The Green Bay Packers had their worst season in recent memory in 2018

Rashan Gary Jersey , and somehow they did so while having a full season of Aaron Rodgers under center. This weekend, we’ll look at the overall numbers for the team on offense, defense, and special teams in an effort to try to identify the critical pathways to turning the team’s record around in 2019.Today, we’ll start with the offense.Conventional StatsOverallOverall, the Packers still managed to finish in the top half of NFL offenses in points and yards, ranking 14th and 12th respectively. They turned the football over just 15 times, second-fewest in the league.Third downs were an obvious problem, however. The Packers converted just 36.8% of their third downs, ranking 23rd in the NFL. They did finish above-average in converting touchdowns in the red zone at a 61.7% rate, but they had just 47 attempts, ranking them 21st in that area.PassingAs a result of a combination of factors, the Packers finished the 2018 with the third-most pass attempts of any NFL team, throwing the ball 640 times. Aaron Rodgers finished sixth in the NFL in passing yards with 4,442, but he was a startlingly low 21st in touchdown percentage at just 4.2% of attempts. Rodgers did lead the NFL in interception rate, throwing just two picks all year for a rate of 0.3%. However, where Rodgers once excelled — yards per attempt — he finished just 17th this year at 7.4. That was Eli Manning-Mitchell Trubisky territory, not in the realm of the better quarterbacks in the NFL. Likewise, Rodgers’ completion percentage was 26th out of 33 qualifying players at just 62.3%. Another critical component of the passing game is that the offense took 53 sacks, tying for the third-most in the NFL. Many of those were due to Rodgers holding the football too long or taking a sack instead of forcing a football into coverage. However, the frequency at which he was sacked on third downs was painful to watch.RushingWhile the Packers threw the third-most of any NFL team, they finished dead last in the NFL in rushing attempts, running the ball just 333 times all season. However, the argument can be made that the team should have run the ball more, since the Packers finished second in the entire NFL in yards per carry at 5.0.LeadersAaron Jones 133-728-8 (5.5 YPC)Jamaal Williams 122-464-3 (3.8 YPC)Aaron Rodgers 43-269-2 (6.3 YPC)Ty Montgomery 26-105-1 (4.0 YPC)DVOAFootball Outsiders’ DVOA is generally becoming accepted as the best single measurement of a unit’s effectiveness. It stands for “Defense-adjusted Value Over Average), and FO’s brief description states as follows:“(The system) breaks down every single NFL play and compares a team’s performance to a league baseline based on situation in order to determine value over average.”Remember that positive numbers favor the offense and negative numbers favor the defense, and that this measure is an attempt to measure success on a per-play basis. Despite the Packers’ struggles on offense, the unit still managed a seventh-place rating overall in offensive DVOA (+11.0%). The rushing offense was third in the NFL at +12.4%, while the passing offense came in just 12th at +18.0%.One thing to remember about DVOA is that it tends to reward big plays. The Packers did hit on plenty of explosive passing plays this season, with Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Davante Adams accounting for most of them. However, it was the shorter conversions that stalled out the offense often, which helps to account for the discrepancy between a 12th-place DVOA ranking and Rodgers’ mediocre rate stats.QuarterbackDespite the issues with his receivers as described below, Aaron Rodgers’ DVOA was still positive, as he finished 13th among passers with 200 or more attempts at +8.2%. His DYAR also ranked higher, in ninth place at 821. However, that was less than half of the top-ranked QB, Patrick Mahomes, who had 2,039.By comparison, Aaron Rodgers had 1 http://www.thepackersfanshop.com/Jace-Sternberger-Jersey ,564 DYAR in 2014 when he won the MVP, and his career high was 2,059 back in 2011. Running BacksBy DVOA, Aaron Jones was the sixth-best running back on a per-play basis this season (+16.9%) among players with 100-plus rushing attempts and he was the 11th-best among runners with 20 or more attempts. He also finished tenth in the NFL in DYAR (145), a measure of total productivity, and sixth in success rate (55%).Jamaal Williams, on the other hand, was 22nd in DVOA (+1.7%), 25th in DYAR (51) and 32nd in success rate (45%).ReceiversDavante Adams’ great counting stats didn’t really translate to DVOA, as he finished just 30th at +6.1%. His DYAR was much better at 246, good for 16th, with the difference due in part to his high volume of targets. The other two qualifying wideouts (50 or more targets) were Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who was 63rd in DVOA out of 84 qualifiers at -11.1%, and Randall Cobb, who finished 78th at -22.1%.Among all Packers receivers with at least 10 targets, Geronimo Allison led the way in DVOA with +16.8%. 49 tight ends qualified at that position with 25 targets or more, including two Packers: Lance Kendricks and Jimmy Graham. Both were negative in DVOA, with Kendricks sitting at -0.1% (25th place) and Graham at -6.6% (30th).ConclusionsThe Packers hit on some big plays this season, which helped their ranks in yardage and some of their DVOA rankings, but where they failed was in consistently reaching the red zone and on converting third downs. The running game was generally effective, but it was seemingly used far too often — though this was a practical result of the Packers being behind in many of their games. In the modern NFL, teams take the lead by passing and hold the lead with the run game. Considering that the Packers lost nine games and had to mount significant late comebacks in three of their victories (against the Bears, 49ers, and Jets), the game situations dictated that they could not use the running game as much as they might have liked. Fixing the third-down issues (including convincing Rodgers to get rid of the football more quickly on those downs) should be the biggest priority for whatever coaches are in charge of this offense in 2019. That will help ensure that the team can sustain drives better, get the ball into the red zone more frequently, and ultimately score more points. That in turn gives the team a lead more often, which allows a heavier dose of the running game.Stay tuned for a look at the defense on Sunday. GREEN BAY, Wis. — With Jordy Nelson long gone and Randall Cobb in Dallas, there now is an undisputed leader in the Green Bay Packers wide receivers’ room.Davante Adams spent a portion of the team’s practice Wednesday during mandatory minicamp coaching young wideouts on routes and concepts, a role the sixth-year veteran says he has embraced.More Packers coverage from FOX Sports WisconsinPhotos of the Week: 7/21/19 – 7/27/19Packers rookie Gary’s biggest critic is himselfTop Tweets: Former Badger TJ Watt has impressive four-year transformationPHOTOS: 2019 Green Bay Packers training campPackers’ Rodgers, LaFleur ironing out offense, building chemistry“That’s just a trait that I have,” he said. “I feel like I’ve always been a leader. Obviously you come in and you’re not as vocal when you’re a younger player just because that’s just how it goes. You’re a small fish in a big pond again and you want to let guys like Jordy, Randall, James Jones, those type of guys, take the brunt of the leadership role and don’t step on any toes.“But now obviously I’m the clear-cut oldest guy in the room. It’s just natural, and these guys definitely look up to me and they value my opinion on different things, so I try to lead by example first and foremost and if they need that vocal leadership, then that’s when I’ll step in with that.”Adams Dexter Williams Jersey , at 26, is not only the oldest guy in the room, he’s also the most productive, by far.Adams’ 35 receiving touchdowns since 2016 trail only Antonio Brown‘s 36 for most in the NFL during that span. His 111 receptions and 1,386 receiving yards last season were both career highs and earned the 2014 second-round pick out of Fresno State a second straight Pro Bowl selection.But even Adams admits it has been a challenge learning a new offensive system under new offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett and first-year head coach Matt LaFleur.“It’s been like being a rookie again,” he said. “Starting off learning it, we’re all starting off with a clean slate. I’ve never been in an offense quite like this before, so to be in this position, it’s fun. You get kind of, not complacent, but you get a little comfortable, because I’d been in the old offense so long. So being in this one now where we have a little bit of curveballs that we weren’t quite used to, all getting to learn at the same time, it’s fun.”The 39-year-old LaFleur took over the Packers in January as one of the top young offensive minds in the league. He served as the Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator last season and the Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator before that.6<button class="view-gallery">View Gallery</button> Gallery:Things we learned at Packers OTAs (and elsewhere)Matt Ludtke | APAdams says LaFleur is hands-on, has an open mind and has already done a lot, including one-on-one discussions, to make sure Adams and two-time MVP Aaron Rodgers don’t lose any of the chemistry that has made them one of the most prolific offensive tandems in the league.“A lot of it is not necessarily corrections, but him wanting to just get some feedback and see how I felt about something or why I ran a route a certain way so we can kind of get that cohesion,” he said.BIG ON JAKEAdams says he has seen an early spark in second-year pro Jake Kumerow. The 6-foot-4, 209-pound Wisconsin-Whitewater product had only eight receptions for 103 yards and a touchdown last season for Green Bay, but Adams said Kumerow is primed to have a breakout year.“I think Jake has shown it for a while,” he said. “You saw a lot of it in preseason (last year). He made some big plays, some splash plays. You see those all the time. But he’s a guy that, every day, you never have to tell him how to work. … That makes it easy for that leadership role for me, it makes my job a hell of a lot easier. He asks a lot of questions, and you can tell he’s starting to come into his own.“Obviously with everybody learning the offense at the same pace right now, it levels the playing field even more. You can see the confidence, and we’ve always seen the ability.”Rodgers agreed, making Kumerow an early favorite to secure a spot in the game-day receiver rotation that will likely include Adams, Geronimo Allison, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Equanimeous St. Brown.“He’s an extremely intelligent guy who’s in the right place at the right time,” Rodgers said of Kumerow. “He makes fantastic catches, he makes the plays that are there and he does the little things. … You know the guy’s going to do it right. He’s going to always be in the right spot. He knows what he’s doing all the time and what the other guys are doing. And then when we gets the chance to make plays, he makes plays, and he does it in a super classy, understated way.”NOTE: The Packers will begin training camp on Thursday, July 25. Players will report to Green Bay on July 24, which is also the date of the Packers’ 2019 shareholders meeting at Lambeau Field.