3 things that stood out during the Packers’ loss to the Vikings

GREEN BAY — During the break at the 2-minute warning at the end of the first half, Matt LaFleur left his customary spot on the Green Bay Packers' sideline and made his way to the bench area behind him.

With his team in a four-touchdown hole, the Packers coach headed over to the wide receiver group first, pulled up a seat and showed them something on his Microsoft Surface tablet. He then moved over to the quarterbacks and showed Jordan Love and backup Malik Willis something, too.

But as LaFleur started to move back toward the sideline, he got twisted up in his headset cord and dropped everything he'd been carrying. His play-call sheet went flying one way and the tablet went crashing the other, landing screen-down on the ground.

It was that kind of a day.

A few minutes later, an apoplectic LaFleur got himself a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty when he blew his stack at referee Bill Vinovich's officiating crew after line judge Tim Podraza zoned out while LaFleur was trying to call timeout in the waning seconds of the first half.

And while the Packers bailed their coach out with a Love-to-Jayden Reed touchdown pass, the good vibes were short lived.

On a day when just about everything that could go wrong did — at least until a fourth-quarter rally that ultimately proved too little, too late — the Packers never completely recovered from their myriad of first-half mistakes and went down in defeat, 31-29, at the hands of the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday at Lambeau Field.

About the only good news was that Love — making his first start since suffering a sprained MCL in his left knee in the waning seconds of the Packers' season-opening loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Brazil — survived the game without further damage to his knee, despite the Vikings pass rush's best efforts.

Here are three things that stood out from the Packers' loss:

Jordan Love's return to action was a struggle for much of day

Love, who missed two games with his injury and watched as Willis led the team to back-to-back wins over Indianapolis and Tennessee , looked rusty early in his return to action. He seemed to be low with a number of his throws, and made several less-than-stellar decisions for where to go with the ball.

His receivers did not help, as they dropped at least five passes by unofficial count after registering only four drops in the first three games combined. Dontayvion Wicks accounted for three of those drops.

Although he rallied impressively late and appeared to look more comfortable down the stretch of the game, Love finished the day 32 of 54 for 389 yards with four touchdowns and three interceptions for a passer rating of 83.0.

The attempts, completions, yards and touchdown passes were all single-game career bests for Love. The three interceptions tied his career single-game high.

And while the Packers rallied in the second half, the third of Love's three interceptions was perhaps the most disappointing of everything that happened all day.

After taking over with 6 minutes, 50 seconds to go following a Vikings field goal that made it 31-22, the Packers were still very much in the game. And after a 36-yard downfield completion to Wicks, they were in business for another scoring opportunity.

Instead, on the very next play, Love tried again to go long to Wicks, this time in the face of a blitz. He threw the kind of under-pressure, up-for-grabs prayer ball that wasn't even close to getting to Wicks in the end zone. Instead, Vikings cornerback Byron Murphy easily intercepted it to squelch the threat.

Christian Watson suffers painful looking ankle injury after quiet start

Wide receiver Christian Watson, who battled incessant hamstring injuries during his first two seasons, came into the year healthy and poised to be the player the Packers were envisioning when they took him in the second round of the 2022 NFL Draft.

But with Love sidelined and the Packers using run-centric game plans with Willis in his stead, Watson came into Sunday's game with just five catches for 80 yards and a touchdown through three games. Against Indianapolis two weeks ago, he didn't have a single target in 41 snaps.

But while Watson was nothing but positive despite his limited opportunities, he was clearly excited to have Love back in the saddle.

But on Love's first interception of the day, the Vikings added injury to insult. On a throw across the middle with two Vikings defenders converging on him, Watson was bent awkwardly with his leg beneath him and sustained what looked like a serious ankle injury.

After writhing in pain on the Lambeau Field grass, Watson eventually limped to the sideline under his own power. But when he emerged from the blue sideline medical tent, he wasn't putting any weight on his left leg as he got onto a cart to go to the locker room.

Watson's absence led to more playing time for Wicks, the team's No. 4 receiver, who did have five catches for 78 yards and two touchdowns on 13 targets in addition to his three drops.

Packers could change tune on rookie kicker Brayden Narveson

After missing a field-goal attempt in each of the first two games, Brayden Narveson got lucky in last week's win in Tennessee , where his 48-yard miss was wiped out by a rarely called penalty.

Narveson finished the Titans game 3 of 3 — at least statistically — and Packers special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia defended his kicker at midweek when it was suggested that Narveson had missed a kick in each of the first three games, the same issue that led to last year's kicker, Anders Carlson, losing his job.

On Sunday against the Vikings, Narveson didn't just miss one kick. He missed two.

He doinked a 37-yarder off the right upright on the Packers' opening possession, then pushed a 49-yarder wide right during the second quarter.

The misses left Narveson, whom the Packers claimed off waivers from the Titans at the end of training camp after moving on from Carlson and veteran Greg Joseph, now 9 of 13 on field-goal attempts on the season.

Joseph, by the way, was 5 for 5 on field-goal attempts for the New York Giants on Thursday night, booting 52-, 41-, 38-, 22- and 42-yarders in the Giants' 20-15 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.