The Green Bay Packers are now 7-0 at home this season and their latest win came the way the majority of those wins have — in dominating fashion. When it was over, the Packers handed an overmatched Atlanta Falcons a 43-37 loss.
While that score looks close, the game never really was. After the Falcons tied the score at seven in the first quarter, the Packers ran off 24 unanswered for a 31-7 halftime advantage.
The margin proved to be more than enough for a Packers offense that continued to hit on all cylinders, even while the defense was doing its best impersonation of the 2011 unit.
If you recall, that 2011 defense gave up a then-NFL-record number of passing yards. Monday night’s Packers defense gave up 259 receiving yards to one Julio Jones.
And while you’d think we’d also have to praise Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, he only threw the ball to Jones. No other Falcons’ receiver had more than 42 yards receiving.
That says something about the ineptness of the Packers defense. They knew who was getting the ball and they wouldn’t or couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Cornerback Sam Shields, who was returning from a concussion, was largely to blame. He looked like he either didn’t care or was still concussed. His mate, Tramon Williams, who had no excuses, was pretty awful as well. It’s almost as if Father Time suddenly caught up to Williams.
Nonetheless, that shitshow wasn’t enough to derail the Packers.
The rest of the defense played well enough. The Packers gave up only 91 net rushing yards and limited everyone not named Jones.
The parts you expected to work just fine for the Packers, worked just fine too. Those parts start with quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who was his usual impeccable self, throwing for 327 yards, three touchdowns and no picks.
Jordy Nelson came through with another big game, catching eight for 146 and a touchdown, which went for 60. Eddie Lacy also turned in a solid effort, with more than 100 yards from scrimmage — 73 rushing and 33 receiving — and two touchdowns.
In the end, the Packers’ win allowed them to keep pace with Arizona for the best record in the NFC. It also allowed them to remain a game ahead of the Detroit Lions for the NFC North lead.
Three games to go before a playoff run.
EN 
ES 
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HOLY SHIT what happened to the defense?!?!
I don’t even know what else to say, except, HOLY SHIT!!!
ignore the 2nd half …
the only thing that should have disturbed us was Julio Jones tearing us up… you need to double that dude every single play at some point
Ummm, no. This team is 100% dependent on jumping out to a big lead and then holding on for a win. Atlanta almost disproved a formula the relies on the defense to at least hold the walls for another 30 minutes. Fuckers were pouring over the parapet and the Packers secondary looked like the mop-headed kids as reinforcements that didn’t even know how to aim a gun.
We’ve ignored those kind of performances in the past. Against the Giants, the 9ers, the Seahawks. And we all know how well those turned out.
I guess im just concerned about the lack of bodies that can actually play at inside linebacker.
Literally Jones, Hawk, and Lattimore cant play, I mean they probably shouldn’t even be on an NFL roster with what their doing right now.
If Erik Walden is a starter in the NFL than I think it’s fair to say everyone of the 3 you mentioned deserve to be on a roster somewhere. FYI Jones is killing it as a Special Teamer, that alone would get him a spot on nearly any team in the NFL, even if he has to ride a short bus to the games.
As opposed to being dependant on coming from behind and 4Q comebacks? If we were squeaking out wins in the 2nd half each week, everyone would be bitching saying the same thing.
Well, you just nailed the MO of the perpetually-spoiled-bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, until you get your way, then bitch some more.
AR to nelson, TD. you guys need to realize that we can play soft as long as we can ramp it up on O whenever we want: which is just what AR to nelson TD exemplifies.
These coaches need to learn that you don’t let up unless you have a big lead headed into the 4th. Piss poor coaching in the second half. And could SOMEBODY run Brad Jones out of town now? That guy stinks, period.
Uh huh, dude barely played any D snaps this game and had a blocked FG-in fact he’s been killing it on STs the entire time he’s been on them.
agreed. B Jones has always been a very good spec teamer. I figured once he lost his starting position, he’d be back to tearing it up on ST. he has.
Nelson had two touchdowns.
Exactly. Back of the end zone and the long strike.
And was a Rodgers under throw and a nice tackle away from having 4.
I really hope our defense just decided to coast–it certainly seemed that way. It is certainly a bad thing they would ever coast that way, but at least that way they still have some control over the situation.
Never seen a dominant team let another team back quite that.
Never felt good watching that game other than the Burnett pick and the jordy bomb. Defense pulled the same shit that gets the pack bounced in the first game of the playoffs every year. Here come all the dorky homers on this site to make apologies and go “a win is a win get some perspective fuck you wah wah waaaah”
You NEVER apologize for a win.
Apologize to who? I’m not apologizing. Just saying. A dude below
even actually says “get some perspective.” Takes some real cognitive dissonance to think that criticizing the obviously terrible defensive play = you’re not a real fan and you hate the packers.
Tell me, why are you even a fan. You want this team to lose?
We want them to win, IN THE POST-SEASON! Does anyone honestly think that the way the D played tonight would have beaten a team in the playoffs? Or the Pats from last week for that matter? It hasn’t work for us the last 3 years.
W’s in the regular season are great, but D’s like this don’t get it done in the end. Rodgers can’t keep masking these deficiencies forever.
Didn’t we beat the Pats last week? holding them to 21 points no less? Musta been a dream. R-E-L-A-X, man. E-X-L-A-X and get that shit outta your system if that’s your preferred method. Whatever the case, do something or you’ll explode and someone’s gonna have to clean up that mess. Think of the poor masters of the custodial arts for once! geez.
the way the D played in the first half was all that matters to me. the game was over by then. so Brad Jones who has been playing good on ST gets some snaps on D in the 2nd half? big deal. we could dial it up the O if needed at any time, if it got close. as it happened, the falcons didn’t get close until regulation had almost run out…
Other than that first drive when it looks like they gave up (as they often do in the immediate aftermath of a big play), the D shut down Jackson and made at least 4 nice gang tackles on him. Then again, it could be argued the Falcons didn’t need to run the ball given our secondary made Julio Jones look like Black Hercules.
We’ll get bounced in the 1st round with a defensive effort like that. They really stunk it up in the 2nd half. Can’t believe that was the same unit that handled New England last weekend. That better stop real quick or you can forget about the Super Bowl. Seattle will come in and kick our asses if the D lays an egg like that.
perhaps you didn’t see the Packers defense I the 1st half that held the falcons to 7 points
Until we win next week and then it’s back to the Pack being awesome, right? Get some perspective. You’ll live longer.
If we don’t win out, we could be playing Seattle in Seattle; I don’t want to think about it…..argggg the defensive inconsistency is a problem.
I don’t either; Seattle in GB would be challenge enough. At least Seattle doesn’t have a Julio Jones. Hell, they don’t even have a Percy Harvin or Crispy Golden Tater Tot anymore.
what a regression on the defense, no pressure on Matty, he was pretty comfortable in the pocket, like someone said, a shit show tonight, better get it together!!!!
we just won, you fucken fuck
Patriots: Onto the playoffs!
Falcons: Better get it together!
It must be exhausting being you.
horribly exhausting, in fact i slept till ten o’clock this morning…now i gotta have coffee and think of more witty and insiteful things to post on the wonderful world wide inter=web for all my followers (you guys)!!! xxxooo
More like in”c”iteful. If ya wanna start a riot move to MO, it’s pretty easy these days.
Jones is 6’3″ and runs 4.3 40. Too big and too fast for our DB’s. Also our offense became predictable and vanilla in second half trying to hold on to lead. Our beat play is to dump off to RB in flat. We needed to do more of that rather than handing off the ball and getting stuffed. Glad no injuries to starters. Rodgers needs to go out of bounds and not take stupid hits.
yeah I was a bit concerned about some of those hits Rodgers took too… SLIDE man!! I know he could smell the endzone on a couple of those, but still.
Agreed. It worked out in the end but I would gladly sacrifice one first down and 4 (maybe 3 with the direction our PAT team is going) points to prevent a career, season, or even game-ending injury to Mr. Rodgers every time.
The taste in my mouth was more like shit-burger than vanilla…..
Okay, ENOUGH! I’m sick of all of this bagging on vanilla. Vanilla is the preeminent foil to all other flavors, particularly the Yin to chocolate’s (pronounced shokko-laat) Yang, but also a good, classic, standalone flavor in it’s own right. You ever had well-crafted homemade vanilla? It’s damn good, dammit! Vanilla fails to be great only if it’s that mass-produced soft-serve drek, but then most ice cream flavors of that feather are rubbish. This just goes to show it’s formation not flavor type.
That was my thesis statement from my dissertation, Ice Cream: An Object Lesson in the Supersession of Agency Over Theory, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.
good point, jtmax. fuck let’s just see if we can get some insurance in the secondary and put out feelers for the “retired’ champ bailey. he can still run a 4.3 40, no?
Offense continues to be awesome at home.
Having to watch the defense on tape again might be vomit-inducing.
That contract for Sam Shields isn’t looking so great right now. Davon House was the better physical match up with Jones and should have matched against him from the beginning. VERY curious coverage decisions on Julio Jones all night. Maybe Dom Capers was playing some sort of sick joke on us. My favorite options were matching Brad Jones against him on an important redzone third down play and the big play when we had NO ONE cover him. Those were my faves.
Someone check the back of a milk carton for Julius Peppers. He is MIA. Let’s call it a fluke that the defensive line had their worst game of the season against a shitty makeshift offensive line for the Falcons. No pressure all night, and Capers waited way too long before finally deciding to blitz.
Got the win that the Packers had to have. It isn’t going to get any easier than that.
I hope Dom and Mike decided to keep some unscouted defensive looks that way, even though it meant playing weakly against Julio “I’ll school your secondary” Jones.
Pressure was good at times, but considering the O-line they were facing, should have been a lot better. Julio Jones should have been doubled, at some point at least, I just don’t understand that. Shields played like his brain was still pudding. Dunno wtf Peppers was doing, probably thinking about his wife and Christmas dessert, if he were an o-lineman that’d be awesome cause I didn’t hear his name all night. Speaking of O-line-still fucking awesome though not quite as good as the past few games. Guion was an incredible pick up-love that when former Packers go to MiniSoda they suck yet the opposite is true on the reverse journey.
The O was pretty awesome tonight, and the D with them for a half, then (I’m hoping) they stopped caring. In the end we won. Gotta play 6 full halves from here on out-TB’s, Buffuffalo’s, and Detwa’s O’s may be a joke, but their D’s are not.
We needed to blitz up the middle more. Too vanilla of defense in second half. Needed more power on dline to get pressure. We need to bring jolly back.
Guess we’re back to to firing Capers, eh? Where were all you people last week? You people are as predictable as the sunrise.
And so is Capers D most of the time . . .
Well the Pack is at McCarthy’s magic number 10. Time for number 11. Hopefully the second half of the game shows the D players and coaches there is still work to be done. That type of half should be a good learning experience in a win. The umpire had a great game blocking Brad Jones. The umpire stoned Jones at least twice in the fourth quarter. Here’s to continued good health. Go Pack!
Please don’t give me that “Hey dimwit, we won the game, be happy! Did you want us to lose??” I am fully aware that we won, and also very happy we won. I care a lot more about the Super Bowl however. Call me human. Sue me. Whatever.
Can anyone here, with sincere honesty, tell me that this team can win the big one if our D plays like that? Can you name another team at the top of your head, or with research for that matter, that has won the SB with a piss-poor defense?
I pray and hope this is nothing more than a fluke of a performance by the D. May Julio Jones is just playing lights out (He DID humiliate Patrick Peterson last week). Maybe the Packers just thought the game was already over and decided to put in a half-hearted effort in the second half. Maybe Dom just didn’t feel the need to keep the status quo for the same reason. Maybe Shields needs to regain his confidence after his concussion, much like Lacy had to. Maybe all of the above.
We better hope it is because as great as Rodgers is, all it takes is one less than stellar performance from him and boom, we’re one and one yet again. A poor defense has NOT gotten the job done for the last three years.
I’m going to say the 2nd half was a joke. The players knew the game was in the bag and let up. Can you blame them? If Capers was worried Hulio was going to cause us to lose the game, he would have doubled him all night long, which he didn’t. The Falcons had no chance at winning and we all knew it by halftime. Why not let our corners try to match up 1 on 1 against one of the best in the league for some practice? In the end, it doesn’t matter how many yards Hulio racked up. When Megatron comes to town, with a good defense to support their O, we will for sure double him on every snap.
Very good point, although my view on it is that our back end can’t line up against a stud receiver. We just have no shut down corner, and apparently no inclination to give some saftey help to the guy covering. If you look at the playoff picture I only really see 2 studs that could be in the playoff mix to give us some headaches the same way Jones did – those being Dez Bryant and Calvin Johnson. If we can avoid one of those type of guys the defence should be able to at least get a coupe of turnovers to give the offence a chance to run up the lead.
We got owned by Julio Jones plain and simple. This was an ugly win, and I watched this game WITH a Falcons fan. Spare me the torture why don’t ya. If the Packers do not get it together in the playoffs. Then its going to be another fucking first round playoff loss AGAIN. Just like 2011! Back then that was just awful because of the amount of asshole Ginas fans I had to put up with.
Hey look, I get the a win is a win and all, but this should have never even been a game. The first half was great, then the second half was a completely different team. The fact that the Packers could have lost this game is alarming. I get that some situations were matchup issues, but the adjustments were bad. There were a few times that I saw Jones matched up with Julio (this my rant earlier), that was bad coaching. I guess we weren’t expecting the no huddle from Atlanta? Those guys were burned out in the 4th. I got a little pissed by the “oh well, whatever” attitude that the team came out with in the 3rd. This is not a family night game, that attitude should NOT be there unless you are up big after 3 quarters. How many times in the past has that come back and haunted this team? I just hope they got that crap out of their system last night. Love this team though, and still know we have the talent to win it all, just need to stop with efforts like that. Go Pack!!!
WTF was that….? 269 yards ????
Wondering if Tim Jennings, Ryan Mundy abd Chris Conte showed up, put on packers uniforms and subbed in during the second half….
Butterball and Megatron may be looking forward to December 28th….
oh, i am sure that megatron and whoever is licking their chops at the chance to leave their cozy Dome and celebrate the winter solstice by visiting GB in late Dec. LOL!! btw how did you ever pick the handle “Icebowl”?????
Shields looked lost the entire game. Lucky Jones got hurt and taken out in the 4th qtr. Jordy consistently kills defenses but Aaron spreads the ball around so he can’t be doubled teamed. Ryan looked directly at Jones and only him the entire game. Why didn’t we double team him. Otherwise offense was perfect, offensive line again was fantastic. These games happen. Just enjoy the ride folks!
We did double. Hhcd just did not do his job on top. He gave jones too much space.
Pack really needs to get rid of Caper. He has had several years to get that Defense fixed and we saw last night he has failed miserably. If it doesn’t get addressed and fast it will be a very short playoff run.
So 1 half of football is enough proof, eh? Have you even watched the team this year? The previous game for example?
We’ll see what happens. Hopefully that was a just a glitch in the pass defense. Gotta think that we go out-coached in the 2nd half, or the players just thought it was over and they could coast. But that is far from championship defense. That will not work playing against Seattle whose D may limit our high octane offense to 21 points or so. We can’t rely on the offense to pull all of the games out for us. The D has to contribute. Having said that, they had played 4 straight very good games. Not sure what to make of this. But when the red light comes on in your car, their may be a problem with the engine. We’re gonna find out in the next 6 weeks.
So if we were out-coached in the first second half then I guess the Pack did the out-coaching in the first. Or are we just gonna ignore that?
This is a team that was 5-7 coming into the game, and one of the worst road teams in the NFL. This is a game they should have won handily. I am willing to ignore the first half because that is what was supposed to happen! If there were another couple minutes added to the game, I dont think the packers would have held on. That was not simply getting outcoached in the second half. That was an epic meltdown. One this defense has had several of.
They’re (ATL) also a top 10 offense (both points and yardage). How many meltdowns has THIS year’s defense had exactly? That was the first I can recall, unless you want to count @ NO, I wouldn’t. The D played terribly in the second half last night, I’ve said as much elsewhere, my point was that if you’re going to assault the coaching staff for a bad performance then you must also give them praise for a good performance (same goes for the players), elsewise you lose credibility-THAT was the point of my reply.
Shit. I’m not even sure where to start. I was at both games and those last two quarters played by the defense, compared to the first 6, was NIGHT and DAY. The idea that the D and Dom took their foot off the pedal is absurd. We were one possession away from LOSING. One inside kick recovery or first down not acquired by our offense away FROM FALLING TO THE 7th seed.
The last two quarters against the Birds, there was TOTAL confusion out there… No press coverage on Julio at all, strange defensive assignments, and just plain looking gassed. Maybe last week took a little gas out of the tank, I dunno.’
Yeah, we WON, but there is for sure cause for alarm. You need to be able to win a 21-17 type of game to make it to the dance, and if the D plays like it did during it’s last 30 minute performance, we’re one and done.
Maybe the decline of the D had to do with the several million Sacred Oval G’s that were destroyed by fans of the Packers during the game. You know, the ones on the hot chocolate and beer cups disrespectfully tossed to the concrete, game dope sheets and flyers trampled to unrecognizable detritus, and complementary flags soaked in beer and slush water. Wolf would have a heart attack if he ever saw the Lambeau bleachers and the blocks that surround 1265 after a game day.
Even though the Pack won, this board is feelin’ a lot like heavies not brothas, so here’s some enlightenment for ya:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/jon-gruden-impressed-by-every-blade-of-grass-on-fo,37626/
I got a good “chuck”le, hope ya’ll do too.