Green Bay Packers Get Week One Win vs. Vikings

Sunday at noon, the Green Bay Packers squared off against their NFC rival Minnesota Vikings in a showdown that resulted in a 43-34 Packers victory. After coming in as 6-point underdogs, the Packers offense looked unstoppable en route to a dominant win. 

Coming into this season, Packer’s fans, like most years, are expecting great things out of their team. Coming off a year in which the Packers went 13-3 and lost in an NFC championship game, you would assume there would be some high expectations for the following season. With a first-year head coach heading into his second year, and a young team that managed to not lose any key pieces this offseason, I don’t think it’s a reach to say the Packers are serious Super Bowl contenders.  

Keeping all that in mind, I found it very strange that coming into this season, the national media was labeling the Packers as a very mediocre team. Sportswriters were picking the Packers to finish 3^rd in the division behind the Vikings and the Bears, and sports talk radio host talked about Aaron Rodgers as if he were a feeble old man who can’t throw a football anymore and needs a cane to walk.  

That’s fine, we’re a small-market team, I get it. Green Bay doesn’t have the excitement of a market like Minneapolis or Chicago. I personally love when the national media doesn’t give the Packers the attention and respect they deserve. I hope we get pushed down in the power rankings; I hope we get picked to go 6-10. I hope every last ESPN and FOX sports analyst picks us to lose every week.  Because sure, it’s frustrating to watch your team get disrespected by analysts on national TV, but you have to understand that they have no idea what they’re talking about. They are there to push against the grain narrative. To them, it doesn’t matter the Packers have dominated the division since the 90’s. It doesn’t matter that they swept the division and only lost 3 regular season games last year. The media doesn’t cheer for the little guy.  

With that being said, when I watched the game yesterday, it went pretty much how I thought it would go. The Packers moved the ball up and down the field with ease against a depleted Viking’s defense, and besides struggling the first few possessions to put the ball in the endzone when in scoring position, they looked like a team that went 13-3 last year. In fact, offensively, they looked a lot sharper than all of last year. Who would have thought that Aaron Rodgers, the best quarterback I’ve ever seen play, would thrive more in an offense his second year being in it? It’s actually insane to think that maybe our young wide receivers look like they’re getting better over time.  A very common occurrence that happens between your rookie year and 3^rd year.  

Allen Lazard and Marquez Valdes-Scantling really impressed me yesterday. Did MVS drop two easy passes that would have been huge? Yes, yes, he did. But he caught some big passes as well, and for the first time, it’s looking like he could be a legitimate deep threat the Packers have been missing. He showed flashes last year, and the kids got lighting speed. I know many Packers fans, including myself, were disappointed that we didn’t draft a wide receiver in this year’s draft, but did it ever occur to you that maybe the Packer’s front office really likes the guys they have?  

The wide receivers looked great. I know I didn’t mention Davante Adams earlier, but I feel like what he did Sunday speaks for itself. Two touchdowns, 150+ yards, with a million catches. If you didn’t know Davante Adams is an absolute monster by now, where have you been at the past five years? He was great, the running backs were fantastic. I know none of them popped off for a huge game, but we have four guys that I’d be very comfortable handing the ball off to. They all can do different things in different situations, obviously Aaron Jones being that all-purpose back that’s leading the charge. By the way he had a touchdown Sunday.  

Looking at Quarterback play, Aaron Rodgers looks like he’s not going to be missing as much as he has in the past two years. Granted, by league standards Aaron Rodgers has played great the last two seasons. Last year, he had a new coach for the first time in his career, and the year before that he was playing on a bad leg. For those reasons, the last two years Aaron Rodgers has not looked as good compared to Aaron Rodger’s standards. I think that’s fair to say, and I think if he stays healthy this year, we’ll see a return to MVP Rodgers form, or at least on par with the greatness he’s displayed over his career. If you have Aaron Rodgers on your team it doesn’t matter who you play. You’ll always have a shot at winning.  

If there was any area in question for the Packer’s on Sunday it was their defensive play. Which to the defenses credit, looked worse on paper than it did in game. They let up 34 points which to the casual fan isn’t great. What you have to understand is that the game was over by the 4^th quarter. The Packers held a firm 3 possession lead, and the offense couldn’t be stopped. I would have liked to see a little more resistance from the defense in the later part of the game, but in the first half when the game was close, I was impressed by the play making ability on that side of the ball. Jarie Alexander is turning into the elite corner he looked to be developing into in his first two seasons, and the defensive frontline is scary to get into a 3^rd and long against.  

My major concern with the defense was how bad we looked against inside runs when Kenny Clark went down. Clark is the anchor of the defense, and with suspect middle linebacker play going into this year, the middle of the defense seemed vulnerable. It didn’t matter too much in this game as the Packers were up and if the Vikings wanted to run the ball and kill the clock, the Packers seemed comfortable letting them do so. But this goes back to the same problem the Packers had last year with stopping the run. In all 4 losses last year the opposing team ran the ball down the throat of the defense. Not getting into 3^rd and long situations defeats what this defense is built for. With the great pass rushers and big-time playmakers in the secondary this team has; they want the other team to be throwing the ball. If you can’t stop the run on 1^st  and 2^nd down between the tackles this defense is going to have issues. 

I really liked the first showing we saw of this Packers team. I hope they can take a great divisional win like this and use it a stepping stone to build upon going forward this season. This team has the talent to be special, and this is the most excited I’ve been about a Packers team in the past 5 years. I looked forward to talking more about this team as the year progresses.