A Near Perfect Afternoon at Lambeau

We’ve been searching for a complete game from the Green Bay Packers all season. On Sunday afternoon at Lambeau, we found it.

This was the Jordan Love we’ve been waiting to see. He was confident, assertive, and completely in control for 60 minutes. This was the dominant defense we’ve been hoping for, one that stymies the run and continues to take the ball away.

It helps that they caught the Arizona Cardinals coming off a huge divisional road victory. The Cardinals historically don’t handle success well and rarely seem to stack wins together. They looked frazzled from the opening kickoff, committing penalty after penalty. Arizona came into the game as the league’s least penalized team and promptly got flagged 13 times on Sunday.

The Pack took full advantage, most notably when offsetting penalties erased Jayden Reed’s punt return fumble. Keisean Nixon’s big punt return set up the Pack in great field position, and one play later, Love hit Christian Watson for a long TD that was basically a first-half dagger. Suddenly, it was 24-0.

Green Bay’s offense is at its best when everyone gets involved, and you couldn’t ask for more playmaker parity than we saw on Sunday. Love completed passes to nine different receivers, and Reed was the only receiver he targeted more than four times (six in total). Seven different Packers got carries in the run game, and five gained at least 10 yards. The Pack has churned out more than 1,000 yards on the ground through six games – their most since 1963.

Most importantly, Love looks like his knee has completely healed. He’s not afraid to take off and run and was even out there blocking in the open field in the game’s closing moments. His bullseye to Watson in the middle of the field was a thing of beauty. The prayer he threw up to Romeo Doubs late in the third quarter with a blitzer in his face showed his supreme confidence in his arm talent and in his receivers.

Speaking of Doubs, what a nice bounce-back performance. We have no idea what he’s dealing with and whether it’s all behind him, but he showed again why this offense is so much better when he plays a major role. Doubs made the most of his four targets, with three catches for 49 yards and two scores. Dontayvion Wicks’ shoulder injury is something to monitor, and Doubs’ targets will climb in the coming weeks.

Before we move over to the defense, a shout out to the offensive line, which kept Love upright all day (zero sacks) against Arizona’s admittedly putrid pass rush and opened holes for the run game to gain 179 yards. They didn’t miss a beat when Josh Myers left briefly with a stinger despite it completely displacing the interior of the line. Elgton Jenkins moved to center, Sean Rhyan flipped to left guard, and rookie Jordan Morgan stepped in at right guard.

This was the defense’s best 60-minute performance all season. They contained the dangerous Kyler Murray (holding him to just 14 yards rushing) and James Conner (3.4 yards per carry). They didn’t notch a sack or an interception, but they prevented big plays and long, drawn-out series. It didn’t hurt that rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. was knocked out early by a concussion, causing Murray to focus mainly on tight end Trey McBride, who caught all eight targets. But all were for short yardage, and most came in garbage time.

Once again, the three defensive rookies continue to step up and make big plays. Second-year lineman Karl Brooks had some big moments as he got extra snaps while Devonte Wyatt nursed his injured ankle.

It felt like almost a perfect game, but there were a couple of warts. Brayden Narveson missed another field goal wide right and will continue to hear whispers about his job security. With tough games coming up against the Houston Texans and Detroit Lions in the next few weeks, the margin for error will narrow, and every kick will be huge. It still seems hard to believe that he’ll be the team’s kicker at the end of the year.

The mostly unproductive pass rush is another thing to monitor. They won’t face running quarterbacks in the next few weeks, so there will be an opportunity to flip the narrative. But it’s hard to rip the defense after a dominant performance that saw them scoop up three more takeaways, was great against the run, and completely neutered Murray.

Three games left before the bye, including two against Super Bowl contenders, with just two losses combined between them. If the Pack can win no less than two of the next three and get to the bye at 6-3, it will seem like everything is in front of them as they get set for the season’s second half. The way the NFC North looks right now, they will need to keep stacking wins just to keep pace.