All you need is Love. It is difficult to fathom that the Green Bay Packers are in third place in the NFC North.
The Packers are an impressive 10-4 and each of their losses have come against stiff competition. Sunday night on the road, they looked like one of the best teams in the NFL, and made it sleepless in Seattle, even if their ceiling is probably the No. 6 seed in the NFC playoff picture.
The Packers manhandled a Seattle Seahawks team that had come into the game winners of four in a row and taken over first place in the NFC West, winning 30-13 on Sunday night. The Seahawks lost 12-year veteran quarterback Geno Smith to a knee injury in the third quarter, but they were getting taken to the woodshed before that injury took place. Seattle was not in the same class as Green Bay on either side of the ball and it showed right away.
The Packers have the misfortune of being in the best division in all of football, the NFC North with the 12-2 Detroit Lions and the 11-2 Minnesota Vikings, who play on Monday night against the 4-9 Chicago Bears. They would run away and hide with a few other divisions. Based on what was displayed on Sunday night, the NFC West is likely one of them.
Seattle, with their rambunctious fan base known as the ‘12th Man’, is not an easy place to play. Especially with the Seahawks coming in with a four-game winning streak since their bye.
“This is a tough place to play, it’s extremely loud, and I was shocked when our defense was on the field and I could hear our Packer fans. I definitely think that made a difference for us,” coach Matt LaFleur said.
The Packers were unfazed. They were not without flaws in the first half, but they came away with points on all four first-half possessions. Running back Josh Jacobs scored on a 1-yard touchdown run on Green Bay’s first series, then Romeo Doubs caught a 13-yard touchdown to extend the lead to 14-0. The Packers got two more field goals before the end of the half. They led 20-0 at halftime.
“The couple drives before that, we just felt like we weren’t getting much out of it, you know, we weren’t executing at that high level and making those plays we were making,” Love said. “To kind of have some of those drives stall out and then to put a drive down the field and finish with that touchdown out there — Romeo making a great catch — definitely helps you be able to breathe a little bit better.”
Embed from Getty ImagesThe defense put the Seahawks in a straight jacket. The Packers put a lot of pressure on Smith. Corey Valentine almost intercepted Smith deep in Packers’ territory, then on the next play Smith threw one wildly up for grabs to the end zone and Valentine picked him off. That came with the Seahawks trailing 17-3 and killed any momentum they might have been gaining.
The Seahawks had played well recently to rally and take over first place of the NFC West. Then, on their home field in prime time they laid an egg, and looked like they belonged on a much lower tier than the Packers.
The Seahawks had to turn to their backup Sam Howell at quarterback in the second half. Smith injured his knee when he landed on awkwardly on a hit. He slammed his helmet in frustration and disgust as he came out of the game, then slowly walked back to the locker room to get further evaluation.
Howell, who was a fifth-round pick out of the University of North Carolina, is a mistake-prone quarterback but he can make plays with his cannon of an arm. He led a scoring drive that ended with a Zach Charbonnet 24-yard touchdown run, which cut Green Bay’s lead to ten, 23-13. The Seahawks got a much-needed stop after that, but after they got the ball back, they made the questionable decision to punt on fourth-and-5, which made it nearly impossible for them to claw their way back into the game.
Seattle got another stop on fourth-and-2 later in the fourth quarter but Howell reverted back to his old ways and threw an interception right after that, which practically sealed the Packers’ win. Doubs’ second touchdown of the game a few plays later, a spectacular catch in the end zone right before the ball hit the ground, put the final nail in it.
The Packers will be a team that no one will want to face in the playoffs. Jordan Love is getting healthier and playing well. Jacobs has given them a dynamic run game. The defense is capable of playing at a high level. It might be one of the best third-place teams the NFL has ever seen.
The Packers improve to 10-4 and are right in the middle of things in the NFC playoff race.
“I like where we’re at,” Love said. “We’ve just got to keep figuring out ways to get better, to keep pushing each other and find ways to get these wins to end the season off. But I like where we’re at.”
The Seahawks, on the other hand, are a different story and are now 8-6 and could be without their starting quarterback during the home stretch of the season.
“We know what type of team we are. We know what the goal is, what we’re trying to accomplish. Playoff ball is just putting the emphasis on what we said early in the year that we wanted to get done,” Seattle linebacker Ernest Jones IV said. “That’s win the division, go into the playoffs, get a home playoff game, one or two, or whatever the case may be.”
The Packers host Alvin Kamara and the New Orleans Saints on Monday, December 23.
The Seahawks host Justin Jefferson and the Minnesota Vikings next Sunday. The Vikings, who host the Chicago Bears Monday night, clinched a playoff berth with Seattle’s loss.
