Green Bay Packers are 1-2 for the third time in four years. This is nothing new for the Packers to get off to a slow start. Week five of the NFL season does not seem like a game where the Packers would be in a must-win situation, but facing the Detroit Lions who are 3-1, might be as close to a must-win for Green Bay to keep their heads afloat in the NFC North race.
Green Bay is almost back to full strength after the bye week. They will be without Casey Hayward still with a hamstring injury that appears to be more serious than people are leading on and James Starks will not be ready this week. The Packers do get back Morgan Burnett, Eddie Lacy, Clay Matthews and Jermichael Finley, all four premier Packers players. All four have an important role to Green Bay winning the football game on Sunday, but other than Matthews, Lacy's role might be the most important on the team.For the first time in many moons, the Packers had back-to-back 100 yard rushers, both did not have the last name of Lacy. He will get his chance against a tough Lions defense. Lacy will be the number one running back, and this is a game where the running game becomes crucial. The Lions front seven is a hungry bunch who blitz with no human regard as Kevin Harlan would say, and a solid running game would disrupt what Detroit wants to do on defense. I suggest as such on the podcast, but I feel like the Packers should use both Lacy and Franklin at the same damn time. Split them with Rodgers in a shotgun and it creates chaos for the Lions defense.
The Lions defense is led by Ndamukong Suh who is having a massive start to this season. Suh looks like the guy drafted in the first three picks and has dominated the line of scrimmage. Given what Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Michael Johnson did against the Packers offensive line, it should be expected Suh will try to knock a few balls down at the line of scrimmage. That cannot happen. Also we all know Suh is a ticking time bomb and honestly, if Green Bay starts getting under his skin with little chippy shit, he might snap and hurt his team as he has done before. Handling Suh will be a major part of this football game.
A new player to the Lions-Packers rivalry is Reggie Bush. The former Heisman winner came from Miami to Detroit in the offseason and has been an eye-opener for this team. Detroit is actually running the football and using their running backs instead of trying to see if Matthew Stafford's arm will fall off in a game. Bush is a dynamic player, but in what figures to be a sloppy Lambeau (56 degrees and cloudy, but rain is expected all day Saturday), this game will be his biggest test of the season. The turf will be fine, but it will not be the conditions we have seen Bush in for the first three games he has played in this season which has been all controlled temperature and turf atmospheres.
Have you heard Detroit has not beat Green Bay in Wisconsin since 1991? As someone who has watched many of these games, the Lions tend to do some unexplained shit during the Lambeau portion of this rivarly. It is like the whole team knows they have not won since the grunge music era, and in turn, they put way too much pressure on themselves. Stafford reverts to a man throwing more interceptions than Travis Wilson on Thursday night (Hint for non-Pac-12 fans, he threw six interceptions last night), they have stupid penalties and Jim Schwartz looks like he needs a warm bottle of breast milk and a pacifier. These games have gotten pretty damn ugly for Detroit.
Mike McCarthy is 6-1 after bye weeks and he has owned Jim Schwartz in the last couple of years. They have not lost to the Lions since 2010. After a rough Week 3, Aaron Rodgers is going to respond with another big game at Lambeau Field. It will be tight for awhile, but Green Bay pulls away late. Green Bay 31-20
Charlie.
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