4th And 26 Are the Packers really this bad?

4th And 26 is The A.V. Club's weekly Packers column, which will run every Friday for as long as the season lasts.

Part of me doesn't want to talk, write, or even think about the Mt. Everest-sized turd the Packers laid last Sunday against the Bengals. I'm tempted to shrug it off, bow my head, and keep chanting the mantra fans of every team repeat to themselves for the first month of the season: It’s only one game, it's only one game, it's only one game.

It might be a cliché, but like all clichés, a kernel of truth is tucked inside the intellectual laziness. It is only one game. Only two teams in the modern era have gone unbeaten during the NFL’s regular season. The last decade has proved that if a team gels late—regardless of how spotty it played in the regular season—it can make it to the Super Bowl. (No, you weren’t dreaming; the Cardinals were in the big game last year.) And even though each game counts the same in the standings, anyone who knows anything about football understands December games matter a whole lot more than those in September. So we should all cool down and inch our toes back from the edge of the Ray Nitschke Bridge, right?

Maybe. Or maybe we should call bullshit on all this rationalizing, flush those first three pre-season games down the toilet, and look clearly at what’s what. It’d be easy to delude ourselves into thinking it was just a hiccup and all will be fine at 1265 Lombardi Ave. But my gut is telling me this defeat portends a whole lot more doom than a typical September home loss to a non-conference doormat with an overrated wide receiver who legally changed his surname to a grammatically incorrect Spanish number.

For one, this game was epically, comically bad. If you’re an apologist who wants to trumpet it as a close, seven-point loss, you weren’t paying attention. Let’s try a little exercise of listing all the positives. Here’s what I came up with: Charles Woodson.

Now, let’s take a deep breath and traipse through the bad: The offensive line was horrendous for the second game in a row; Aaron Rodgers was hit 10 times a week after getting knocked down nine; Ryan Grant stunk out loud just as he has for the past year, and fumbled at the most inopportune time possible; someone named Antwan Odom had five(!) sacks; Cedric Benson—a player for whom no amount of bolding, italics, or exclamation points can do reasonable justice—rushed for 141 yards; the offensive line was horrendous; the special teams allowed two backbreaking returns to go along with committing five penalties; Jordy Nelson, Spencer Havner, and James Jones each had more grabs than Greg Jennings; as a team the Packers were whistled for 11 penalties; the defense somehow gave up a first down on a third-and-34 play; Chad Clifton and Nick Collins got hurt; Rodgers often held the ball so long he looked like he was trying to grow his hair out in the pocket; the defense recalled the nightmares of last year by missing tackle after tackle and not getting key stops; and, of course, the offensive line was horrendous.

Two weeks ago Allen Barbre was rightly eviscerated after turning Adewale Ogunleye into Reggie White. But the euphoria of the last-minute win against a hated rival helped mask the fact that outside of that beautiful final pass, the offense was pretty damn smelly as a whole. Almost all of that rotten play carried over, and if it doesn’t get straightened out Sunday against the Rams, the season could be buried before the leaves are gone. Must-win games are those that eliminate teams from contention, and if the Pack’s record is sitting at 1-2 heading into Minnesota, I don’t think it would be overstating the case to say their first playoff game will be held on October 5.

For the fourth straight year, the Packers have the youngest team in the league. There’s little point harping on this philosophy because it’s Ted Thompson’s guiding light, and it isn’t going to change as long as he’s running the show with that creepy, emotionless stare. Still, I wonder if building a roster with only four players older than 30 is the most prudent course—especially when the team is almost $18 million under the salary cap. Right about now I’d be all for having a veteran backup tackle, even if he (gasp) comes with an above-market price tag. Obviously it’d be great if just one offensive lineman could step in and play without a matador’s cape. But it’d also be comforting to have a few more vets to provide a much needed kick in the ass when the Packers youngsters are snapping towels at a bully opponent who deserves a punch in the crotch.

There aren’t any quick-fixes for the massive cleanup that’s needed in the Packers’ O-line aisle. In the trade-averse NFL, the team you break training camp with is more or less the team you have to ride out the season with. The Packers now have little choice but to run their best five out there and hope they come around. It’d just be nice if there was a little more aged beef to load on our plate, because with the fan-base ravenous after the second losing season in the past 17 years, nobody wants to be shopping in a store that’s stocked with nothing but green apples.

Prediction: Since a football column can’t very well exist without a prediction, from here on out we’ll be calling the next game. This week, in spite of all my hand-wringing, one thing I know for sure about the Rams is that scoring seven points total in two games isn’t good, and if any team can authoritatively be labeled shitty after two weeks, it’s them. Mike McCarthy remembers he has 5-yard slants in his playbook and actually calls a few in order to hide the O-line’s weaknesses. Nick Barnett dances, Ryan Grant breaks a tackle, and handshakes all around for the secondary. Packers 31, Rams 14.