The Green Bay Packers closed out their regular season with a historically bad performance against the Minnesota Vikings, falling 16-3. Bringing in quarterback Jordan Love for backup Clayton Tune might’ve made the score a little prettier, but head coach Matt LaFleur opened up on why that wasn’t the case.

According to NFL columnist Zach Jacobson, “Matt LaFleur said that if circumstances led to Jordan Love having to enter the game in place of Clayton Tune today, the Packers wouldn’t have attempted a single pass.”

“We made that decision prior to coming into this game,” LaFleur added.

With the seventh seed in the NFC already locked up, Green Bay treated the finale like what it was: a preservation exercise. Tune got the start, and 16 key contributors were held out. That list included Love, along with Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, and Josh Jacobs. Up front, four of the five starting offensive linemen were also sidelined.

The depth chart thinned even further when backup quarterback Malik Willis was ruled inactive with a shoulder and hamstring injury.

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The result was predictable. With a patchwork offensive line, Tune rarely had a clean pocket and was sacked four times. The offense never found a rhythm, never threatened the end zone, and never gave the defense much help. And with that OL, even if Love came in, he’d have struggled to throw even a single pass.

Love, who had just cleared concussion protocol after missing the previous week, didn’t speak to reporters afterward since he didn’t play. Several teammates, though, said he addressed the locker room postgame.

Still, context only explains so much. Even resting more than half the starters, scoring three points against a Vikings defense that hasn’t exactly struck fear this season is hard to justify. The Packers made history today, and not in a good way.

The Packers’ historically bad offensive performance

For the first time in nearly half a century, the Green Bay Packers finished a regular-season game with negative net passing yards. Minus-seven net yards through the air. That came from just six completions for 34 yards by third-string quarterback Clayton Tune, combined with four sacks that wiped out 41 yards.

You have to go all the way back to September of 1976 to find the last time Green Bay ended a game in the red in passing yards. That day, Lynn Dickey completed five passes for 45 yards, and the Packers gave up six sacks for minus 80 yards.

It’s a rare territory. In fact, there are only six documented games in franchise history with negative net passing yards, and all of them came between 1965 and 1976, when offenses played a far more dangerous brand of football.

The history didn’t stop there. This was also the first time the Packers finished a game with fewer than 35 passing yards, not counting sacks, since 1991. Add it all up, and Sunday became one of those statistical oddities you don’t expect to see attached to a playoff team.

And yet, there’s more. Green Bay also became just the fourth playoff-bound team in NFL history to close the regular season on a losing streak of four or more games, joining the New York Jets of 1986, the Detroit Lions of 1999, and the Pittsburgh Steelers of 2024.

Still, it wasn’t all bad news. The Packers got through the night without any new major injuries to their starters, and given the way the game unfolded, that mattered. Head coach Matt LaFleur will gladly take that trade-off. But if Green Bay plans on sticking around for more than one week in the playoffs, the offense will have to look nothing like it did on Sunday.