Week 5 review: The Green Bay Packers
Hopes were high for the Green Bay Packers when the season began, most observers thought the Packers would break into the playoffs, or, in the very least, make some noise in the NFC North. That doesn’t seem likely anymore.
The Green Bay Packers might still make it to the playoffs, they might still have some fight left in them but for the most part it seems like the Packers are no longer one of the teams to watch out for.
The Packers had a good start to the regular season. They opened their run against the Philadelphia Eagles and comfortably won the game. The Packers ran 5 scoring drives, 3 for touchdown and two field goals two score 27 points against the 20 for the Eagles.
Quarterback Michael Vick did the best he could to bring the Eagles into the game. In what one would only expect from Vick, he threw 175 yards pass for a touchdown on top of 103 yards running.
Green Bay’s quarterback Aaron Rodgers threw 2 touchdown passes in 188 yards with 2 interceptions. He was not at all satisfied. “I played terrible. It was as bad as I can play. I've got to be better”, Rodgers said and that he believed he made too many mistakes.
Green Bay crushed the Buffalo Bills in the second week and suffered their first loss at the hands of the Chicago Bears. The Bears have had one of their best starts this year in recent memory but the Packers had no one but themselves to blame for losing the
game.
The Packers made enough mistakes to make it easy for the Bears to win the game with 18 penalties in 60 minutes. Even with all the costly mistakes the Packers made, it was no walk in the park for the Bears.
Green Bay was leading into the final 4 minutes of the game when Chicago equalized with a field goal and took back possession from a Packers’ fumble and scored the final field goal with just 4 seconds remaining to edge into the lead.
Against the Detroit Lions, the Packers weren’t at their best either. In the third quarter the Packers cemented a 28 against 14 lead with a 48 yard interception return for touchdown. The Lions though weren’t giving up.
With 48, 39, 52 and 24 yard field goals the Lions made quite the comeback but couldn’t catch up to the Packers in the remaining time. Even though Green Bay won, it felt like Detroit’s victory.
“Guys fought hard today, they fought so hard”, Lion’s backup quarterback Shaun Hill said after the game. “We deserved that win”.
On the Packers side no one really felt like celebrating. The game was a reminder that the Packers were slipping.
In the fifth week that realization would get only more apparent. Green Bay faced the Washington Redskins and lost.
Both teams were tough on defence. The two teams combined had a total of over 800 yards but the total scores in the game for them stood at 29. Both quarterbacks were sacked 5 times in the game. The teams were tied on 13 by the end of the 4th quarter
as neither team allowed the other to get scores on the board.
The game had to be settled in overtime. 7 minutes into OT the Redskins came through with the game winning field goal after gaining possession from an interception.
Green Bay would face the Miami Dolphins in the coming week. Though the Packers are the favourites for the game, a win won’t come easily. The Packers have had a run in with a string of injuries since the regular season began.
Some of Green Bay’s key players will miss most of the remainder of the season including, Ryan Grant, Nick Barnett and Jermichael Finley. Al Haris and Atari Bigby have already been placed on the physically unable to perform list.
The Packers have been struggling as it is and their chances of making the playoffs weren’t all that good to begin with. With the injuries thrown into the mix, it’s almost inevitable that the Packers would fizzle out. But then again this is football and comebacks
aren’t unheard of. In any event the road ahead for the Packers is long and arduous.
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