The Green Bay Packers are less talented Wednesday than they were Tuesday.

No matter what anyone thinks about the hero Jake Kumerow Authentic Jaire Alexander Jersey , should he return from IR, the loss of Ty Montgomery and Ha Ha Clinton-Dix represents a blow to the absolute quality of the Green Bay roster.It doesn’t mean they’re a worse team.Take Sunday’s game as a prime example. If Montgomery’s offensive snaps simply go to Aaron Jones, and his special teams snaps to say Marquez Valdes-Scantling, aren’t the Packers actually closer to beating the Rams rather than further? Clinton-Dix gave up embarrassingly bad coverage on the touchdown to Josh Reynolds near the end of the first half. If a player like Jermaine Whitehead or Tramon Williams had been playing free safety, guys who are more likely to simply be in the right place at the right time, wouldn’t the Packers defense have looked better? More to the point, if Josh Jones, with his supreme athletic gifts, had been asked to chase around Todd Gurley in coverage, wouldn’t he have had a better shot at doing so than Whitehead? The touchdown and two-point conversions to Gurley were as simple as Whitehead not being able to track Gurley across the field. For whatever limitations Jones has, and clearly he has some, his speed isn’t one of them. Montgomery’s fumble encapsulated a dual thread line in the trajectory of both players this season. Even if he’ll deny it, players on the team believed Ty’s insistence on taking the ball out stemmed from a lack of touches in the offense, a frustration he voiced on the sideline. Whether it was a “tantrum” or not doesn’t matter. He forced it, making a bad decision in an effort to make a play for the team. Even if it was sub-conscious, it was a selfish decision on Montgomery’s part. That’s the story of Clinton-Dix’s season. Though he’s made some plays with interceptions, much more often he’s been out of position, freelancing, taking unnecessary risks to make picks, and showing an unwillingness to tackle, presumably in part to avoid injury to anticipation of his free agency (though his poor tackling is hardly a new problem). If what the Packers want from their free safety is a high-variance playmaker who won’t tackle and won’t always be responsible for his role, how could playing a rookie like Josh Jackson out of position actively make the team worse? A veteran like Tramon Williams would almost certainly know where to be and when, plus has better instincts, intelligence and ball skills than HHCD. At worst, Whitehead is a much more reliable tackler and a more agile safety in man coverage. He’s also faster, with quicker feet Womens Kenny Clark Jersey , plus has experience playing all over this defense. Much like with Micah Hyde, there’s a non-zero chance Clinton-Dix was blocking the best free safety on the team from getting to play. For whatever matchup advantages Montgomery would have provided in limited snaps, the difference in his production as a runner compared to Jones or his ability as a pass blocker relative to Jamaal Williams doesn’t look worth it. Green Bay, suddenly flush with playmakers at the skill positions, looks better off feeding those targets to Davante Adams, who proved once again Sunday he’s a mismatch against whoever he’s seeing opposite him. Mike McCarthy mentioned locker room culture as a contributing factor in the trade, and on Wednesday Brian Gutekunst implied that he believes the Packers are better without Montgomery and Clinton-Dix. For whatever talent Ty brought, it’s clear his presence on the team was no longer tenable after Sunday. And Clinton-Dix never became the leader this team hoped; in fact, he openly undermined leadership and talked on the record about having one foot out the door.“Football is the ultimate team game and taking individual pieces out doesn’t necessarily weaken the team,” Gutekunst said Wednesday. In this case, there’s a strong case to be made these moves can make the Packers better on the field even if they have less talent. Players who are willing to happily play their roles are more likely to do so effectively, than players who feel they have something to prove and in this case were willing to go beyond the structure of the team to do it. Having a chip on your shoulder is one thing, but actively undermining the success of the team to meet personal goals is another. Even if that’s not a reasonable explanation for the decisive play Sunday or HHCD’s play over the last few years (a point I won’t concede), at the very least these were high variance players who weren’t able to consistently execute what was asked of them. Sliding their snaps to players who can simply do their jobs, even if the top-end production isn’t as good, could make this Packers team better overall. Through the first two weeks of the NFL season, the Green Bay Packers relied heavily on Aaron Rodgers to fuel Green Bay’s offense, despite the fact that for all but one quarter of that time he was doing the job on just one leg.Running backs Jamal Williams and Ty Montgomery did an relatively decent job of maintaining the ground game in the first two weeks. Against Chicago’s second-best rushing defense in week one, Williams led the ground attack by rushing for 47 yards on 15 carries; in week two against the 14th-ranked Vikings rushing defense, Williams led with 59 yards on 16 carries and Montgomery followed with 31 yards on five carries. Still, an explosive element was still missing without running back Aaron Jones on the field.Jones, who was nursing a hamstring injury for much of the preseason and sat out due to suspension for the first two games of the regular season, was a key piece to the Packers’ offense last year. With Jones on the field, Green Bay averaged 6.5 yards per play, while averaging just 5.1 yards per play without him, and his 5.5 yards per carry ranked second among RBs with 75-plus attempts. In his first game this season against Washington Womens Geronimo Allison Jersey , Jones totaled 42 yards on six carries and five yards on one reception, with his first play of the game being this convincing ten-yard run for a first down.“You’ve got to be smart with all your players, particularly when it’s the first time out there,” head coach Mike McCarthy said following Jones’ game last week. “He hadn’t played since Kansas City but, boy, I thought he did some really good things with the ball and did some good things in the passing game.”It’s obvious that Jones is a dominant back who continues to find ways to power through defenders and add an edge to the rushing game the Packers’ haven’t had in years. In fact, Rodgers even went as far as comparing Jones to former running back Ryan Grant, who was a member of the Packers’ Super Bowl XLV team and finished his career as the fifth all-time leading rusher in Green Bay.Prior to the current season, Mike McCarthy and the Packers front office were vocal about utilizing a running back by committee approach. With three healthy backs who all bring a unique style of play to the offense, the Packers are able to diversify their run game, something they’ll certainly need to prioritize effectively this Sunday at Lambeau Field against a top-ranked Bills rushing defense. Buffalo is coming off one of the biggest upsets of the year, dominating Minnesota on defense with a particularly decisive game on the ground. Despite a rough start to the season, the Bills fifth-ranked rushing defense allowed just 14 yards on six carries against the Vikings, tying an NFL record for fewest carries in an NFL game. When it comes to rushing defense, Buffalo currently allows an average of just 80 yards on the ground per game. However it’s important to note that while the Bills may have been successful in stopping Minnesota on the ground (who was without RB Dalvin Cook nonetheless) they struggled to stop the top-ranked Chargers rushing game. Los Angeles was led by Austin Ekeler, who carried the ball 11 times for 77 yards. Ekeler currently ranks second when it comes to yards after first contact – a critical skill that Jones also possesses. Buffalo ranks 11th overall on defense, so it’s unlikely the Packers will diverge too far from their usual pass-heavy approach on offense, even with Rodgers’ still hobbling with a knee injury. However adding Aaron Jones to the mix could help to take some pressure off of Rodgers, especially early in the game. By utilizing Jones from the start, the Packers could control the game clock early, protect Rodgers knee, and reserve his arm down the stretch. With Jones in the mix between Jamaal Williams and Ty Montgomery, the Packers could certainly prove to be Buffalo’s toughest matchup on the ground.