They make it look easy, sometimes too easy. The Packers are beginning to resemble a version of EA Sports popular Madden football video game, and with the ways this team can light them up it looks so much easier than what it is supposed to be. This week’s blowout of the helpless Denver Broncos resembled the video version of the NFL as Aaron Rodgers threw for 6 ½ miles and 27 TDs while rushing for 300 yards and 12 more scores.
Okay, there is some hyperbole going on here. But only just a touch. The Packers hit on every conceivable cylinder to roll up, over, and through the visiting Broncos and setting a few records along the way. The win finds the Pack alone eyeball to eyeball with the only other unbeaten team in divisional foe Detroit at 4 – 0 after Detroit rallied magnificently against the struggling Dallas Cowboys, who blew a 27– 3 lead in the process.
A quarter way into the season the Packers are sitting on 4 – 0 having scored a team record 148 points en route. In Green Bay’s vast history no team has put up as much as this team has. That is a mouthful. We’ve been saying maybe this team is capable of putting up 500 points.
We may have vastly underestimated this team’s offensive skills. At this rate, 600 are not out of the question. On display was the Packer team that scares the living hell out of anyone with a football brain. The story of this game begins and ends with Aaron Rodgers, who continues to beat the drum steadily towards his first regular season MVP Award with over 400 yards passing, 4 TD’s thru the air – 1 each to Greg Jennings, Donald Driver, Jordy Nelson and James Jones, while rushing for 2 more. The dilemma opponents face was summed up in Denver’s being beaten up by land and air. If the Broncos played the run, the Packers passed. If the Broncos played the pass, the Packers still passed. And if the Broncos threw a tight 2 man coverage on a receiver Rodgers would make a ridiculous throw only he is capable of making for a completion.
In fact, Rodgers’ only blemish was an interception that clanked off James Jones hands and dropped into the arms of a fallen Bronco. Not to worry; immediately upon the pick Sam Shields countered with one of his own that he grabbed on an underthrown Kyle Orton attempt for a TD that he returned 57 yards back to the point where Rodgers saw his flub occur initially. It is almost as if the Packers can do whatever they want, whenever they want.
It just can’t be this easy, can it?
Try telling that to Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers had come publicly and stated that he didn’t feel the Packers were “…finishing teams off…” and in his opinion the Pack was keeping other teams in it. His main gripe seemed to be the malaise that settles in when a good team (like, Green Bay) is up against an overmatched opponent (like, Denver – or almost anyone else at the moment) and rather than keep the foot on the accelerator the whole game thru GB somehow gets a lead, eases up, and lets an inferior opponent right back in it a la The Carolina Newtons.
There would be no easing off the gas in this game. With Rodgers’ fantasy eye popping numbers and precision the Packers are making the Rams “Greatest Show on Turf” look like a carnival sideshow act. The Pack drive stalls at the Bronco 11 on the opening drive and instead of booting the 3 they go for it. Unfazed by the failed attempt the Packers simply pile up 14 points in 1:18 and recover an onside kick after the Broncos get caught napping. Head Coach Mike McCarthy is unleashing his own inner beast and is becoming so much more of a force in game, a tone he sets that his team eats up wholly and responds to routinely.
The Packers – Rodgers most specifically – set about making a bold statement; that they are the best and until someone comes along they will continue to get better.
How much better can they get? Overconfidence, the injury factor, and the long grind of the season have a strange way of leveling the playing field. TE Jermichael Finley has already made his stamp as one of the game’s best and rising young tight ends. Greg Jennings just keeps going out and yanking down one 40 yard dart after the next. With every passing week Jordy Nelson becomes a bigger target and more explosive weapon.
And now with Ryan Grant out with a bruised kidney James Starks looked even larger physically all of a sudden. His long stride and strength make Starks a prototypical power back, one capable of juking his man out of his jock or he can lower his head and drive his man backwards 4 yards with a thunderous rumble.
So stacked and deep are the Packers that even the defense is playing a bit loose. Give up a big play? No sweat; we’ll just get a pick or a fumble somewhere. The numbers only tell a small part of the entire tale. As Ted Thompson’s ‘Draft and Develop’ formula to building a team has borne fruit his Pack is improving at every turn. The offensive line is becoming set. Bryan Bulaga, last year’s #1 pick at RT goes out with an injury and in steps Marshall Newhouse without missing a beat or an assignment. Chad Clifton leaves on an injured and in steps this year’s #1 pick at tackle Derrick Sherrod without missing a beat. Rookie RB Alex Green steps in as does #5 WR Randall Cobb and neither of them…. It doesn’t need to be said.
With winning comes the expectation of winning and continuing. Success breeds success and somehow the Packers are managing to avoid any self-indulgent implosion. There are far too many savvy vets like Donald Driver and Greg Jennings and even Aaron Rodgers who have all had to pay their dues the hard way and had the earn it. And when the likes of Driver, Jennings, and Rodgers speak who can challenge that voice? It creates the rarest and most elusive element in the most team demanding of any sport, and that is of a team and not an All Star collection of individual talent.
It is one thing to spend like a drunken sailor on every high priced free agent on the marketplace and declare yourself a ‘Dream Team’. It is another matter to actually shut up and play like one and let your play do all your talking.
The real danger comes from the everyday expectation of what the Packers seem to be able to do at will, and that is to score any time they damn well please. It is fun and exciting to watch this outfit rampage and they have certainly paid their dues to enjoy the ride. With experience being the best teacher even when the Packers hit that inevitable lull, they will no doubt, find another way to be right in the thick of it.
It’s what they do, and have learned how to do.
And it just looks so easy and effortless right now.
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