NFC North
Certainly no one would have predicted that the Packers would have a 4-1 record at this stage of the season, ahead of the Lions by one game and da Bears by two. They were undefeated until the Sunday nite loss to da Bears. So lets evaluate the early season start for the team and look ahead for the rest of this month.
1. What has gone right: So far their defense has played about as well as expected. Before the season started this unit was supposed to be the strength of the team, at least the front seven anyway. That has pretty much held true to form-they held the potent Chargers and Eagles offenses to less than expected scoring levels, which has given this group a lot of confidence. The Defensive Line is playing very well, at all positions. DE KGB has had a renaissance, getting more playing time due to injuries to Cullen Jenkins. The LB corps is playing very well, especially MLB Nick Barnett. WLB A J Hawk has yet to make a splash in the tackle/turnover chart but he undoubtedly will. CB's Al Harris and Charles Woodson are two of the very best pairs in the NFL. The safeties are both young and still learning.
On Offense, QB Brett Favre has led his young WR corps to an outstanding beginning of the season. WR Donald Driver is still the main man, but youngsters Jennings and Jones have provided a needed spark. Even TE Bubba Franks has gotten in on the fun, after a couple of seasons where pundits were predicting that he was losing it. The Offensive Line has played well in pass protection sets, at least after week 1, anyway. The RB's have provided good pass protection pickups but the entire cast has been injured off and on all season long ( Morency, D Wynn and B Jackson).
B. What's gone wrong: On Offense the running game has been non-existent through the first four games, but showed up Sunday nite even though it was very inconsistent. To contend in November and December this needs to be remedied and quickly.
On defense, not a lot of bad things can be said here except perhaps for the need to pressure the QB more and generate more turnovers.
C. Near-term Outlook:
The rest of the month looks like this: Washington at home, BYE week, then at Denver and at KC. The Washington game will be a tough one given the quality of RB's the Redskins have. The two road games appeared very daunting early in season but neither of those two teams are playing very well. So upside is that the Packers could win all three of those games...downside is they could lose all three too!
Stay tuned to see what happens! IF the Packers can with the Washington game and do no worse than a split of those two road games, they will be setup very well for the sprint home in November and December.
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