It looked like a sandlot that wasn't big enough to play a big boy game.
Pylons were moved, the field shortened, kickoffs were eliminated and the Packers played the Oakland Raiders in a weird NFL Pre-Season game Thursday night.
IG Field in Winnipeg, Canada, home to the Canadian Football League's Blue Bombers was the site for the third exhibition of the month. Before the game, the CFL goal posts were removed, leaving behind a hole that was patched with about a three foot by three foot piece of field turf glued to the ground.
As the teams were warming up, officials decided the repairs, located in the back of each end zone on the regulation NFL field were deemed unsafe.
Green Bay Head Coach Matt LaFleur decided he wasn't going to expose his front line players to the possibility of injury. The Raiders' Jon Gruden has already announced his back-ups would play so 33 Packers and 41 Raiders didn't even dress.
To prevent the game from being called off, the NFL and the teams agreed to take the end zones out of play, shortening the field to 80 yards and eliminate kickoffs altogether.
And so they played on.
The Raiders rallied late to win 22-21 on Daniel Carlson's third field goal of the night, from 33 yards away with just :08 to play.
With Aaron Rodgers and the rest of the starting offense watching, Tim Boyle got the chance to quarterback out of the gate. He started slowly, completing only 2 of his first 11 passes but he warmed up in the second period. Boyle led the Packers to three straight scoring drives, hitting Trevor Davis on a 13 yard touchdown, Jake Kumerow from 16 yards out and Tra Carson scoring on a two yard run to cap a two minute drill to give Green Bay a 21-10 lead at the half. Boyle finished 16 of 25 for 191 yards and a passer rating of 113.9.
DeShone Kizer wasn't as fortunate with third stringers after intermission, getting sacked three times on his first five dropbacks and throwing an interception on the game's final play as the offense was shut out in the second half.
Davis had an impressive game for the Packers with five receptions for 78 yards, an 18 yard end around and 17 yard punt return in his first action of the pre-season. He suffered a neck stinger in the joint practice with Houston two weeks ago.
Green Bay was outgained for the third straight game, 323-287. Penalties continue to hurt, the Packers were flagged 12 times for 127 yards. Offensive linemen Cole Madison and Anthony Coyle split five holding calls alone.
Defensively, the tackling improved somewhat but James Crawford let running back Keith Smith slip away on a five yard touchdown catch. Ty Summers led the unit with 10 stops. Chandon Sullivan broke up four passes but also gave up a second half touchdown of 9 yards to De-Mornay Pierson-El.
There were three injuries of note. Curtis Bolton left the game and was using crutches on the sidelines. He moved into the starting lineup after Oren Burks suffered a pectoral injury against the Texans and Bolton's injury leaves the team very thin at inside linebacker. Equanimeous St. Brown had to be carted to the locker room just before halftime after making a short catch but with his leg planted in the turf he was pulled down suffering a lower leg injury. Top draft choice Rashan Gary also needed help off the field but later in the evening, his RG Agency sent out a tweet that said he's expected to be OK.
A crowd of 21, 992 was subjected to another substandard NFL exhibition with unique rules but it's not the first time the league has issues. Last year's regular season game between the Rams and Chiefs was moved to L.A. after Azteca Field in Mexico, City was deemed unplayable. Then there was the 2016 Hall of Fame game between the Packers and Colts that was completely cancelled because of poor field conditions. The field paint used to stripe and decorate the high school surface coagulated and turned into slippery globs.
Thankfully, there's only one more to go, at Lambeau against the Kansas City Chiefs next Thursday night.
