Gary Seymour, sports@wolfrivermedia.com
Are the Green Bay Packers having fun yet?
Rhetorical question, of course, and one that doesn’t seem to need asking after the Packers, in their first game after the Week 4 bye, knocked off the frequent thorn in their side New York Giants.
But it has been an unusual start to their season.
Not just anecdotal weirdness, like the kind Jared Cook experienced at a Buffalo Wild Wings. The Packers tight end reached into his order of chicken wings last week and pulled out a deep-fried chicken head.
What made the story funnier – or more sickening, depending on your point of view – is that his wife is a vegan and has been urging him to lay off the animal muscle tissue.
He told her that he would, someday, but not yet, not even after that ordeal. Maybe he’s waiting for a more glaring omen.
Post-traumatic chicken-head syndrome is not what kept Cook off the field in the win over the Giants. He’s out for another month or so after spraining his ankle in the win over Detroit. The Packers, looking to fine-tune a sporadic offensive attack, will welcome his return.
They will welcome everything that might get the passing game clicking on all cylinders again. At the moment, and as it was for the better part of the 23-16 victory over the Giants, it is the defense and running game paving the way.
The Packers ran for 147 yards and for the fourth straight game held the opponent to less than 50 on the ground. That sort of domination on both lines of scrimmage is something that even the most optimistic of fans might not have seen coming.
For his part, quarterback Aaron Rodgers played well enough, but as his detractors would aver at this point of the season, it was a bit too much Clark Kent and not enough Superman.
Rodgers, who correctly observed afterward that any kind of win will do over the gauntlet of 16 NFL games, completed an underwhelming 23 of 45 passes, misfiring on several seemingly easy connections, and was intercepted twice in the first half.
But he benefited from an offensive line that was every bit as impressive as the defensive front. Rodgers was not sacked once in 50 drop-backs, and if he’d had his phone on him he had enough time in the pocket to send a few texts while he waited for someone to get open.
That didn’t happen often enough with Jordy Nelson, his favorite receiver, at least to the extent where it resulted in a completion. Nelson hauled in just four of the 13 balls thrown his way, with one of the misses deflecting off his hands and turning into one of the interceptions.
Not to worry, as it turned out, because while Nelson was slightly off, Randall Cobb was fully on, making nine catches, including a couple of important, drive-sustaining grabs, for a total of 108 yards.
Running back Eddie Lacy also came up big, running like a wild horse before leaving the game in the third quarter with a sprained ankle, finishing with 81 yards on just 11 carries.
“We’ve got some stuff to clean up, for sure,” said Rodgers, who hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass in the second half this season and whose completion rate thus far (56 percent) is about nine points below his career average.
It would be a good thing to have some of the stuff cleaned up in time for this weekend’s visit by the revived Dallas Cowboys, who appear to be serious business this time around. A 4-12 bottom feeder last year, the Cowboys are 4-1 and leading the NFC East after knocking off Cincinnati last week. Lacy’s availability for the game is uncertain.
Rodgers closed his bit on the postgame podium by saying he isn’t worried, which given the play of both lines lately begs the question of who could be.