Good morning, everyone. On Sunday, the Green Bay Packers took on the Minnesota Vikings at Lambeau Field. Before this game happened, I thought that Green Bay was going to win by a comfortable margin. It turns out that the opposite happened on Sunday afternoon. I am here to give you my thoughts on what exactly transpired in this game. Without further delay, let’s get started.
The Packers started this game on the offensive side of the ball. QB Aaron Rodgers led the offense down the field on a 13-play, 75-yard drive that nearly took 8 minutes in game time. During the drive, they faced a fourth and 1 at the Minnesota 24 yard line. With winds of over 20 miles per hour, most normal field goals were impossible. The offense decided to go for it. Rodgers found TE Jace Sternberger, who made a great leaping catch for the first down. 3 plays later, Rodgers found Davante Adams for a 5-yard touchdown pass that gave Green Bay a 7-0 lead. It was now up to the defense to make sure that the lead stayed at 7-0. Unfortunately, they were not able to stop the Vikings on their opening possession. Minnesota was able to convert a couple of third downs during the drive. A delay of game on the offense forced the Vikings to a third and 8 at the Green Bay 34. They were able to convert it with a screen pass from Kirk Cousins to RB Dalvin Cook, who took it 13 yards for a first down (very poor tackling along the way for Green Bay’s defense). On the next play, Cook went 21 yards untouched for a touchdown that, with the extra point kick good, tied the game up at 7-7. The Packers offense responded back with another long touchdown drive. During this drive, they were able to overcome a holding penalty and another fourth down. The fourth down was at the Minnesota 8 yard line. Jamaal Williams got the handoff and barely got enough for the first down. After a pass interference penalty gave the Packers the ball at the one (plus a too many men on the field penalty), the Packers scored on another pass from Rodgers to Adams. The extra point by Mason Crosby gave Green Bay a 7-point lead to cap off a drive that took nearly 9 minutes in game time. Once again, the defense was not able to keep the Vikings from scoring a touchdown. Dean Lowry was able to get a sack of Kirk Cousins during the drive, but the Vikings were able to get the first down anyway (after converting a fourth and 1). A few plays later, Dalvin Cook ran it in from 1 yard out for his second touchdown of the game. The extra point afterwards tied the game up at 14-14. The first half ended after the Packers ran one play on offense.
The Vikings had the ball to start the second half. For the Packers defense, it was the same problems with not being able to keep Minnesota from scoring a touchdown. During the possession, both Jaire Alexander and Josh Jackson were called for pass interference. In my opinion, both of those calls were very questionable and should not have been called. On the second PI call, Cousins threw the ball over Adam Thielen, who had pretty much no chance to catch the ball. The drive ended with another touchdown run by Dalvin Cook (his third of the game). With the Packers now down by 7, the offense had chance to tie the game on their next possession. On second and 17 from the Green Bay 18 (there was a questionable holding penalty on Mercedes Lewis), Aaron Rodgers found tight end Robert Tonyan for what should have been a touchdown had the ball been thrown more in stride. Instead, Tonyan had to make a falling catch that only resulted in a 45-yard gain. The next 4 plays were all incomplete passes, including 2 unfortunate drops by Equanimeous St. Brown. On the fourth down play, St. Brown should have stayed still in the end zone for a touchdown. He went a step forward and tried to jump over safety Harrison Smith for the catch, which he dropped. The defense gave up yet another touchdown to the Vikings after the turnover on downs. On third and 9 from midfield, Dalvin Cook caught a screen pass and took it all the way for a touchdown. With Green Bay now down by 14, the offense pretty much needed to get another touchdown on the board. Another fourth down was converted by Green Bay during the drive. After that conversion, the drive stalled after 2 straight holding penalties gave Green Bay a first and 30 to deal with. Pretty much nothing happened after that and the Packers were forced to punt. The defense finally forced the Vikings to punt on their next possession. With 11:06 left in the fourth quarter, the Packers got the ball back with a chance to decrease their deficit. They faced yet another fourth down during this drive. This time, it was a fourth and 9 from the Minnesota 32 yard line. Rodgers was throwing the ball to Robert Tonyan, who was covered by safety Anthony Harris. The refs threw the flag on Harris for pass interference, which would have given the Packers a fresh set of downs. However, the refs picked the flag up, meaning that it was a turnover on downs (more on that later).
After the Packers defense forced the Vikings to punt, the offense had yet another chance to cut the deficit to single digits. During the drive, there was yet another first and 20 due to a holding penalty. Thankfully, the offense overcame that and scored a touchdown on the drive. On first and goal from the 7, Rodgers found Davante Adams for his third touchdown pass. Instead of kicking the extra point, the Packers decided to go for 2 points. Jamaal Williams was initially ruled short of the end zone. After the officials looked at the play, they decided that Williams barely crossed the goal line. With all 3 timeouts left, the Packers decided to not go for an onside kick. The defense did stop the Vikings from running out the whole clock, but they only had 47 seconds on offense with no timeouts remaining. After 2 short passes to Jamaal Williams that took 10 seconds off the clock, Rodgers found Tonyan for a 17-yard gain that brought them to the Minnesota 41. They wasted a few seconds after the play was over trying to line up to spike the ball. With 12 seconds left, the Packers faced a second and 10. Rodgers was going for the touchdown instead of a short pass that went out of bounds. Rolling to his right, Rodgers was sacked from behind by D.J. Wonnum. It was ruled as a fumble, which was recovered by LB Eric Wilson. The turnover ended any hope of a Packers comeback and sealed the Vikings’ 28-22 win.
It was a shocking loss for the Packers, to say the least. In the first half, the offense was playing well as they went down the field for touchdowns on both possessions (not counting the one play before halftime). In the second half, the offense had some issues with moving the ball down the field. There were only a couple of positives offensively, including the Aaron Rodgers to Davante Adams connection (which resulted in 3 touchdowns). Rodgers was off on some throws, including an overthrow to Jace Sternberger and the throw to Robert Tonyan that should have resulted in 6 points. There were also a couple of key drops, including the 2 drops by St. Brown and one by Tyler Ervin on a jet sweep. The winds affected Green Bay in the passing game by limiting their chances for big plays. In my opinion, the Packers should have ran the ball more than what they did on Sunday due to the winds. With the next game just a couple of days away, I hope that the offense can play better for the whole game (even with AJ Dillon testing positive for COVID-19 and Jamaal Williams as a high-risk close contact).
The defense had no answer for Dalvin Cook, who had 226 total yards and 4 touchdowns on the day (3 rushing, 1 receiving). He became the first Viking player since Ahmad Rashad in 1979 to score 4 touchdowns in a game. All throughout the game, there was poor effort in terms of tackling with the exception of a couple of players (including Kamal Martin and Adrian Amos). It was inexcusable for the defense to allow a whole bunch of yards after the catch on the screen passes, especially on the 50-yard TD catch by Cook. The only sack by Green Bay was an unblocked sack by Dean Lowry. Other than that, the pass rush did not get to Kirk Cousins at all. It was only after the 4 touchdowns that the defense forced the Vikings to punt. With the 49ers next on Thursday, the Packers defense needs to wake up and play solid all game long. If they don’t, defensive coordinator Mike Pettine’s job will probably be in jeopardy (in my opinion). The winds also affected Special Teams by making normal field goals impossible. It was a sigh of relief that Mason Crosby made both of his extra point kicks. Due to Crosby’s injury limitations, JK Scott was doing the kickoffs in addition to his punting duties. The good news was that there were no big kickoff returns that resulted in big plays by the Vikings. Another bit of good news was that no kicks or punts were blocked by Minnesota. No big plays happened in Green Bay’s favor, unfortunately. At least there were no penalties on the kick returns.
Speaking of penalties, I am going to talk a little bit about the officiating. For the most part, I thought that the game was poorly called by the officials. There were a number of questionable pass interference penalties on both teams, including 2 against Green Bay on the same drive. The second of those 2 straight penalties was very questionable. Cousins threw a ball that had no chance of being caught, yet they called it on Josh Jackson anyway. There were also a few holding penalties against Green Bay that should not have been called. The most infuriating call (or non-call) was the flag pick-up after the incomplete pass to Robert Tonyan. Safety Anthony Harris clearly messed up Tonyan’s ability to catch the ball. The penalty should have been called instead of being picked up by the officials. I am not blaming the loss on the officials. It is still up to the Packers to play to their best of their ability regardless of the calls.
Overall, it was a frustrating loss for the Packers at home. I give the Vikings credit for not giving up and pretty much punching the Packers (figuratively) in the mouth on Sunday. The next game for the Packers is on Thursday night against a familiar foe: the San Francisco 49ers. To make things more difficult, it is a short week on the west coast. Stay tuned for my preview post tomorrow. In the meantime, I hope that you all have a great day. Go Pack Go.
(Here are the highlights of the game, provided by the NFL's YouTube page.)
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