GREEN BAY, Wis. -- If Matt LaFleur couldn't find the answers to what ails the Green Bay Packers' offense from within, the coach wasn't opposed to a little thievery.
"I'm going to study some of the things around the league and see if there's something that we can steal to try and find a way to generate, specifically on the offensive side of the ball, just generate some momentum for our offense," LaFleur said of his plans for last week's bye.
His problem might be that he can't steal any players.
Such is life with a first-time starting quarterback (Jordan Love) who has three rookie tight ends, no receivers who joined the NFL before last season and hasn't had his No. 1 running back (Aaron Jones) for three of the first five games. No matter how many innovative ideas LaFleur pirated from his coaching colleagues over the past week, it won't change the fact that he's dealing with the youngest team in the NFL.
Still, he knew he had to try something beyond just the typical self-scouting projects every team does during their bye.
He might want to look for something that will lend itself to a faster start. Whatever has been on his scripted first 15 plays has not worked of late. The Packers, who are 2-3 heading into Sunday's game at the Denver Broncos (4:25 p.m. ET, CBS), have been outscored a combined 54-6 in the first half of their past three games -- mostly recently in the Monday night 17-13 loss at the Raiders in Week 5.
No team has been less productive in the first half of games this season than the Packers, who have averaged just 93.8 yards in the first two quarters. They are the only team in the league averaging fewer than 110 yards in the first half.
With this team, less might be more.
"I think just trying to reflect on it from a coaching standpoint. It's great we have this big ol' call sheet with all these plays to attack certain looks or whatever it may be, and it really doesn't matter if you can't execute it," LaFleur said. "So I think just from a coaching standpoint, we may have to look at just how much are we putting on these guys because we do have a lot of young guys."
Perhaps this all goes away if the Packers can get Aaron Jones back from the Week 1 hamstring injury that, after returning in Week 4 on a limited basis, sidelined him again in Week 5.
"For sure," Packers left guard Elgton Jenkins said when asked if Jones' return would solve most of their problems.
"You know just getting a guy like Aaron back on the field, how explosive he is, get the ball in his hands out in space or behind the line of scrimmage and the things he can do, it would be very vital for us as an offense getting him back."
But Love & Co. can't just rely on that.
"Obviously we miss Aaron Jones not being out there, but that's not an excuse," the quarterback said. "We've got to find a way to go win."
As for Love, his uneven start to the season shouldn't have been unexpected. While his seven-touchdown, one-interception start to the first three games made it look like a smooth transition from Aaron Rodgers, anyone who knows how hard it is to take over a team knows the pitfalls with a first-time starter. In the past two games, the script flipped on Love, who had five interceptions during that stretch.
It's not unlike what the Packers went through when they turned things over to Rodgers in 2008. Rodgers even had veteran receivers like Donald Driver and Greg Jennings, yet the Packers still went 6-10 that season.
"He's going to be just fine," Rodgers said of Love last week on "The Pat McAfee Show." "He's a great kid. They've got a young team. They've had some injuries. Aaron Jones has been out the last few weeks; he's a dynamic player. Christian [Watson] had been out ... I would just say to the Packers fans, just take some deep breaths, just trust this kid. He's a great kid, he cares about it, he's going to be around for a while, and they're going to get it fixed."
While Love's completion rate has been an issue -- at 55.6%, he's last among qualified quarterbacks -- the Packers' run game has perhaps been the bigger problem. In Jones' absence, AJ Dillon has failed to adequately fill in, and the Packers rank 27th in the NFL in rushing yards per game (81.6).
Still, the run game is what might bail out the Packers.
"Going forward, I feel like we can run the ball very well," Jenkins said. "Just putting hats on guys and getting our receivers open, but I feel like it starts with the run game and making sure that we do our job up front so we can have those opportunities on the back end.
"We've got a talented group of guys and we can do so much. But it's just the small things, and things that the outsiders don't see that we can see on film, that's what it's going to take. And it's going to take starting during the week and communicating with the guys, communicating with the players, the coaches and everybody just having a positive mindset going into the game Sunday."