After Trouncing Titans, Victory Over Bears Would Give Packers No. 1 Seed
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Even though Sunday night’s game was practically meaningless in terms of the race for the No. 1 seed, the matchup against the Tennessee Titans wasn’t irrelevant to the Green Bay Packers.
Coach Matt LaFleur called it a “measuring stick” to face one of the top teams in the AFC.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers said it was a way to silence the critics.
“We talked about it before the game,” he said. “Obviously, we knew what was going on in Seattle and it just turned to kind of putting on a show. We had an opportunity to be in primetime against a really good opponent. I think we’ve all heard the conversation about us not beating enough good teams, not responding and playing a complete game. This was our response.”
What a response it was. The Packers smoked the Titans 40-14. Following their most complete performance of the season, they’ll pack a 12-3 record for Sunday’s trip to Chicago. With a victory over the Bears, they’d secure the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs, the lone bye and homefield advantage.
The NFL moved the game from a schedule noon kickoff to 3:25 p.m.
Because the Seattle Seahawks beat the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday afternoon, the Packers went onto Lambeau Field for pregame warmups on Sunday night knowing the No. 1 seed was off the table until next week.
LaFleur, therefore, could have treated this game against an AFC foe as an unscheduled bye and gotten his top players fresh and energized for a trek to Chicago and the playoffs that are to come. Instead, LaFleur’s team stormed to a 19-0 lead, withstood back-to-back touchdowns bridging the first and second halves, then dominated the rest of the game.
“You know, that’s something that we never really even talked about,” LaFleur said of resting players. “Every week, you’ve got to go in with the same mind-set, especially when you’re playing a team that is most likely going to be in the playoffs and were in it until the end last year. We knew we had a great opponent. I think it was a great measuring stick to see where we’re at, what we’re capable of doing.”
Green Bay is 12-3 overall and 9-2 against the NFC, New Orleans is 11-4 overall and 9-2 against the NFC, and Seattle is 11-4 overall and 8-3 against the NFC.
If the Packers can go into Chicago and win for the 10th time in 11 trips, they would finish 13-3 and earn the No. 1 seed.
If the Packers lose, they’d be at the mercy of tiebreakers.
New Orleans plays at Carolina (5-10) and Seattle plays at San Francisco (6-9).
If the Packers lose, Saints win and Seahawks lose, Green Bay and New Orleans would finish 12-4. Green Bay would get the No. 1 seed based on its head-to-head win in Week 3.
If the Packers lose, Saints lose and Seahawks win, Green Bay and Seattle would finish 12-4. The first two tiebreakers – head-to-head (didn’t play each other) and conference record (both would be 9-3) wouldn’t solve anything. The third tiebreaker is common games, which Seattle would win because it beat Minnesota while Green Bay lost one of the two matchups.
If the Packers lose, Saints lose and Seahawks lose, then Green Bay would be the outright winner at 12-4.
As shown by crushing a powerful Titans team that had won four of its last five games, was No. 1 in the NFL in scoring and had a dominant runner in Derrick Henry, homefield advantage would be a major prize for the Packers.
“I feel good about where we’re at,” Rodgers said after throwing four touchdown passes. “It’s tough to play in the cold. It’s tough to play in Lambeau. I think we proved that tonight.”
Added Davante Adams, who scored three touchdowns: “People definitely don't want to play in the cold. It's tough, man. It's tough. It makes you a little bit less physical. It takes your speed away. I think that team is a really, really solid team that played with a lot less speed than they typically do. We have guys who go out there every single week and get used to playing in it. We get those reps and we build up a mind-set to kind of block out the weather. I think it definitely gives us an advantage.”
