The tides have turned after a rough opening to the Packers season. After starting 2-1, Green Bay lost five out of its next six games and found itself at 3-6. The team now find itself at 6-6.
With playoffs then seemingly impossible to come by, many fans were already planning what Green Bay was going to do with a top-seven pick in the NFL Draft.
Will the team take wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. out of Ohio State? Will it go after one of the many quarterbacks coming up in the draft? Or will it try to solidify the offensive line with the absence of David Bakhtiari this year?
It seems that that line of thinking can now be thrown out. After three straight wins over the Chargers, Lions and Chiefs, the Packers now find themselves slotted in the seventh seed in the NFC Playoffs picture. Instead of deciding whom to draft, the Packers now need to figure out their game plan to make a run at the Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl still seems like somewhat of a fever dream, but with a remaining schedule of the New York Giants, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Carolina Panthers, Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears (all teams with a .500 record or worse), playoffs are a real possibility. And once a team gets to the playoffs, there is only one more thing to achieve, and that is a Super Bowl.
“Obviously, yeah. The goal is to make the postseason,” said Packers quarterback Jordan Love. “We are going to take it one week at a time and try to focus on one game and winning those games, but that is the goal – getting in that playoff race.”
Now, if you told a Packers fan a month ago that this team has a 70% chance to make the playoffs today, you would have been called crazy. So what has changed over the course of four weeks?
For starters, the offensive line has given Love all of the time in the world to work through his progressions and find open receivers.
On top of that, head coach Matt LaFleur and offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich’s inclusion of pre-snap motion has seemingly confused opposing defenses — much like we saw in Green Bay’s win over the Kansas City Chiefs — which has opened holes in both the running and passing games.
Finally on offense, without Aaron Jones, young players have stepped their games up to the next level. Love has not thrown an interception in three games. Christian Watson has recorded four touchdowns in three weeks, and Jayden Reed has become a threat in both the passing and rushing attack.
As for the defense, after early rumblings that defensive coordinator Joe Barry should be fired, the Packers defensive unit has stepped up to the challenge.
On the season, the Packers have only given up 243 points, which ranks 11th in the NFL, and over the three-game win streak have given up just 71 points to three of the best offenses in the NFL. That comes on the back of constantly missing starting defenders. With Rashan Gary playing like a mad man, Devonte Wyatt and Kenny Clark holding down the middle of the line and Lukas Van Ness starting to come into his own, the Packers’ defense is starting to look like what many had pictured at the beginning of the season.
“I think that there is a different mentality that we have taken on,” said LaFleur, on what has changed with the team in the past month. “Obviously, it has worked well for us, but it goes back to trusting those guys to be able to go out there to execute the plays that are being called. They have to go out and do it, and they are doing that. That makes it much easier to call those plays.”
All in all, the NFL season still has five weeks left of the regular season and things can shift in a hurry, something that LaFleur reiterated to media members after Green Bay’s win over the Chiefs.
“It is hard to not get caught up in the results, but you really can’t,” said LaFleur. “You have to stay committed to your core values, your beliefs, and what you believe it takes in order to win games. Credit to the men in the locker room in just believing in each other, believing in what we are doing and staying together.”
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