Green Bay Packers @ Minnesota Vikings GDT - 9/13 - 12:00 CST

[Pckfn23]

There was really only one notable rookie performance for the Green Bay Packers, and it was a bit of a surprising one. UDFA linebacker Krys Barnes played just 16 snaps on the day (eight run-defense and eight in coverage), but he managed to produce three total defensive stops with a tackle for loss against the run.

[Pckfn23]

[YoHoChecko]

Nice. Love Barnes. Obvi this is just temporary and circumstantial, but nice to know he's a borderline roster guy in their eyes.

He doesn't have the athletic upside of our other guys, but he certainly could be like a field general type worth a solid skillet and instincts.

[BF004]

Minnesota’s worst game for TOP in franchise history.

[German_Panzer]

Relatively easy win. Rodgers on, if that continues we are SB material. MVS looked a bit better but still our main guy to improve (I recall a perfect bomb from #12 he didn't catch ). Don't be too harsh on the defense, it was preventive very early on. Anyways, life is good right now.

[texas]

Solid game today. Got Super Bowl vibes from that today but the defense will have to get better.

[go pak go]

Minnesota’s worst game for TOP in franchise history.

And yet they put up 34.

Honestly this defense astounds me. So Jeckyl and Hyde.

Defense allows 7 points all game (only from opening drive) and then 27 points between the 4th quarter and 14 seconds left to go in the half.

And it wouldn't really bother me if we didn't see this exact same thing last year.

[YoHoChecko]

And it wouldn't really bother me if we didn't see this exact same thing last year.

When we went 13-3 and went to the NFC Championship Game?

I don't like it either; it left a sour taste at the end of a great win, and it screwed my fantasy gamble of drafting the Packers in every league.

But we entered the 4th up 29-10 and our offense. The defense HAS to clean up the chunk plays it allowed in the "prevent chunk play" times, but it also played extremely well leading up to that point--I'm not even too down on the first drive, honestly; it was a Cousins scramble drill to Theilan after being flushed by pressure for 25 yards, a 15 yard penalty, and like 4 solid but not gashing runs... it's week one and some things were bound to go wrong; ours got sloppy once we had a 3-score lead in the 4th. There are far worse things.

So yeah, does it need cleaning? Of course. Does it concern me or paint a negative lens over what we accomplished yesterday? Not at all, not yet.

[go pak go]

And it wouldn't really bother me if we didn't see this exact same thing last year.

When we went 13-3 and went to the NFC Championship Game?

I don't like it either; it left a sour taste at the end of a great win, and it screwed my fantasy gamble of drafting the Packers in every league.

But we entered the 4th up 29-10 and our offense. The defense HAS to clean up the chunk plays it allowed in the "prevent chunk play" times, but it also played extremely well leading up to that point--I'm not even too down on the first drive, honestly; it was a Cousins scramble drill to Theilan after being flushed by pressure for 25 yards, a 15 yard penalty, and like 4 solid but not gashing runs... it's week one and some things were bound to go wrong; ours got sloppy once we had a 3-score lead in the 4th. There are far worse things.

So yeah, does it need cleaning? Of course. Does it concern me or paint a negative lens over what we accomplished yesterday? Not at all, not yet.

I agree with everything about this post. I too have no problem about that first drive. Especially because we responded after it.

But I don't care. I am stung up on that 4th quarter only because we saw it happen game, after game, after game, after game last year.

I mean Dallas, MN, KC, Washington, Chicago, Seattle. It's turning into a Mike Pettine trend.

On paper and in my mind, this defense is elite. And yet they seem to let 10 minutes of horrid play take them from the top 5 defense they should be to a top 20 defense actually. No I don't like what happened yesterday. We relied on Rodgers and that running game to be surgical the entire 4th quarter. And they were.

But if they weren't....the Vikings could have easily done to us what the Bears did to Detroit.

I'm bothered by it because it happened so many times last year and the hope and thought was "if that gets cleaned up....this unit is going to crush it in 2020" and then we see that 14 seconds left in the half and that 4th quarter.

I also hate being wrong. And I am convinced in my heart and mind that Gary and MVS are going to turn heads this year. And then yesterday happened.

[Drj820]

Minnesota’s worst game for TOP in franchise history.

And yet they put up 34.

Honestly this defense astounds me. So Jeckyl and Hyde.

Defense allows 7 points all game (only from opening drive) and then 27 points between the 4th quarter and 14 seconds left to go in the half.

And it wouldn't really bother me if we didn't see this exact same thing last year.

I mean seemed pretty obvious to me we switched to a more prevent style approach. Almost like we did against Carolina last year when we had a couple score lead in the 4th. The problem I agree is that defense sucked and didn’t work and we quickly got shedded by it. But I do think it was more a change in scheme, than the defense just magically starting to suck after working for 3 quarters. Several of those deep completions in the 4th it appeared Savage just got beat.

If anything bothered me about the d all game, I would say it was the run d. It didn’t look like it had improved much at all. Looked atrocious their first drive. Fortunately we took them out of what they wanted to do after the safety and then INT. We forced them to think about throwing more, but there run was working very well outside a few good stops where we got them into throwing again.

[YoHoChecko]

According to Football Outsiders, this game was the first in the hostory of the NFL to finish with the score of 43-34

[go pak go]

Minnesota’s worst game for TOP in franchise history.

And yet they put up 34.

Honestly this defense astounds me. So Jeckyl and Hyde.

Defense allows 7 points all game (only from opening drive) and then 27 points between the 4th quarter and 14 seconds left to go in the half.

And it wouldn't really bother me if we didn't see this exact same thing last year.

I mean seemed pretty obvious to me we switched to a more prevent style approach. Almost like we did against Carolina last year when we had a couple score lead in the 4th. The problem I agree is that defense sucked and didn’t work and we quickly got shedded by it. But I do think it was more a change in scheme, than the defense just magically starting to suck after working for 3 quarters. Several of those deep completions in the 4th it appeared Savage just got beat.

If anything bothered me about the d all game, I would say it was the run d. It didn’t look like it had improved much at all. Looked atrocious their first drive. Fortunately we took them out of what they wanted to do after the safety and then INT. We forced them to think about throwing more, but there run was working very well outside a few good stops where we got them into throwing again.

Hahaha. So funny how to people can watch the same thing and have two complete different thoughts.

I will agree it was clear we changed schemes. But then Pettine needs to stop doing that crap because his "prevent" just allowed MN to score quicker. Any "prevent" defense that allows three TD passes for 37, 22 and 19 yards is garbage. That is really bad prevent defense. I think the biggest thing that was suprising was the lack of two defenders being in the endzone for those catches. Two of em were to Thielen. How does he not get more attention in those spots?

But I actually had a different take on that run game. After that first drive, I thought we held up decent. The big let down in the run D after that point was the run allowed before half and they ran all over us to start the 3rd quarter, but once our Dline settled in....they once again clamped down. I thought our defense was tremendous in that 3rd quarter without Clark. Including the run defense.

[Pckfn23]

I didn't see a huge correlation between what happened yesterday and last year. The first drive run defense was not good, but after that and when we decided to go back to playing DLinemem on the DL after Clark went out, we were ok. We played prevent when up by 19 in the 4th quarter. It was sloppy. We didn't get enough pressure. I don't feel this compelling urge to get bent out of shape over it.

[go pak go]

I just can't underscore enough how excited I am though about this season and about this team. And it was because of one guy yesterday.

Aaron Rodgers.

I can't state enough how excited I am watching Aaron Rodgers yesterday. I don't think we have seen this from Rodgers since 2011/2010. He was in rhythm. He stayed in the pocket. He took what the defense gave him and dumped the ball to halfbacks when nothing was there.

YOU GUYS.

And what was even better is he was also still Aaron Rodgers we know and love. He still did the hardcount. He still had those plays where he escaped for a broken play and he made them. Like all of them.

Our offense is so much better when Rodgers is say 5 for 7 on broken plays rather than what we have seen the last many years of say 8 for 19 or so.

We honestly should have put 50....really 60 points on MN.

We all heard all August that Rodgers was back and nothing yesterday showed anything to the contrary.

[Waldo]

The offense had a quick short game last night, something it hasn't had in years it seems. And the jet sweep was working well. They basically imposed their will on Mn, did whatever they wanted it seems.

[Yoop]

basically prevent translates to 2 high safety and boundry zone coverage, however I rarely saw 2 caps and we mixed up boundry coverage the whole game.

to me it was a matter of pass rush, to often we gave cousins to much time, and when we thought they would run the Smiths played more of a contain first technique of staying put till they where sure it wasn't a run, smart, however minus the interior pass rush of Clark the pressure was non existent, I heard Gary had one total pressure, so that has to improve.

also we where never in danger, which also translates to less then max effort required to win during the 2nd and 3rd quarters, and dragged on some when the vikes tried to mount there comebacks in the 4th.

I think some of this is fixable, specially the lack of effort, and degree of contain first at edge rush, but we obviously lack a replacement for anything we normally get from Clark, we need better interior pass rush.

[YoHoChecko]

Look, let's get to 2-0 in our division, and then feast as fans on a huge Sunday night matchup with the Saints with real implications, and then try to draw longterm conclusions.

For now? Rodgers is VERY comfortable in the offense and anyone who thought the Vikings had any sort of edge or benefit over us can go back home to the trumped up talking head narratives they feed on.

[BF004]

Are the Packers the worst 1-0 team in history?

[Drj820]

Yeah haha I don’t want to overreact after one week. But it was a very encouraging week I admit that!

I too was thrilled about the RB room, Rodgers, Adams, and secondary minus the 4th qtr.

One thing that wasn’t “concerning” per say...but curious...preston smith was a ghost on the stat sheet. Defense is best when he and Z are scaring OCs and QBs.

Encouraging week one though!

[Yoop]

Look, let's get to 2-0 in our division, and then feast as fans on a huge Sunday night matchup with the Saints with real implications, and then try to draw longterm conclusions.

For now? Rodgers is VERY comfortable in the offense and anyone who thought the Vikings had any sort of edge or benefit over us can go back home to the trumped up talking head narratives they feed on.

I pre picked the score to be 43-13, and that may have been the outcome minus the injury to Clark, I felt for the last couple week that we where the better team and we where even better then that, so sure I expect a better match up with the Saints, but Bree's aint Cousins and we'll need to get better pressure on him.

It's not that I'am down on this team, and I expect they will improve, but so will the rest of the teams, minus PS games these first couple regular season games will be teams perfecting there installs and game plans.