Green Bay Packers Return to Form, NFL's Elite with Dominant Win over Vikings

Green Bay Packers' 42-10 win over the Minnesota Vikings. There's good reason to, since the Vikings were not only without running back Adrian Peterson, but also newly minted starting quarterback Teddy Bridgewater and tight end Kyle Rudolph as well. Indeed, in a vacuum, it's almost impossible to treat this anything like the preseason contest it looked like. Heck, we even got a backup quarterback Matt Flynn sighting. Yet, can we fault the Packers for the team the opponent put on the field? Is it somehow their fault that Vikings third-string quarterback Christian Ponder had only a couple of days to prepare and wasn't that good in the first place? Should the Packers have handed the Vikings' turnovers back to them to earn this win that much more?

As Green Bay head coach Mike McCarthy stated after the game, "Excellent team victory tonight. We feel good about what we accomplished as a football team. Clearly a dominant win." And it was.  In an NFL of such parity, it's important for the haves to not let up against the have-nots. The Packers didn't, and let's not take that away from them.  Let's not look at this win simply in a vacuum. Let's put this win in the context of the Packers' entire season. This victory comes on the heels of the Packers' 38-17 curb-stomping of the Chicago Bears. For those keeping track at home, that's two straight blowout victories against division opponents. Against Chicago, the Packers didn't have to punt. Against Minnesota, the Packers barely had to show up. 

This win brings the Packers to 3-2 with a slate of games against struggling opponents between now and the bye. They go to Miami to play the Dolphins, host the Carolina Panthers at home and then have the misfortune of traveling to New Orleans to play the Saints, where Sean Payton's club benefits from one of the league's best home-field advantages. If the Packers can get out of their own way (you know, like they didn't against the Detroit Lions), 3-0 is a real possibility, and 2-1 is a darn-near certainty. The brilliance of this victory—and the real reason we can draw any information from it at all—is that the Vikings entered the week with the ninth overall scoring defense in the league. Chicago, whom the Packers trounced with an offensive explosion last week, isn't in the same defensive class it once was under Lovie Smith. The big reveal of the Green Bay-Chicago game was that the Packers defense (especially their pass rush and cornerback Sam Shields, who had a rough start to the season) wasn't nearly as bad as it had looked through the first few weeks. 

Against the Vikings, though, it is almost impossible not to start feeling good vibrations about an offense that had struggled against good defenses in Detroit and Seattle. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers only threw the ball 17 times, completing 12 passes for 156 yards and three touchdowns. He had a number of effective throws off play action, and the Packers spread the ball around, hitting nine different receivers and three different players for touchdowns. Those aren't lofty yardage numbers, but they didn't need to be, as Rodgers gave way to Flynn, who somehow found a way to make the Vikings defense look good again. After three weeks, it was en vogue to write off the Packers...no longer. There are still legitimate concerns with Green Bay, don't get me wrong. This is still a defense built around pass rushing a dropback passer that will likely have some trouble with mobile quarterbacks like Carolina's Cam Newton in the coming weeks and whomever it might face when it reaches the playoffs (yes, when...not if). 

The offensive line still has plenty of growing up to do and is a remarkably shallow unit. Lacy's struggles early on in the year are directly connected to deficiencies up front. Those sort of problems could cause trouble against a number of teams left on the Packers' schedule, including Carolina and another game against Detroit. The Packers may not be this kind of unstoppable juggernaut week in and week out, but it's clear they are to be taken seriously with the rest of the NFL's best.