, because over the last several weeks, they've really shown that they've got some some real stuff to them. Yeah, I think about that.

You know, what is it?

Completion yards over expected or air yards over expected or all these things that we now can measure with quarterbacks and receivers and all this stuff. I'd like to invert that somehow if our friends at NextGen of Keegan can help us with this. somehow find a way to calculate all of the missing yards for Matthew Golden right now, including like after the catch yards, over-expected or whatever you want to call it. Because I absolutely have to know what he's left on the board here because he's so open all the time. Even when he's not open, he seems open. And if not for his drops, we'd be talking about probably leading the league in receiving yards right now.

No surprise at all considering the camp he had, as you mentioned, Greg. This guy was going to be their volume guy. Christian Watson, you know, back from the ambulance, you know, was going to be a very, very high volume too. Yeah, you know, in a lot of ways, all the things the Packers said they would be are coming true, including the fact that they cannot run the ball for crap. So all of these things are true.

Yeah, I left this game not feeling that much differently about either one of these teams. Parentheses. I don't think derogatory. Now, I have hopes for the Packers. They're five and three, but it's a really deep, good division. And I think they have some clear weaknesses. You mentioned the running game and the offensive line has been that all year. I think the question for them, and we'll get to the Panthers, who I think the last two games have been really discouraging for them, an embarrassing performance against the Bucs. And this wasn't that much better, although they did rally at the end. But the good things that the Packers do are really good. And Love pushes the ball downfield better than anyone. You mentioned the Christian Watson injury. So that

comes on a 52-yard throw. Early in this game, the Panthers, who don't have a lot of– Good cornerbacks. They don't have a lot of health at cornerback. They lost another one, the rookie Lee, in this game, on this very play. If you're watching us on YouTube after the game, we appreciate you. Give us a like. Subscribe. Throw us some fun comments. And you're getting to see Jordan Love just absolutely launch the ball downfield. My friend Bill Barnwell said...

When he is loading up Jordan Love to pass, it's one of the most exciting moments of the NFL because you're about to see artistry. And Christian Watson comes down on the other side of that with a 52-yard catch. He ends up with 100 yards in the first half. But Watson, as you mentioned, takes a ride in the ambulance to the hospital to get chest surgery. x-rays done and apparently they look fine because he takes the ambulance back in the second half and he ends up playing and making another catch in the second half unfortunately that the injury to the Panthers defensive back happened at that moment and Overall, the Panthers defense didn't have a lot of answers. I thought for the most part, Love stayed

patient early before testing the field. He has no help from the running game. And then eventually it just started caving in until he did the one thing, like right as I'm just ready to rubber stamp him back onto QB Island, he throws a groaner of an interception late, which... which actually prevented the Packers from going up three scores and kind of ending this game. But man, it looks pretty. Overall, they are asking him to do a lot. So I'll give him an interception every now and then.

It's okay. Yeah, and it was like, it was bad. I mean, it was just no explanation for it other than your brain broke in that second, and then you just have to put it back together on the sideline. But I love that explosive pass to Christian Watson. What's cool about this pass game when it gets going, and a lot of pass games can do this at their apex, but this one you really see it unfold, especially when we get that really nice replay angle. They create their own single high, like mid play by using Tucker craft as like a mid range under out, uh, route to pull the defensive back out and down. And so that creates all of this extra space and it makes the other help side player, uh, another defensive back who basically

has to trail and pursuit of the entire, of the play, the deep play to Watson. It makes him maybe a half step behind just automatically because of the design of the play. So when this is clicking all together, you really see when I talk. ad nauseum and probably annoyingly about like, Oh, building layers into the passing game and activating the passing surface. Like that is exactly what I mean.

A play like that. It's really exciting to watch at its best. And then, you know, they hand the ball off and you want to puke.

So yeah, you do. Let's finish on the passing game. So golden ends up with a couple of drops, 13 targets, seven catches, 79 yards. Watson ends up with eight for one 13 Tucker craft Get six catches, 53 yards. Kraft does not seem as explosive as he used to be, but he's still effective. The two receivers are going over 1,100, 1,200 yards. Despite, I think, the offensive line, you know, it's down. I think in this particular game, they lost two fresh starters that had been in the last few weeks.

Sean Ryan's been healthy all season. And they still got it done pass protection-wise because the matchup is good against a Carolina team without... Jalen Phillips, Kraft is still doing enough. And I love watching Jordan Love because it's not just the deep shots, it's the throws with anticipation, including the first touchdown of the night to Tucker Kraft. Jacobs motions to the right, snap to Love.

Wings it over the middle, thrills, touchdown Green Bay! A tracer from Jordan Love and Tucker Kraft! Lambeau Leap, south end zone stands. 6-3 Packers.

And it would stay at 6-3 because our buddy Trace Mack missed the extra point. And the saddest moment of the day was watching the huge exhale, literally, from Trace Mack when he hit the next extra point. Like, he was just so relieved. And the Packers fans gave him a sarcastic... Starting Stan the Innovation. A Bronx cheer. They're feeling good. The Brewers were in the building. They just won the World Series. Like everyone's happy enough to give a Bronx cheer for old. Traceback, you mentioned the running game.

You said before the show you had a word to describe this running game. Just to give some statistical context here, Josh Jacobs, 39 yards on 21 carries, so under two yards per carry. Marshawn Lloyd and Pierre Strong were no better, four carries for nine yards. Josh Jacobs has not saved or even really helped this running game yet. What was the word to describe what they look like on the ground?

Merriam-Webster defines the word Noxious.

Ooh, that's good.

Physically harmful, poisonous, or very unpleasant to living beings, health, or the mind.

Yeah, mine was going to be decrepit. I don't know what the definition is, but that was just the word that popped, decrepit. And it really hurts them in a game like this, Jordan. There's that lame cliche, well, they're not built to come from behind, you know, some teams, which like no teams are really built. to come from behind, as Patrick would say, but you know what they mean when they say that. This is a team not built to play with a lead, and that's a problem. And you can get away with it against a Carolina team I frankly don't think is very good right now, like has a lot of problems, and you can get out of here with a win. But that could be a real problem in a division where you're not playing against

the Panthers. You're going to be playing against much better offenses in Detroit and Chicago specifically.

Yeah, they should have been able to close this game out with about 10 minutes left in it. They should have been. We should have heard the dagger calls. You know, we should have gotten all of our all of our favorites playing all the hits. But like you mentioned. they're running the ball at 1.9 yards per carry clip from josh jacobs their offensive line is not getting any push again against the worst run defense just about the worst run defense in the league that just got waxed by the buccaneers all day long um you know and then Josh Jacobs is not doing anything to help the situation either.

He does not look very explosive. He doesn't look like he's creating either. So it's just sort of a mutual problem here. And they can't control the clock at all. What they did with Savion Williams, you saw it. They tried to run, I've mentioned it before in the show, what they call their transportation schemes, which is trying to run the sweeps. And sometimes screens count in this too, but- A lot of times the reverses and the screens, or excuse me, the reverses and the sweeps and getting the end rounds going and basically stretching wide and trying to cut up field. And he has so much size that he's hard to tackle when he does cut up field off of one of those sweeps. But it doesn't work long term. And if they know you cannot run up

the middle, they're not going to automatically widen out for you, even if they think that that's coming. It worked to the tune of they tried it because later in the game, they faked the sweep. to Williams, and then they ran up the middle with Josh Jacobs and it only got them like two yards. So to me, it's like there's no even illusion of a problem here for an opposing defense.

It just feels like, again, it's noxious to look at and it feels like just a rattling exhale that just is like, it's gross.

Speaking of gross, I didn't see this until right before we started taping, but Josh Jacobs appeared to do like a touchdown celebration where he put himself in handcuffs. Like he is, that is the most loathsome thing I've seen. He is, you know, under investigation for domestic assault. Like they, they might end up going to trial there, but he got off the commissioner's exemplus bad job by the Amazon broadcast. Again, not mentioning it. All they did was say commissioner's exemplus, but they didn't say why he was on it. But Josh Jacobs is, is a, A player you can safely root against if you're just a fan out there watching.

But I'm glad you mentioned to get to his play just what he looks like on the field. Because I've always had a theory about Josh Jacobs. He's one of the most up and down players I've seen covering the league. He either has it one year or he doesn't. And it kind of went with like an every other year thing.

And I think it was sometimes just playing through injuries or the previous year's workload showing up. Cause he relies so much on breaking tackles. He's kind of who Ashton Gentry hopes to be like when he was at his best, but there have been entire seasons of Josh Jacobs, his career where he hasn't been effective at all, like about three different years because he's not breaking those tackles. And that's what he looks like right now to me. So if he is on the field, they need him to be better. And if he's not, they need this defense to carry them and, and, If they get Micah Parsons back, they might be up for the challenge. This defense is frisky.

It wasn't that long ago that we thought Carolina was the explosive offense here, but they didn't have a play over 20 yards. I don't know if they had it the whole game. I mean, Bryce Young was barely even trying to go down the field. They sacked Bryce Young six times, including one time in desperation. when they got the ball back very late and were trying to just, you know, set up a hail. Mary, what did you see out of Jonathan Gannon and this no-name defense, which was picking on the Panthers, but overall just gave Bryce Young a ton of problems, really from the whole first quarter on? Yeah.

And sorry, I have a cold. So I'm trying to mute myself every time I sniffle. But I know, I know, I.

Feel you're feeling the come that we've I haven't really seen how you've been doing coming back from Paris. You seemed a little out of it. Maybe in the preview show, you did a great job. But is it kicking your ass right now?

Listen, I was great. I had a great preview show. I don't know what you're talking about, but we had a sick fellow passenger who wasn't very conscientious about it. So I think also psychologically, I've helped myself along there thinking about it and like ruminating on sitting by like, A sick person.

It's a come down trying to, you know, going from Paris, Jordan, where she's just out, you know, buying who knows what on the streets and living her best life and buying everything at the bank. You know, everything's happening. But yes, it is your flu game tonight. So we appreciate you powering through. Sorry to cut you off.

Um, but I thought that actually the Panthers came out with what I thought would have been a pretty okay plan against what this Packers defense has liked to do in recent weeks. They came out running a lot of tempo. They mixed their pace up quite a bit, which I thought was good. That helps, um, you know, muddle up communication things when you need to realign, um, especially with those safeties. They also were coming out in a heavier personnel a lot early on, which I thought, again, a good way to attack like the backup linebackers. Their problem ended up being that none of that works if your offensive line can't protect. None of that works if your receivers are just sort of getting bracketed, similarly to how

the how the Bucks did it, particularly like TMAC. And it also doesn't work when the defense that you're facing is playing above and beyond expectation, probably that you had for them going into the game. And so all of those things happened. I thought, um, Tyron, is it Hopper? Hopper was hooping. I have that in my notes. Like he batted a ball and, and, you know, caught his own, uh, you know, Pat pass breakup basically. And he's, he's out of, he's out of his element. Like obviously edge Cooper is not out there. And so, he's making the most of the minutes he gets. It wasn't perfect, but I thought he was really active. Javon Bullard is one of my favorite players in the entire NFL to watch. He is everywhere.

He lines up everywhere. Their communication is excellent. They got pressure with four, which I don't think, again, I don't think the Panthers were expecting because on tape, the Packers are blitz, blitz, blitz, blitz, blitz, blitz. They got so much pressure even with four. And then they reduced that down to three. And it was like a third and 13 where, where, excuse me, they rushed three on second and long and gave up a sack, which to me feels like a real low point for this embattled offensive line for the Panthers. And then they got pressure again on third and 13 and forced Bryce Young to dirt it.

So for me, that was absolutely the low point for Carolina in this game, in a game that did not have a lot of high points.

Yeah, Rasheed Walker, the former Packer, was playing left tackle and just getting steamrolled for the second straight week. He is a big negative out there, and they're down a couple starters, so they have their first-round pick. But he's a first-round pick, Monroe. Freeling a right tackle, he's struggling a lot too. You're giving up pressure on the interior.

I think the most telling stat just team-wise for these two teams were watching the game, it would have felt like the Packers were blitzing all the time. They really weren't. They were under 30%. They were dropping everybody.

Yeah, they dropped everybody.

They were under 30% blitz rate, so under average, and yet they got almost a 50% pressure rate. If you can get your pressure rate above your blitz rate, that's great. If you can double it, you're going to win. The opposite was true for the Panthers, who actually did blitz almost half the time. only had pressure on 27% of their plays. A lot of that was because Jordan Love was getting rid of the ball quickly, but a lot of it was because they don't have any juice up front, and the Packers actually did protect Jordan Love well. You mentioned Tyron Hopper, who was hooping, as you said. These inside linebackers, I feel like Jared Goff and Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson and Drew Petzing, they might have a

target on those guys that Carolina wasn't able to do. But let's give some love to Hopper here, who made the play of the night, I thought, on defense. Young in an empty backfield. Here's the snap.

Rush on. Quick throw.

Ball tips over the air.

Right in. Tyron Hopper, his second pick of the season. And a celebration jaunt to the north end zone. The Packers take over in Carolina territory.

Great call there. How about the fact that Tyron Hopper has two more interceptions this year in limited action than the Jets had all of last year? I mean, that's pretty good. It's a good job by him. And he really points out how these guys that we didn't know much about going into the season. Brenton Cox had a bunch of quick pressures tonight. Baron Sorrell had a bunch of quick pressures tonight. Denied Dennis Sutton's been good every week.

Lucas Van Ness has been their best guy up front, really emerging. And these players playing as one, and I think they're built back to front. You mentioned Javon Bullard, but Evan Williams was good in this game. Xavier McKinney's good in this game. My main point is Jonathan Gannon's taken these players that Jeff Halfley had, and a lot of them look better. Like, They're developing, they're improving, and that is a really good coaching job and gives me some hope that passing plus defense can make this team last in a really deep NFC and deep division because they're not in the NFC South like the Panthers. You put them in the NFC South or in the NFC East, like they could win that division, but they are not

going to have that path. And so I think this defense gives them a real chance for staying power.

Yeah, but I think you're going to get a lot of games that are going to make Packers fans really frustrated in, like, again, the final 10 minutes, like we saw.

tonight.

Because, man, a really good team can just close out at that time. And, you know, it was what I have this written down. It was 533 left, up eight, and they had a possession that took 52 seconds in total off the clock because they cannot run the ball and kill that clock. It was a 21-yard screen that came back because of an Anthony Belton penalty, a deep shot to Matthew Golden that was incomplete. A pass in the flat to Josh Jacobs that did nothing. And then Jordan Love was called for intentional grounding.

And Jacobs went out of bounds. Golden, like, didn't drop it, but he didn't come up with a... It was like they were hitting all the bingo items. Yeah.

And again, to me, I don't really mind the mistakes in garbage time or alleged garbage time like that. It wasn't really, but like the way this game felt, it sort of felt like that. I don't typically mind that. What I do mind is that you cannot use the clock. Like Matt LaFleur is already not known for being like a master of the clock in general, but doesn't even have any to work with now. You combine that issue with the fact that they don't have good outings from their special teams unit. A couple of miscues, you know, that that pooch punt at the very end. great shot of the special teams coach going, oh, F me, like on the sideline. But stuff like that, like, yes, I hear what you're saying, and I think they're going to

be so fun to watch. You know, I have them making the playoffs in my early season predictions. But at the same time, the combination of poor special teams giving up field position and an inability to actually use the clock because you can't run the ball, that to me, that spells trouble in Packer land.

Yeah, it's a good point that they need to be winning better at the margins. In the first half of this game alone, I counted them giving up four points on special teams because they fumbled the opening kickoff and the defense held up and forced the field goal. So that's three points right there. Smack missed his field goal, his extra point that I mentioned. And then they, as you mentioned, kind of botched the punt thing at the end.

They also gave up a long kick return. So they have one of the worst special teams units right now in the league. It was amazing that they were up 10 points at halftime because you could not run the ball. Watson got hurt. They had two turnovers in the first half. They had the special teams. And yet Jordan Love just gets them 20 points and it didn't matter. But that's where I do give the defense credit. The Panthers with their lowest defense. success rate in the first half of any game this season. And it didn't get that much better in the second half. The Panthers, and let's think big picture and let's get out of here. You know, we need to get you healthy. The Panthers have Denver next on the schedule.

Oh, no.

And then they're at New Orleans. But overall, considering they have, you know, they're in the NFC South. They have a lot of tough games left. They still have Denver, Baltimore. They have an at Minnesota. They have the Bengals. They have an at Pittsburgh. And they have Seattle. So the NFC South is headed for everyone being under 500. Just the way we like it.

Right.

But the Buccaneers are a win on Sunday away. And they're playing Atlanta, so it's a huge swing game for them. If they win on Sunday, they're 3-5.

And yet....

They will be half a game out of first behind Carolina, and they will have a win over Carolina. And they'll actually already be ahead of Atlanta. So they are probably in the best position if they win that game at 3-5. And a lot of the early optimism about the Panthers, for me, is out of the balloon right now because Bryce Young is doing the best he can, but it's not enough. I think defenses have a beat on what they're doing, and the offensive line issues are just too much for him to overcome right now.

I really think most of it is offensive line to me because I think it so limits what they can even do. I thought that, you know, the play of his before the bye versus what it looks like now could not be more different. But to me, a lot of it goes back to what's going on up front. I mean, it's just been a catastrophe for them along this offensive line. And I do think that if they can at least get some of that stuff fundamentally cleaned up, just give them a little, the thing that killed him tonight was a quick pressure. They were at like seven or eight quick pressures by the end of the game.

I'd have to go back and double check, but they were at six through, you know, through most of their possessions. And it was really wrecking their timing and it was wrecking their, the play development. It was wrecking his comfort and his confidence. I mean, even at the end, He slid to avoid pressure that might not have even gotten to him if pressure hadn't already gotten to him many, many times earlier in the game. And in that case, he dirted the ball. So to me, getting the quick pressure cleaned up just a little bit, just a little extra, a couple milliseconds more for him and him speeding up.

We know he can, him speeding up his own process as well. I think that there are things that are fixable here. that go beyond getting healthy players back. Because they're just not. They're not going to get many, if any, guys back that are healthy.

Damian Lewis is the guard who will return for them. So that's one starter that can't come back. But as you mentioned, yeah, he is a rhythm player. He's a confidence player. He hasn't played with a lot of confidence last week. He hasn't been a disaster, but he also hasn't been able to overcome a really tough situation. 16 targets to his top two receivers, Jalen Coker and Teteroa McMillan.

tonight and only 94 yards that using some next Greg stats there.

So forgive me if I'm wrong. You think about all the teams that were in on Quentin Nelson, and I guess you're kind of wondering like, was this team in on Quentin Nelson?

Like I doubt it. Cause they have that all that money in those two yards, but you're right. They haven't been healthy. They haven't been good enough. And really the tackles are killing them. The Packers on the other hand, who are, Look, we have like a Packer fan in the chat.

Was that team in on Quentin Nelson? Like, holy cow.

Good call there. Said that was not fun to watch tonight. And yeah, they just... All these Packers fans just saw what a championship team looks like. This does not look like that. And the schedule gets much tougher for them. At New England next week. That's a really interesting one. And then Minnesota before their bye. And then at the Rams.

And so it's a gauntlet and. It just is going to be much tougher. As much as I like Jordan Love, like if I'm power ranking this division, I do probably have the Packers last. And then it's like, you're probably not making the playoffs if you're last in your division. Obviously, they need to do better than that. I think they could win 10 games and be in a spot where Matt LaFleur either is a seven seed again or doesn't make it. And so I think they do have room to improve defensively. on their weaknesses up front and possibly fix the run game a little bit because LaFleur's shown that he can do it. Obviously, if it doesn't happen, they're going to be in trouble in a division this good.

I think that the difference between the combination of the Packers passing game and the Packers defense, and remember, they get Micah Parsons back, is a really interesting case study when juxtaposed to the absolute elite strength Of, say, the Minnesota Vikings defense, the best in the league, but in combination with an absolutely terrible offense. So you're looking at like, OK, all of these combined strengths of these teams. And actually, I think some of them are a little bit more even than maybe it feels like right now. And the rest of the season kind of bears that out.

Yeah.

I think that's a good call. And the Vikings have a brutal schedule coming up. They do. They also have three losses right now as a lead over, over green Bay, but green Bay has done a good job, but there was, it wasn't that long ago when Nick and I were talking about a Thursday night football game or no, it wasn't me. I was gone that night, um, where, where the Packers got absolutely blown out at one and two, and they've done a good job stabilizing the season gone four and one since then. Uh, I hope you can stabilize, um, You're healthier, Jordan. Let's get you out of here. Congratulations to Bob Harlan, by the way, too. I don't know if you saw. He got a nice halftime ceremony about him and his son, Kevin, you know, giving his dad

his moment there.

Our guy. Yes.

NFL Daily guest, Bob Harlan. So feel better. How are you doing, Jordan?

I'm good.

It is a bit of a come down to, you know, to come back from parachute.

I know.

I feel sad too. I was, I was looking at bread in the grocery store and I'm like, it's just not the same, you know?

Jordan will be back with us as long as she's feeling great on Sunday. Let's hit that music. Thank you to everyone who checked out all of our content this week. The picks went up early. I'm 1-0 already. In fact, I think I gave a score 30-20 Packers-Panthers. It got pretty close to that tonight. So I'm 1-0. Packers came through for me. Check out our pick show. We put that up early because we wanted to do a quick reaction to the Jeffrey Simmons trade. We will see you next on the Recap Show Sunday night.

2026 Week 8 TNF Recap: Packers Play With Their Food, Outlast Panthers

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