These 11 Players Must Step Up for Packers vs. Lions

GREEN BAY, Wis. –The Green Bay Packers must beat the Detroit Lions on Sunday at Lambeau Field to continue their late-season run to the playoffs. Looking beyond the obvious names such as Aaron Rodgers and Jaire Alexander, these players must deliver clutch performances.

Offense

RT Yosh Nijman or Zach Tom

Will it be Yosh Nijman, who played limited snaps the last two weeks due to a shoulder injury, or Zach Tom at right tackle? Either way, it will be a huge matchup. On passing downs, red-hot rookie James Houston typically goes against the left tackle. That means rookie sacks leader Aidan Hutchinson, the second overall pick in this year’s draft, will have a lot of matchups against the right tackle.

If Green Bay can protect Aaron Rodgers, there will be opportunities against Detroit’s secondary. The offensive tackles pitched a shutout last week against Minnesota’s dynamic duo of Za’Darius Smith and Danielle Hunter. They’ll need to produce an encore.

“I think our guys have been playing pretty good upfront,” Rodgers said. “The last few weeks against some good pass rushes, we’ve done a good job keeping me clean for the most part and limiting the amount of hits that I’ve taken.”

WR Allen Lazard

For all the focus on big-play rookie Christian Watson, the passing game still runs through Allen Lazard. He’s got five catches each of the last three weeks, including a big-time 5-of-6 targets for 59 yards last week against Minnesota. Two of those were third-down conversions as Green Bay bounced back from a season-worst 2-of-14 on third down vs. Miami with a season-best 7-of-12 vs. Minnesota.

“It doesn’t really matter if you’re the one seed or the seven seed, as we’ve found out plenty of times before,” Lazard said. “The only thing that matters is being in the dance, be able to stay alive and keep playing. As long as we’re playing the following weekend, we’ll be happy.”

TEs Robert Tonyan, Marcedes Lewis, Josiah Deguara

Robert Tonyan is the sure-handed threat who can make some plays downfield. Marcedes Lewis is the indomitable and ageless blocker. Josiah Deguara plays the role of fullback. The tight ends are always a big part of Green Bay’s offense, and they’ll need to deliver vs the Lions.

Among tight ends who have been targeted 40-plus times, Tonyan is No. 1 in catch percentage at 83.3 percent. He broke an 11-game touchdown drought last week when he broke wide open for a 21-yarder vs. Minnesota. That span of games felt longer than coming back from his torn ACL, he said.

“It’s playing more free and just going out there and executing and making those plays that we weren’t making early on,” Tonyan said of the team’s late-season play. “At the end of the day, it’s making the plays when they come to you. It’s been a total team effort across the board. Our special teams is playing phenomenal, defense is playing phenomenal and the offense is just starting to get rolling.”

Just about every explosive run involves Lewis overwhelming his man at the point of attack. He’ll have a big role again. Carolina ran for 320 yards against Detroit a couple weeks ago, with a lot of the production coming with an extra offensive lineman in the game.

“A lot of teams use extra O-linemen, but we have Marcedes, who blocks just like an extra O-lineman would – maybe even better in some instances,” offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said. “So, that’s a big advantage that we have, for sure.”

Defense

DTs Jarran Reed and TJ Slaton

With Dean Lowry on injured reserve, more is being asked of veteran Jarran Reed and second-year player TJ Slaton.

Reed has 2.5 sacks and ranks second on the team with 13 quarterback hits. He had a big-time game in the must-win victory over Miami with one sack, four pressures and a forced fumble. He had two more quarterback hits last week against Minnesota.

Slaton, meanwhile, is coming off the best game of his young career, a performance highlighted by his goal-line stop of Dalvin Cook and the deflection that turned into Adrian Amos’ interception.

Detroit has a superb, physical offensive line. If the Packers can’t stop Jamaal Williams’ power runs, it’s going to be a long day.

OLB Justin Hollins

In Game 1 against Detroit, star outside linebacker Rashan Gary suffered a torn ACL. The pass rush, not surprisingly, took a hit. Preston Smith leads the team with 8.5 sacks and 20 pressures. The team has lacked a consistent sidekick, though. When the Rams released Justin Hollins, the Packers pounced. In five games, he’s got 2.5 sacks, including one last week.

The Packers can’t let Jared Goff have a month of Sundays to find Amon-Ra St. Brown and the speedy tandem of D.J. Chark and Jameson Williams.

S Darnell Savage

Back into a key role following his benching, Darnell Savage will need to turn in a strong performance. Not that he needs a repeat of last week’s interception-return touchdown, but he can’t be suckered by the Lions’ offensive eye candy. Plus, he’s going to need to bring physicality as a tackler.

“There’s certain guys in the locker room that we had to keep tight. Sav is one of them,” quarterback Aaron Rodgers said this week. "It wasn’t like a concerted effort to make sure Darnell feels like he’s a part of this. It’s just, ‘Let’s make sure we’re keeping an eye on him, because he’s one of our guys. And at some point, he’s going to be an important part of what we’re doing.’ I give Sav a lot of credit for his professionalism, the way he came in here and performed and took on his role on special teams and then he went out in the game and had a pick-six.”

Special Teams

Keisean Nixon

OK, so we didn’t look beyond the obvious here. But Nixon has been such a game-changer. He leads the NFL with a franchise-record 30.0-yard average on kickoff returns. Last week, he became only the third player in NFL history to have 90-plus-yard kickoff returns in back-to-back games. He has five returns of 50-plus yards; nobody else has more than two.

Detroit’s punter, Jack Fox, handles kickoffs. He ranks sixth in the league with a touchback rate of 75.4 percent. But most of his kicks have been in the friendly confines of Ford Field. The cold is going to take some of the sting out of his kicks. Chicago rookie Velus Jones had a 63-yarder last week, so the Lions’ coverage unit is a bit vulnerable.

“I really think that he’s given their whole special teams unit a huge spark,” Lions special teams coordinator Dave Fipp said this week. “He’s a confident player. He plays with some swagger, and you admire that from afar, and he’s made some plays for them. I think he’s brought a lot of confidence to their whole unit, so we’ve got to make sure that we go out there and do what we try to do every single week and cover the kick with 11 players. And it’s a team game. It’s going to take all 11 of us. We know that, and we’ve just got to do a good job of executing our job.”