Enemy Fan Forums: Green Bay Packers

Minnesota is a different kind of challenge. Better QB. Better receivers. Good game to get King back to 100%. I think the weaker part of our defense is the secondary. Savage looked good against Trubisky but he’s a rookie. He’s gonna have his moments. I do trust King, Alexander and Amos, but Williams will have his moments where his age gets picked on. We’ll see if Greene is as good at that coverage LB spot going forward. He’s hardly proven.

So yeah, a better QB/WR group will be a good test for our secondary.

This should be a good test. I think Minnesota is a solid 9-11 win team. Gonna be a much bigger test for a db's with thielen and diggs and also stopping their running game that ran through atlanta's D with no issue.

Vikings week is the best week. I'd rather it not be before week 4, however. This is too soon.

Viking defensive line looked disruptive against Falcons. It's always worse when next week's opponent does that against a team Packers have struggled against. Assuming things go relatively well for Packers on defense, the game will come down to whether or not GB OL can hold its own against a good front seven. We are used to seeing the offensive line in disarray for the first month of the season, so by habit I am expecting another ugly game.

Vikings O is better than Bears O
Vikings D is worse than Bears D (but still very good)

They will score more than 3 points on GB. MLF & Rodgers will need to get the offense unstuck to keep pace. Early season & division games are often a coin toss.

I don't miss Mike Daniels or Nick Perry. Nagy didn't run enough but the GB run D seems ok so far.

If GB can put MIN in a lot of 3rd and long downs like they did with CHI, and the secondary stays healthy it could push Cousins into a bad mistake.

A lot of it, as usual, comes down to Rodgers and unlocking Zimmer's D.

Aaron Rodgers doesn't play too well versus Mike Zimmer.

Vikings 17
Packers 10

The vikings should have a very good defense, not as good as the Bears, but close. But they have a better offense. Our Offense will have to show up a bit more next week, but it's at home at least.

This is going to be a very stout challenge for the Packers. I haven’t been able to watch as much of the Vikings/Falcons game as I’d like, but Dalvin Cook looks absolutely dangerous in the backfield. He’s just running through the Falcons. Cousins has only thrown the ball 10 times because they haven’t needed it.

The Vikings defense shut off the run as Freeman has only 8 carries for 19 yards (awful for my fantasy team by the way).

Something tells me that, unless something drastically changes, the Packers will have a really tough time running the ball against the defensive front of the Vikings, which will put Rodgers in a similar position as he was against the Bears.

We’re going to need another unbelievable effort defensively to try slowing down their running game and make Cousins play hero ball. Otherwise, it has the makings to get ugly.

The Packers won’t figure out all of their offensive woes in 10 days. So the defense will need to be really good.

And here I was hoping Atlanta could do something right for a change and beat Minnesota. Personally I'm not TOO worried as I don't think Minnesota will be able to repeat this performance. If this was at home then I would be worried as they do better at home than away. Besides we owe these jokers from last year. I say we handle our business and take a commanding 2-0 and this time we win decisively.

Well, some of their TDs were setup by Atlanta turnovers and special teams. I think our D can hold them

BUT ....

Lane Taylor must be kicked off this roster before this game. He is a disgrace to offensive linemen and makes me long for the days when Marco Rivera was out there mauling defensive linemen.

Will be a tough game. Cook looks amazing.

The Vikings are going to be tough for sure. The have a very good defense and solid offense. Keys to the game seem fairly simple.

1. Don't turn the ball over. The Falcons had 3 turnovers and blocked punt.
2. Stop the run. It is fine if Cook gets some yards but he cant break big ones
3. Slow down the Viking's pass rush

If you followed the Vikings-Falcons game obviously the Vikings were the better team but the Falcons couldnt get out of their own way.

Blocked punt leads to a short field for the Vikings

Interception leads to short field for the Vikings

Next drive they get in field goal range but self destruct with a penalty

Next drive they have 1st and 5 from the Vikings 21 and they fumble

They had another drive where they threw in INT in the end zone on second and goal from the 3.

They were inside the 35 of the Vikings 3 times in just over two quarters and left with 0 points. That is embarrassing. At worst you should be down 21-9 but probably 21-13 or 21-17 even with the short field they gave the Vikings twice right off the bat.

I not only think these are all attainable, I think they are probable.

1. I believe we can win the turnover ratio..or at least go par.

2. Our Defense is the fastest I’ve seen since the second half of 2014. We are finally winning in the trenches on D and disrupting the flow. Then we have a lightning fast secondary that’s mopping up what the big boys start (see the Clark/Amos 3rd down stop on Trubisky when he tried to escape last week). We made Mitch look slow and he’s been very formidable in the past at making teams pay when hes forced to scramble.

3. While MN will likely be a top 10 Defense this year again, Chicago is better getting QB pocket disruption. I don’t think Rodgers gets sacked or hurried as often.

I think we score 17-24 range in our effort to congeal our O. I think this game is going to be very close. I stand by my opinion that Cousins is better than 60% of the QBs we will face.

Home field gives us an edge. GB23-MN21

Before we hand the Vikings the game also remember that Falcons defense was the 3rd worst run defense in the game last year giving up almost 5 ypc. Most places pegged them near the bottom again this year. Cook is a good runner but he will be facing a much different run defense in GB.

Vikings are scary. I have a concern about being able to put up enough points against their D. Hopefully our D is for real, for once. They were fun to watch last week. Our home record was horrible last year. We need to get that Lambeau mojo back. The Pack better take advantage of all of the home games early. They have a chance to blow it wide open if they can get on a run at home.

I still claim if Rodgers keeps getting sacked like the game against the Bears,
he wouldn't last 16 games.

Maybe, like some said it'll take some time, but he just doesn't seem comfortable in the

pocket, and might start throwing the ball out of bounds like last last year.

You never know what you're going to get out of Kirk Cousins - Sometimes he's Superman, sometimes he's Jimmy Olsen. Hopefully, Green Bay's defensive performance against the Bears can be repeated - It looks like the offense is a work in progress.

They will NOT win if they only score 10 pts....I’m willing to bet $500 on it. The Queens offense is better at every skill position than the Bears, especially at WR...and for some reason the Packer defense has always made Cousins look like Dan Marino. The Queens defense isn’t as good as the Bears is but they aren’t far off. They definitely have the pieces to give Rodgers and the offense fits that’s for sure. It's a home game but so what. You still are going to have to score points...can’t be constantly going three and out and putting the defense on the field. Sustain some damn drives.

Packers will do better against the Vikings than the Bears.

Packer run defense should be very good. With the Smith Brothers being excellent at setting the edge, and Clark setting the push up the middle, Martinez should do better with Cook than the Falcons. Vikings weak spot is their OLine, so i expect cousins to have a rough day and the Packers will have opportunities for turnovers.

On offense, the Packers need to spread the defense and take their time. AR needs to quickly take what the defense gives him. If he is patient, we will be able to move the ball. Will be a tough day for our RBs running stats, but it should be good day for RBs in the short routes and screens. We need Geronimo to have a big day on the intermediate routes.

I think we get 2 ints and 1 fumble and beat the basturds 24-20.

I'm not too afraid of Minnesota if the D plays like they did against the Bears.

- Don't let Dalvin Cook run wild, keep contain and limit his runs to 4 yds. or less will force Cousins to air it out. 2 picks by Savage/Amos this week.

- Offense needs to use 2-TE sets early downs to keep their D honest. Lewis & Tonyan can either block or receive giving the offense flexibility. Would put Graham in on obvious passing downs, only.

- Aaron Jones needs to get some holes to pop thru and that'll soften-up their D even more for Adams & MVS to have room to roam.

- AR didn't have much time on 1/2 his drop backs to find any downfield receivers... he'll have more time this week. Still needs to check-down rather than take the sack, though... hopefully he saw his missed checkdowns on film.

- Wouldn't mind seeing the occasional 5WR formation using our big WR's ~ no way their DB's can match-up against 6'-4" MVS & Kumerow, 6'-3" Allison w/ 6'-1" Adams & Davis flying deep. A little "wrinkle" would be fun to see and possibly very productive.

ST comes through for a big play this week, also. GB 38, MN 24

Week one results are difficult to judge, because there isn't much of a frame of reference. We don't know if the Vikings' defense is particularly good or the Falcons' offense is particularly bad. I'll venture some observations:

The score makes it look like these teams were unevenly matched, talent-wise, but I didn't think that was the case. The Falcons were -3 in TO margin and had a blocked punt, and that basically explains the score between two teams that I think are pretty comparable. Ryan's first pick came on a 50/50 ball that, while too high, could have easily come down as a Julio Jones reception. Freeman's fumble at MIN's 20 is just bad luck. And Ryan's 2nd pick probably should have been flagged, as Harris impeded Stocker and pushed off of him while the ball was in the air. Was still a horrible decision. The Vikings aren't going to find Rodgers as easy to turn over.

The Falcons were able to move the ball through the air. They had a 46 yard drive end with a fumble and a 51 yard drive end with a terrible pick in the end zone. They ended the game with scoring drives of 66 yards and 62 yards.

They really struggled to establish a running attack with Freeman, but Ito Smith found some open grass.

The TE was the weakness of the Vikings' defense on Sunday (Austin Hooper had 9 catches on 9 targets for 77 yards), as it was last season, and as it is in most Zimmer defenses.

For how rarely Cousins threw the ball, he was under quite a bit of pressure.

The Vikings ran the ball with authority and Cook looked explosive. Falcons had a bottom 5 rush defense last year, so it's hard to judge.

Everson Griffen was back in style. He gave Jake Matthews a lot of problems.

I think this is going to be another low scoring affair. The Packer offense should be able to hold up better against the Vikings' pass rush than it did against the Bears', but I would still expect a fair bit of pressure. It will help to be at home. When he has time, I think Aaron will be able to move the ball effectively, but I would also expect some more clunkiness as the system is still new. We will see how the running game looks with another week under the belt.

On defense, if they can stop the rushing attack and force Cousins to pass, I think they're going to hit him quite a bit. The Falcons' pass rush is worse than ours, and they were getting after it pretty consistently despite Cousins only attempting ten passes.

Take care of the ball, find the tight ends, stop the run, hit Cousins, and get to 2-0.

Granted our rivalry is with Chicago, but for me I've always despised Minnesota with a passion. That is the one team I will never cheer for, and I always hope we beat the breaks off of them. If we lose to Chicago, i'm fine with it, but Minnesota, that ruins my week.

I think for me it all started when Moss pretended to moon the crowd and we lost the way we did to them in the playoffs. I laugh about it now, but I remember how much I despised him for doing that and for The Vikings beating us. Plus their fans are obnoxious.

Same here. I grew up a little over an hour from the twin sh*tties and grew up despising the vikings and for me it was way before Randy Moss. In fact I have hated the vikings for longer than I have loved the Packers. I won't say I would never cheer for them but the circumstances need top be just right. If a viking win would put the Packers in the playoffs or would keep them from being eliminated I might think about it.

Minnesota's great offense will come down to earth against us, but I also think that our defense will show some of its warts. We will bring out the worst in each other.

I think this could actually come down to an under-lier of the ST battles and the ratio of takeaways.

Also, Our D Line needs to challenge our DBs to be aggressive off the LOS and disturb/slow their routes. Tangle them good out of the blocks and expect throws to come out slightly premature as the pocket gets diced.

I’d also spy Cook with a Safety rather than let him eat us alive. MN will undoubtedly try to counter our formidable pass rush with short dump passes out of the backfield. That’s Darnell’s specialty, blowing by before the block gets set and tangling with the RB still in the backfield until Martinez comes in like a hammer.

Kirk is a good QB, but he’s gonna have a load thrown at him by Pettine. This isn’t the Atlanta D and it’s certainly not our typical GB Defense. While it’s true that Chicago was rusty.. it’s also true we gave them absolute fits and gang tackling like i can’t remember us ever doing. We’re likely somewhere between MN and a Chicago D, this ain’t no cakewalk for MN.

The only chance they have is shutting down Rodgers to less than 20 pts. It’s payback time and this crowd is going to be rowdy.

One thing is certain. Minnesota has better offensive weaponry than Chicago, so we'll know more about this defense come Sunday. The good news is Minnesota's defense, likely to be a fine outfit this season, does not measure up to Chicago's which is right up there with the 2015 Broncos or the Legion of Boom.

Just don't hand the ball over like Atlanta did.

The first week was a win, if not an offensive success. There are still a lot of questions. Where is the MLF offense we heard so much about during the off season? Why is Rodgers running the play clock down so far, and still holding onto the ball so long? Is the Packers defense really good, or was it a matter of facing an inept QB and an out-of-sync offense by the Bears? And for the Vikings, are they good, or are the Falcons doing their usual "good once a decade, then back to mediocre" act? Cousins threw only 10 passes during that game, depending on the run and the ineptness of the Falcons on both sides of the ball. The Packers game plan should be similar to the Bears: force Cousins to beat you with his arm. And for goodness sake, get Rodgers to throw the ball more quickly and move the team at a quicker pace and get some rhythm going on offense! It's all so easy when you're sitting in your living room and typing. 8)

Comments and Q's: I live in Minnesota, my brothers-in-law are Vikings fans, and I was at a family thing after church on Sunday so watched most of first half with them. (A new brother-in-law is from Honduras; it was fun teaching him and explaining American football....)

That was a weird game, and doesn't show much about what the vikings will do offensively. First drive, blocked Atlanta punt, then a nice 31-yard TD drive. Second Falcons possession, INT, then a 41-yard TD drive. So, it was 14-0 before the game had hardly started, and the Vikings defense was of course dominating. Probably hyperbole, but the Vikings were basically already in prevent defense and 4th-quarter conservative-run-the-clock mode with 10 minutes left in the 1st quarter! Early 2nd quarter another fumble, and the Vikes had a longer 59-yard drive, and it was totally all over.

Their defense was really good and was pretty suffocating, as you'd expect. The coaches know that. Vikings offense had no reason to try much or show anything much or take any risks once they'd opened the 14 and then 21-0 lead.

Cousins was 80% completion, he looked really accurate as usual. He took no risks, and held the ball a little bit if a guy wasn't wide open, and the line seemed pretty pass-rush vulnerable. The running game looked really good, they have two really good backs, and they were able to run sweepish stuff outside in either direction. But, that was against Atlanta.

I think Packers might be a different story. With Preston, Z, and Gary, I'd think the Packers defensive front might (hopefully) be WAY better at setting the edge and keeping the running backs in the pocket. Vikes had short drives and were able to run their way to the early TD's, and then were pretty fine to punt and let the defense stifle. I assume the packers will be WAY better versus the outside runs then Atlanta was, and thus that Vikes will need to try other stuff.

They've got terrific receivers who can make difficult catches, and QB has good accuracy. But I think they're going to try to run. I expect it to be another low-scoring affair. They'll run, we'll need to snuff them; Cousins will get stuck with some 3rd and longs; our pass pressure will need to convert and the secondary hold on some of the 3rd-downs. Packers obviously will not have much luck running against that defense either, so Rodgers will get stuck with 3rd downs and 3rd down blitzes.

I assume it will be relatively low scoring, and make-or-break on some big plays. Thielen and Diggs, those guys are really good and are great at catching balls even when well-covered, and Cousins is pretty accurate. They may convert on some difficult big plays where those guys make difficult catches, or where we're getting called for pass interference. A couple of big plays, and they can score a couple of TD's and that might be game. Or for us, last week Rodgers had the long completion to MVS, and Graham made a very difficult contested TD catch and that was game. Maybe it's going to be us that gets a couple of key big plays, and if we score two TD's that might be all we need.

It was my observation in Vikes game that while Atlanta's QB often had pressure, that there were a number of plays where he had pretty reasonable time. Not sure if that's possibly promising that Rodgers may have some pockets at times, obviously not consistently so, but that he might get some room and time to throw? That's my hope, that he gets enough time and gets some completions and they start to get rolling. Not sure, though. Maybe Falcons have better line, beats me; also well possible that Vikings defense was just playing kind of containment defense for most of the game, and had no reason to try a lot of blitzing and stuff.

But yeah, pretty crucial that our front is able to really snuff their running game. And that when we get them to third downs, that the pressure is on and we stop them and don't give up lots of 3rd-down completions. And that offensively Rodgers and the passing game get more going more often than they did versus Bears.  

I know a couple guys who have NFL Game Pass and they get "All-22" film access, which is what the coaching staff uses to watch game film.

One of the things they noticed against the Bears was that, even though Rodgers held the ball longer than he needed to on a few plays, most of the time he held the ball was due to the WR's being blanketed in coverage. They even went as far as to say that the routes being run reminded them of MM's offense.

I think MLF was hesitant to open up the offense with it being the first game and against the Bears. All the preseason inactivity meant MLF wasn't going to get too crazy with his play calling.

Rodger said he needs to do better, but so did MLF.

The offense looked it's best when they were running up tempo and quick hitting passes. Except for the long pass to MVS, Rodgers was throwing in rhythm and they scored the only TD of the game.

I think the TE's will be even more involved this week than they were last week. Both in run and pass.

And, I also look for Vitale to be targeted out of the backfield.

Zimmer has that the Packers number (and Rodgers?) of late, he is 5-1-1 in his last 7 games against the Packers.

Green Bay Packers lead series all time, 60-54-3 (59-53-3 regular season, 1-1 postseason)

Including the postseason, Green Bay is 12-8-1 against Minnesota with Aaron Rodgers as the starting quarterback.

Rodgers has recorded seven games with a passer rating of 130-plus against Minnesota, the most by a quarterback in NFL history against one opponent (according to the Elias Sports Bureau).

All-time, at Lambeau Field 23-19-3

Our DB's need to make sure they have stickum on their hands this week because they will get even more opportunities for INTs. Should be a fun test for our new DB group though, Vikings WRs are no joke. Their DL is no joke either, they're a step down from the Bears, but not a huge one. Should be another tough trench battle.

Hopefully no dumbass roughing the passer calls this year.

1.1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were called the first day.

And the Vikings haven’t won a Super Bowl since.