The Green Bay Packers are the best team in the National Football Conference, and there’s also a good argument that they are currently playing the best football in the NFL.

That’s where this team stands heading into week 17 after an exceedingly impressive dismantling of the Tennessee Titans, a contender in their own right. 

It was an all-around impressive performance, other than a pair of special teams blunders (a missed extra point and a field goal block that didn’t end up counting). It was the best defensive game of the year for Mike Pettine’s unit, and the offense (particularly Davante Adams) has rarely looked better.

It was also fantastic to see A.J. Dillon give us a glimpse of exactly why the Packers drafted him in the second round of this year’s draft. One had to feel as though we were getting a look at the Packers’ starter in 2021 and beyond. 

The game on Sunday night should also have put an end to any talk that the Packers would be better off without homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. It was always a foolish statement to begin with, but there were plenty of fans who legitimately believed the Packers would be ill-suited for playing in the cold and snow.

I think we can safely say that’s not the case now.

With a win in Chicago this weekend, the Packers will be just two victories at home away from a trip to the Super Bowl. 

The Packers have not had a team this well-rounded since at least 2014. Last year’s trip to the NFC Championship was a pleasant surprise. This year, the team should be considered the favorite to take the conference’s crown. Anything less would be a disappointment.

But the way this team is gelling right now on both sides of the ball, and with the energy that surrounds these players, I’ve never felt more confident that we’re looking at a Super Bowl team.

Let’s start the New Year off right.

An impressive defensive performance from the Packers

I’ve been relentlessly critical of Mike Pettine for much of this season, and I think rightfully so. At the midway point of the season, I think it would have been absolutely deserved had he lost his job.

Something has changed over the last months or so that has led to significantly better play from the Packers’ defense. However, I was reluctant to put forth much praise, considering the competition.

No longer--Petine and the entire defense deserve some applause for what they accomplished against the Titans’ (previously) top-scoring offense, holding them to just 14 points and keeping all-world running back Derrick Henry under 100 yards for the first time in nine weeks.

It wasn’t just the fact that Henry was held under 100 yards. He was a legitimate non-factor in the game. More than half of his yards came while the Packers were already up by three scores, and were more than happy to let the Titans eat some clock. 

Darnell Savage and Adrian Amos are playing like the best safety tandem in the league right now. In fact, PFF has them as the two highest graded safeties in the league since week 11.

Rashan Gary continues to improve week after week. The Packers had a season-high 22 pressures, with Gary leading the way with six of them… while only playing just over 50 percent of the team’s snaps. He also had several impressive plays in the run game, setting the edge really nicely.

Za’Darius Smith continues to play pro bowl caliber football, while Preston Smith over the last several weeks suddenly seems to be looking more like the Preston Smith of 2019. 

Kenny Clark has been turning it on in the month of December. Krys Barnes has earned a bigger role in the defense and looks like a future stud. Jaire Alexander is the best in the league at his position.

I’ve said all along that this defense has the talent to be one of the best units in the league, but that coaching was holding them back. It appears we’re finally starting to see the talent being utilized to its strengths, and proper adjustments being made on that side of the ball.

This is a unit that’s hitting its stride at exactly the right time. If this performance remains consistent through the rest of the season, the Packers won’t just be playing in a Super Bowl--they’ll be winning it.

I told you so

A brief P.S. on the defense.

In last week’s column, I made the point that the Packers should not sell out to stop Derrick Henry in the run game, or else they would get burned through the air. Several commenters thought this was, well, a stupid take.

Turns out, the Packers agreed with me.

We saw the Packers put some pressure on Ryan Tannehill, bringing in defensive back blitzes and getting aggressive with press coverage. They didn’t play off the ball nearly as much as usual, which allowed for more aggressive play in both the running and passing game.

The Packers were clearly told to put bodies on Derrick Henry, as we saw with the Ryan Tannehill option touchdown. But this was absolutely not the case of a defense stacking the box and forcing Tannehill to go up and over; it was simply a change in philosophy that paid dividends.

The Packers were able to stop Henry precisely because they put together a balanced yet aggressive defensive game plan that allowed them to put their best players into positions of strength. They swarmed to the ball when Henry ran, and didn’t go too light in their defensive packages in early running downs, but also didn’t put too much pressure on their defensive backs to have to avoid big plays in the passing game.

Wisconsin Beer of the Week

I know I just featured a beer from Lakefront Brewery two weeks ago, but this one really hit the spot the other day while I was watching the game. 

My wife recently noted that I’ve been really hitting the “specialty” beers hard lately in comparison to some of the more standard styles. Which… fair. This is mostly because a) I like to buy local and b) I’ve already had basically all the flagship standards from all my favorite local breweries many times, so I like to keep finding new, interesting things.

But I figured I should stock up on some of your more easy drinking, simple styles, including this American pale ale from Lakefront called Shifter.

This is a really crisp, easy drinker at 5.2 percent. For a pale ale it manages to avoid extreme hoppines at just 30 IBU, and it has a bit of a sweet, wheaty flavor to it you’d tend to find in wheats and belgians. It has a nice clear, light gold color to it that tells you just by looking at it that it’s going to be refreshing.

It was the ideal kind of beer for watching a football game--you can sip it and enjoy it when things are going well, and you can nervously down it quickly when the game gets tense. Or at least, that’s how it tends to go with me.

You can find Shifter anywhere you find Lakefront beer, and it also comes in their sampler packs.

The MVP race is over

You can call the MVP race now.

Finally, it appears the national media is broadly proclaiming Rodgers to have taken the lead in the MVP race. This is a pretty good indicator of how the votes will fall once they’re cast. And with the Chiefs deciding to sit Patrick Mahomes this weekend for their meaningless game against the Chargers, that pretty much clinches it.

Barring a really unusual set of votes, Aaron Rodgers will win his third career MVP, which puts him into rarified air, alongside such players as Jim Brown, Brett Favre, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.

For Rodgers to put together this kind of season at age 36 and 37 after being essentially left for dead by the talking heads over the last couple years is remarkable. He remains one of the game’s best and most talented players. And as far as I’m concerned, he’s cemented himself as the greatest quarterback in franchise history.

Around the NFC North

Once again it’s time for us to take a look around the NFC North.

The CHICAGO BEARS got to beat up on the worst team in football, which has their fans all excited and their executives ready to re-sign Mitch Trubisky and Matt Nagy (to which Packer fans all exclaim, “YES PLEASE!”). How fitting it is that they get to have their season ended by their oldest rival, 100 years after they joined the NFL. 

The DETROIT LIONS had a rough go of it against Tampa due to COVID taking out… well… basically their entire coaching staff. But let’s be frank, the team basically gave up several plays into the game. For all the analysts falling over themselves to proclaim the Buccaneers to be the team to beat in the playoffs, RELAX. This was an already-bad Lions team that’s playing with an interim-interim head coach and without anything resembling a passion for victory.

The MINNESOTA VIKINGS got knocked out of the postseason officially by the New Orleans Saints on Christmas Eve, which was a wonderful gift to receive, as much as it might have given the Packers a bit of breathing room for the Vikings to manage to squeak one out. With their season over, the attention now turns to the future. Do the Vikings believe Mike Zimmer, after seven seasons, is truly “the guy” who can get this franchise over the hump? Does the team have the pieces in place to be competitive next year? Who do they prioritize in the draft? There are a lot of holes to fill, and the Vikings will have to spend at least the next two seasons trying to build a roster capable of overcoming Kirk Cousins’ deficiencies if it is to have a chance at a divisional championship again, let alone a Super Bowl.

On the Darnell Savage/Nick Collins comparisons

Packer fans love nothing more than making comparisons to players and teams of the past. The latest example of this is the rush to compare Darnell Savage to Nick Collins.

Normally I cringe a bit when I see these sorts of comparisons, finding them to be lazy and essentially having no value. But this is one case where I think the comparison is apt.

The obvious comparisons can be made to the players’ stories. Collins (a second-round pick) and Savage (a late first-round pick) were both drafted relatively high. They had up-and-down rookie seasons and didn’t turn it on immediately. Collins eventually flipped the switch and became a superstar, and Savage seems to be doing it earlier in his career than Collins did, with the results to be determined.

What’s more interesting to me is looking at the actual measurable and tangible ways in which the two players are similar.

Collins and Savage are remarkably similar in size and body type, coming in at 5’11, 207 and 5’11, 198, respectively. The two have the exact same arm length, with Savage’s hand size being just a bit bigger.

They were both fast at the combine, with Savage especially so (4.36 for Savage, 4.49 for Collins). Their 20-yard shuttles and three-cone drills were nearly identical, they did the exact same number of bench press reps and they were within a half inch of each other on their vertical leap. 

Then there’s their play style. For both Savage and Collins, the real leaps in progression started to come when they got more comfortable playing all over the field, including playing deep zone, playing man coverage and playing up at the line of scrimmage. 

Savage has started to flourish when he’s been used more in the old Collins/LeRoy Butler type of role all over the field, and his coverage this season has really come a long way.

Their measurables and their versatility are strikingly similar. So it’s no wonder people see Collins in Savage--put a 36 on Savage and you might not be able to tell the difference when watching some of their tape. 

Happy New Year!

It’s New Year’s Eve, and I think most of us can agree we’re happy to put 2020 behind us. 

Who knows what the year ahead has in store… I certainly couldn’t have predicted this shitshow a year ago tonight. It’s almost impossible to believe that this time last year I was getting the house ready for a party with a few dozen people, most of whom I haven’t seen in nearly a year now.

But, I hope that the new year brings you joy, luck and all things that are good. Because damn, we could all use some of that after this year!

The Packers can go ahead and get things started nicely with a win over the Bears and a Super Bowl a month later, thank you very much.

Week 17 quick forecast

Despite the Packers coming off an epic smackdown of the previously spooky Tennessee Titans, I’ve still seen some people on Twitter worried about this game.

“OooOooOo, the Bears have been picking up steam lately!” 

Yeah, against trash competition.

Look, the Bears are not a good football team. And not only that, but the Packers are a completely awful matchup for them. Even if this game didn’t have any meaning for the Packers, coming away with a victory would be a tall order. But the Packers have a lot at stake here, and need a victory to clinch the top seed.

This one won’t be close.

Packers 34, Bears 13