Green Bay Packers’ Playoff bye week notes
With an inspiring 30-20 victory over the Detroit Lions in Week 17 at home, the Green Bay Packers have earned themselves a valuable week off to begin the NFL Playoffs. Following their loss, the Detroit Lions will face the Dallas Cowboys in a game in which Packers’ fans may be tempted to cheer for the NFC North rivals. A Lions win would send Detroit to CenturyLink to face the Seattle Seahawks, leaving the Green Bay Packers with a more appealing matchup against either the Arizona Cardinals or Carolina Panthers.
The health of Aaron Rodgers will be the foremost issue over the next 10-12 days, as the Packers’ QB missed the first series of the second half after aggravating his injured calf on a TD throw to Randall Cobb. Today, we take a quick look at several story lines to track over a week where the Packers, gladly, are without a game.
Matt Flynn may know Aaron Rodgers as well as anybody in Green Bay, and to him, Rodgers’ performance on Sunday may top everything he’s seen. “Most impressive thing. For sure,” Flynn told ESPN Wisconsin. “No one can get into his brain and really know how much pain he was in, but I can tell you from being around him for a long time – he was in pain. Anything that’s going to take him out of even one play, you know it’s hurting him.” Flynn was sitting going over his first drive with coaches when he began to hear chants of “MVP” from the stands. Rodgers tapped Flynn on the shoulder and told him “I’ve got it”. He was right.
A day after the stomp that led to Ndamukong Suh‘s one game suspension from the NFL, the Green Bay Packers tried to shift the focus elsewhere. “I’m not in here to talk about behavior of players on other teams” Head Coach Mike McCarthy told reporters, but the decision from the league justifies what many in the Packers locker room had been thinking. Suh’s lengthy history of disciplinary problems did not help his case, although his appeal will be interesting to watch in the coming days. It should be noted that the Lions were also without C Dominic Raiola for their Week 17 game, also suspended for a stomp.
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Packers’ Special Teams Coordinator Shawn Slocum is going through a very frustrating season with his units, and the Jekyll and Hyde performance continued on Sunday. Micah Hyde‘s 55-yard punt return TD got the ball rolling for the Green Bay Packers, something Mike McCarthy was looking for entering the week, but Mason Crosby had yet another kick blocked later in the game. That makes seven blocks against the Green Bay Packers on Special Teams this season. Against an elite playoff team, that would be difficult to overcome. “We need to do a better job — personnel needs to do a better job and accountability factor,” Slocum said. “They need to do a better job in protection.” Andrew Quarless and J.C. Tretter appeared to be the guilty parties on this block.
Sticking with Special Teams, Punter Tim Masthay is ready for the “clean sheet” that comes along with the NFL Playoffs. Masthay has struggled at times through this season, and his openness with Jason Wilde of ESPN Wisconsin on Monday was refreshing. Despite Masthay’s frank assessment of his 2014 shortcomings, he believes that “I’ve got a fair amount of history of being able to punt well, and there’s nothing intimidating about the playoffs,”.
Packers’ fans can enjoy the week off, but Aaron Rodgers’ calf will be the most talked-about issue in the state of Wisconsin this week. His health should become clearer through the coming weekend, but I believe that the bye week should suffice. That likely played into Rodgers’ thinking when he fought back into the game on Sunday: the week of rest that would come with a victory.