Aaron Rodgers’ road vulnerability and other storylines from Packers vs. Chiefs

The Packers defense is good, but has some weaknesses

Unfortunately for the Mahomes-less Chiefs, the Packers defense is no slouch. The last several years under Mike McCarthy this unit has struggled. They hadn’t finished in the top 10 in points allowed since 2010 and it was starting to become a major issue given the archaic offensive scheme most thought McCarthy ran.

You could argue this season the Packers defense is actually better than the Packers offense. Through seven games they are only allowing 19.9 points per game, the best result in that category in several years. For reference, the last three seasons they’ve given up an average of 24.43 points per game.

There are still reasons to be optimistic that the Chiefs can produce against this unit. While they’re top-10 in points allowed per game, they are near the bottom of the league in yards allowed. Through seven games, they are 26th in yards allowed allowing 380 per game. Similarly to the Chiefs, the area where they tend to excel is the red zone.

They’re the definition of bend-but-don’t-break, only allowing touchdowns on 50 percent of opponent’s trips to the red zone. Still, even though the Chiefs are without Mahomes there is one major thing they can do to improve their odds against this Packers defense.

The Chiefs should run the ball (a lot)

The biggest weakness of this Packers defense is, similarly to the Chiefs, its run defense. Through seven games the Packers have been one of the worst in the league in this area, allowing nearly 130 yards per game. If you look a bit closer, it gets worse.

This unit has only had two good outings against the run this season. The first was the first game of the season on Thursday night against the Chicago Bears. Both offenses looked pretty atrocious that evening, so giving a defense credit for their specific performance has to be taken with a grain of salt. On this night the Packers only surrendered 46 yards on the ground.

The second was against the Detroit Lions. In that contest the Packers defense only surrendered 56 yards on the ground. I’ll give it to them, that was a solid outing. The problem is, you take away these two contests and only look at the other five the run defense looks a lot worse. For 71 percent of the early season the Packers run defense is comparable to that of the Miami Dolphins defense and is allowing 160 yards per game on the ground.

This might be the perfect storm for the Chiefs. With Mahomes out, Reid is almost certainly going to run the ball more. Whether they would have run the ball as much with Mahomes in is tough to say, but it was clear on Thursday they were committed early to establishing the run. After only running the ball 11 times against the Texans, the Chiefs ran the ball a season high 27 times.

LeSean McCoy and Darrel Williams are the most effective runners so far this season, averaging 5.4 and 4.0 yards per carry respectively, and should both have a tremendous opportunity this Sunday. I expect Reid to beat last week’s season high in an effort to slow the game down and take pressure off both the defense and Matt Moore.