The Green Bay Packers blew the No. 2 seed in the NFC playoffs and in the process let the Minnesota Vikings into the tournament by dropping their final regular-season game, 37-34 to the Queens.
It was the Packers first loss to that team since 2009 and it was ugly from the beginning.
The Vikings jumped out to a 13-0 lead before the Packers responded with any drive of substance. That didn’t come until the second quarter, when Aaron Rodgers capped a 12-play drive with a 3-yard pass to Greg Jennings.
That put the Packers back in it, but they were playing behind all day, largely because the defense was unable to stop anyone.
Adrian Peterson was his usual self. He ran for 199 yards and while the Packers defense had their moments against him, they obviously couldn’t contain him.
Let’s point fingers here, because fingers deserve to be pointed.
A.J. Hawk? Got thrown around like a rag doll. Brad Jones? Couldn’t make the tackles he was supposed to.
And let’s talk about Tramon Williams. He’s either afraid to or unwilling to tackle Adrian Peterson.
A personal foul penalty on Phil Loadholt put the Vikings at 2nd-and-27 after a Peterson fumble that wasn’t was overturned on review. On the ensuing play, the Vikings handed off to Peterson and Williams had him dead to rights in the backfield. That is, except for the fact that Tramon didn’t do anything to attempt to make a tackle. Peterson ran for 28 and a first down.
We’ll also mention the idiotic personal foul Williams drew. After the Packers stopped the Vikings on third down in the red zone, Williams was flagged for getting in a scuffle with Vikings receiver Jerome Simpson. That led to a first down and a Michael Jenkins touchdown.
There were certainly plenty of goats for the Packers and they were all on defense.
After looking like they were rounding into a potentially dominant unit over the past four weeks, the Packers defense was a disaster against the Vikings. Not only did they get gouged by Peterson with both Clay Matthews and C.J. Wilson back in the lineup (both players were injured when Peterson ran for 210 in the first meeting), but they also got taken advantage of by the Vikings passing game.
The Packers actually made Christian Ponder look like an NFL-caliber quarterback.
Christian Ponder!
That guy threw for 234, three touchdowns and no picks. This is a guy who had just 15 touchdowns in 15 games coming into the season.
In other words, the Packers made a subpar quarterback look like a stud, much like they did with Jacksonville’s Blaine Gabbert earlier in the season.
We really can’t say enough bad things about the Packers defense, which looked sloppy and unprepared, with the exception of Matthews and B.J. Raji.
Aaron Rodgers and the boys did fine work to keep this game from being a blowout.
Rodgers threw for 365 yards, four TDs and no picks, but he did have a costly fumble in third quarter that led to a Vikings touchdown.
Nonetheless, the offense looked great, other than their slow start and that one play.
Greg Jennings had 120 yards receiving. Three other guys had over 60 yards. DuJuan Harris ran for 70 yards on 15 carries — five yards per.
The Vikings couldn’t stop the Packers. Unfortunately, the Packers couldn’t stop the Vikings and the Vikings got the ball last.
A 29-yard Blair Walsh field goal sealed it as time expired.
So the Packers kissed the first-round bye goodbye when the 49ers beat the Cardinals and get to host the Vikings next week.
We hate the Vikings, but those dirtbags rolled the Packers on this weekend. They’re certainly not as bad as we want them to be and if Green Bay doesn’t remember how to play defense, this season is probably going to end just like last season did.
In disappointment.