Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Jordan Addison catches a touchdown pass against Green Bay Packers’ … [+]
The glass-half-full crowd will tell you the Green Bay Packers are oh-so-close to beating the NFC’s elite teams.
The reality is they aren’t as close as you might think.
The Packers fell to Minnesota, 27-25, Sunday, in a game that wasn’t nearly as competitive as the final score indicates. The Vikings built a three-score lead, before Green Bay had two late touchdowns to make things look more respectable.
The Packers fell to 0-5 this season against the NFC’s top three teams — Detroit, Minnesota and Philadelphia. And while Green Bay is in the midst of a solid 11-5 campaign, there’s no evidence that it can beat one of the NFC’s elite when the postseason arrives in less than two weeks.
And considering the Packers are currently the No. 7 seed and will play all of their games on the road, their postseason trip could be brief.
“Right now the story is we haven’t beaten those teams, so I can’t sit up here and say we’re on the same level if we ain’t beat them,” Packers safety Xavier McKinney said. “In order to be on the same level, you gotta beat these teams. We gotta be more on our details. We gotta play cleaner. We gotta start faster. That’s just what it is.”
Minnesota (14-2), Detroit (13-2) and Philadelphia (13-3) are a combined 40-7 — an 0.851 winning percentage. The Packers’ losses to those teams have been by an average of 4.4 points, which indicates they’re close to beating one of the NFC powers.
That number is certainly deceiving, though.
Green Bay fell behind 28-0 in its first meeting with Minnesota. And while the 31-29 final score made it look as if the game was competitive, remember that the Packers scored 22 points in the last 11 ½ minutes of the contest.
Green Bay trailed Detroit, 24-3, late the third quarter on Nov. 3 when the Lions put it into cruise control. The Packers closed within 24-14 late, only to see the Lions run out the final 4 minutes.
And in Sunday’s loss to Minnesota, the Packers dug themselves a 20-3 hole midway through the third quarter. Once again, only two late Green Bay scores made the margin of defeat respectable.
When you combine Green Bay’s two losses to Minnesota and the first Detroit game, the Packers trailed by collective score of 72-6 in those contests. With the playoffs almost here, that’s a gloomy number.
“I don’t really care what anyone believes,” Packers center Josh Myers said after Sunday’s loss to Minnesota. “I know we have the guys in the locker room to do it. I know this loss is going to piss us off and get us sent in the right direction. I believe in everyone in our organization to get it done. I truly believe we’re going to win the Super Bowl this year. I really believe that — whether everyone else believes it or not.”
While the faith that Myers displays is admirable, it also appears somewhat blind.
In Green Bay’s two losses to Minnesota and its two setbacks vs. Detroit, it led for a grand total of 23 minutes, 59 seconds out of 240 minutes — just 10.0%.
The Packers did lead for 29:01 vs. Philadelphia in Week 1. Still, in the Packers’ five losses to the NFC’s top dogs, they’ve led just 53:00 of 300 minutes — or 17.7% of the time.
Does that instill confidence with the playoffs almost here?
“You know, we’re going to have to find ways when the playoffs start to go into those road atmospheres and win those tough games,” Packers quarterback Jordan Love said. “It’s only going to get tougher for us. So we know that we’ve got to find ways to keep improving, keep getting better.
“We know we’ve got to come out and play our best ball, and everybody’s got to be locked in and play the best game they’ve played all season. So there’s no secret, you know. We’re going to have to find ways to win these games on the road. It’s going to be our reality.”
So far, that’s been an exercise in futility.
And there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that things will change any time soon.
