Positive and concerning signs coming out of Packers' win over Buccaneers

In beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, the Green Bay Packers won a regular season football game in regulation for the first time since last December. In a must-win game, the Packers accomplished the mission.

But beating a winless team by only three points means the performance was far from perfect, and the visitors certainly did not play a clean game in Tampa.

Breaking down the positive and concerning signs coming out of Sunday's win over the Bucs:

Jordan Love was under pressure on only four of his 31 dropbacks, per PFF. That's an incredible improvement over the first three weeks, when he had individual drives where he was under pressure on at least four dropbacks. Love said he was more comfortable in the pocket, and the tape backs his words.

Love was kept mostly clean in the pocket, and he produced his best game of the season passing. Amazing how that works. He completed 22 of 30 passes, and four of the eight incompletions were clear drops. Love threw a late interception, but that play was less a poor one from the quarterback and more an incredible play by the defensive back. Protect Love and good things happen.

Matt LaFleur called play-action more in this game, and Love was excellent off run fakes, completing 8-of-9 passes for 79 yards and a touchdown. A lot of it was off boot action. The Packers also got an explosive play out of 13 personnel to Mark Redman -- the team's blocking tight end -- off a run fake. A mix of quick game and play-action could be the fix for the Packers passing game.

The run game hit two explosive plays, both setting up scores. It's a start. Taking out the kneeldowns to end the game, the Packers had 98 rushing yards. Again, it's a glimmer of hope for a run game that needs to come alive.

The rookie kicker hit a 58-yarder before the half, eventually providing the difference between the two teams. Trey Smack is becoming a reliable weapon. His only miss through four games was blocked, and he's 2-for-2 on kicks over 55 yards. Nice to have a kicker who can extend your scoring range out to 60 yards or more.

The run defense bounced back. Bucky Irving didn't have a run over seven yards, and the Bucs finished with only 76 total rushing yards on designed runs to running backs. Jalon Daniels burned them on a few scrambles, but the run defense was able to contain Irving and put the game mostly in the rookie quarterback's hands.

The drops are out of control. Bo Melton dropped a pass that would have converted a third down, created an explosive play and put the Packers into the red zone. Tucker Kraft dropped a touchdown pass. Matthew Golden had a third-down conversion knocked out of his hands. Skyy Moore dropped a quick screen. This has become a recurring problem to start 2026. The Packers have dropped 12 of Love's passes, the most in the NFL through four weeks.

How much of the improvement along the offensive line was actually real? Jordan Love got the ball out of his hands on average of 2.20 seconds, by far the fastest among quarterbacks in Week 4, and 22 of his 31 dropbacks saw him get rid of the ball in under 2.5 seconds. The offensive line got a ton of help in this game. In the true dropback passing game, the Packers allowed pressure on four of 13 dropbacks, and four of the five offensive linemen gave up at least one pressure in true pass sets, per PFF. It wasn't perfect, and it's fair to wonder if the Packers can live in quick game all the time and still function consistently.

The defense finished off the game, but what could have been a convincing 24-14 or 31-14 win ended up being a nail-biter because the offense couldn't convert two golden scoring chances into points. Finish! Against just about any other opponent, the Packers would have been in big danger of blowing this game. Facing an undrafted rookie quarterback helped bail out the offense after two big mistakes late.

The offense committed eight penalties, continuing another concerning trend. The offensive line was responsible for five of the penalties, and the Packers had three false starts. Five of the penalties came on 1st-and-10. This Packers offense isn't good enough to be consistently facing 1st-and-15 or 1st-and-20.

The run game produced 86 yards. But if you take away the 58 yards on the two explosive runs, the other 17 designed runs to running backs gained all of 27 yards, or 1.6 yards per carry. So the run game still has a long way to go. Including plays negated by penalty, the Packers had nine runs gaining less than a yard. There was a lot of empty plays in the run game.