It’s safe to say none of us saw a demolition like this coming. A Green Bay Packers team that had looked just plain bad for parts of the season, came out and thumped the Seattle Seahawks, long-time nemesis and the team that was the NFC’s No. 2 playoff seed, 38-10.
The offense was clicking, the defense was on and the special teams, well, two out of three ain’t bad.
Aaron Rodgers was masterful while playing on an injured leg, going 18-of-23 for 246 yards, three touchdowns and no picks before leaving early in the fourth quarter. The biggest question for the Packers in the aftermath of this game is about Rodgers’ health.
He was limping noticeably and the injury appeared to be to the opposite leg in which he suffered the hamstring injury against Philadelphia two weeks ago. This will obviously be a situation everyone will be monitoring as we get into the week.
Rodgers connected with Davante Adams early on a couple big plays, which set the tone for the game. Adams’ four catches went for 104 yards and touchdown. Jordy Nelson came up with Rodgers’ other two touchdowns and finished with six catches for 41 yards.
Ty Montgomery, who was finally handed the starting running back job — something long overdue — contributed 86 total yards (41 rushing and 45 receiving).
And yes, we led with the offense because they put up 38 on Seattle’s vaunted defense. We are most certainly going to note how obvious the absence of Seahawks’ safety Earl Thomas was in this game though.
You have to think some of those big plays to Adams might not have been there if Thomas were playing. We are not going to discount that, but this was still a great win for the Packers.
Much like the win in Philadelphia, the defense played just as much of a role as the offense. The story there was the five interceptions.
And yes, that’s fantastic, but three of those came after the ball hit a Seahawks’ receiver and bounced up into the air. The two notable picks were the first, made by Morgan Burnett — who has been playing balls out of late — and Damarious Randall’s right before half.
The Packers scored their second touchdown to go up 14-3 after Burnett’s pick and really never looked back.
Randall’s pick was possibly even bigger, though. We all know the Packers have problems with giving up big plays and scores before the half.
It looked like Seattle was going to continue that trend after a 31-yard pass to Marcel Reese with 48 seconds left in the half. Two plays later, Russell Wilson fired for Doug Baldwin in the end zone. Baldwin appeared wide open, until Randall flew from across the field and made the INT.
That turnover didn’t lead to points for the Packers, but it kept the Seahawks from making the score 21-10 before the half. Seattle got the ball to open the second half and would have then had all the momentum and that’s a different game.
The importance of that play really cannot be understated.
Randall added a second pick in the third quarter, a pass that this time bounced off an apparently disinterested Baldwin, in what was easily his finest game of the season.
Bottom line, the Packers are 7-6 and they just authored their biggest win and finest game of the season. Not only are they still firmly in the division race, but they’re most definitely still in the playoff race.
In fact, at this point, it’s almost hard to see them not making the playoffs. You know, barring a catastrophic injury…
Lately, this team has been looking like the team we thought they were prior to the season. Once again, we don’t want to overreact to one win. Anyone could make a strong argument that maybe it wasn’t the Packers’ defense that was great on this day, but that the Seahawks’ offense was terrible.
That said, there’s no denying this one was big.
The Packers are playing with emotion. They’re playing with fire. They’re playing as a team. Most importantly, they’re playing good football.
And on a final note: you can go right ahead and fuck yourselves, Seattle.
That felt real nice!