Skyy Moore didn’t just help the Packers beat the Jets - he carried a huge chunk of the load while Green Bay’s offense sputtered around him.
In an overtime win that looked ugly on paper, the Packers got by without turnovers and despite a pile of penalties, but Moore was the one player who kept flipping field position and dragging the team into scoring range. He finished with four kick returns for 116 yards, a 29.0-yard average and a long of 43, plus four punt returns for 92 yards, a 23.0-yard average and a long of 63. He also caught two passes for six yards on offense.
That added up to 214 total yards for Moore, even though only six came from scrimmage. The rest of Green Bay combined for 193 yards.
The comparison gets even louder when you zoom out a bit. The Packers’ longest kick return last year was 36 yards, and their longest punt return was 20. Moore cleared both of those marks with ease in this game.
He was also filling in as the team’s slot receiver after Jayden Reed left on a backboard, so Moore’s role expanded well beyond just return duty on Sunday.
Earlier in the season, Moore had not returned kicks in Week 1, with Bo Melton and Kaleb Johnson handling those reps, and he posted two punt returns for 17 yards against the Minnesota Vikings. There had been some reason to wonder whether he’d keep the kick return job once second-year third-rounder Savion Williams comes back from injured reserve, possibly as soon as Week 5. After this performance, though, it’s hard to see Green Bay taking him off the field.
The bigger question now is how the Packers manage their receiver rotation. So far, the usage has been tightly scripted.
Matthew Golden and Melton have handled the X spot, Christian Watson, Williams and J. Michael Sturdivant have worked at Z, and Reed and Moore have been the only players used in the slot dating back to the preseason.
One possibility is that Green Bay trims its three-receiver looks and leans more on two-receiver sets, or gives someone like Melton or Sturdivant some slot work. That could help keep Moore fresh for the return game, where he just delivered the kind of performance the Packers badly needed.
In Other News...
Packers Fans Got Caught In Foxs Most Infuriating Broadcast Mess
Fox Sports turned a busy Week 2 Sunday into a strange viewing experience for fans following the Packers and the rest of the early slate, as audio feeds did not match the games on screen for multiple contests. For Green Bay viewers in particular, the problems were compounded when the network briefly lost its scorebug during overtime of the Packers-Jets game, adding another layer of confusion to a broadcast day that was already off the rails.
The network did get the audio issues corrected before the primetime Cowboys-Commanders matchup, but the afternoon left plenty of viewers wondering how so many technical glitches lined up on the same broadcast window. Even by NFL TV standards, it was the kind of mess that overshadowed the football for a while, and Packers fans had every reason to feel caught in the middle of it. [Read more 🡒]
Packers Nearly Faced A Wild In-Game Fix During Jets Win
In a game that was already tight all afternoon, the Packers got pushed to the edge up front when injuries thinned out their offensive line against the Jets. The situation got so thin that the staff had to consider a wildly unconventional fix, with Tucker Kraft even in the conversation as a possible emergency option at tackle while the group tried to hold together.
Jacob Monk ultimately got the green light to play, which kept Kraft where Green Bay needed him most, and the Packers were able to lean on rookies Jager Burton and Anthony Belton to help steady the line. It was the kind of survival-day football that can decide a September win, and Green Bay barely got through it with a 20-17 victory. [Read more 🡒]
Two Packers Drew NFL Discipline After The Vikings Game
The Packers latest trip through the rivalry with Minnesota carried the usual physical edge, and the league office noticed. Green Bay came away with a pair of fines tied to actions from that game, with linebacker Lukas Van Ness and safety Evan Williams both cited for plays the NFL judged to be over the line.
Van Ness was fined for a hit to the head or neck area of a quarterback, while Williams was penalized for unnecessary roughness on a defenseless player. The dollars from those fines will be funneled to the Professional Athletes Foundation and the NFL Foundation, which use the money to support athlete health and wellness programs. [Read more 🡒]