Minnesota prefers lower-scoring affairs and had defeated Green Bay twice in a row by limiting the Packers to a combined 27 points.
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But the Vikings made too many other mistakes to catch up to the Packers. Green Bay later lost four consecutive games, leading to heavy criticism, a 4-6 record and a shaky playoff outlook.
Bradford, still learning the offense, did not start in the Vikings’ opening week victory at Tennessee, but he was outstanding in starting the next four games in Minnesota’s 5-0 start.
“This has been a good defensive team, other than the last two weeks, and we’ve got to fix that”, Zimmer said.
Saturday at Lambeau Field, fans of both teams found out how little those September games really mean and how much a team’s fortunes can change during a season. Despite a painful playoff loss to Seattle, the expectation was that the Vikings’ window of opportunity had just opened. Do you really want the immobile Bradford trying to play quarterback with a line that has no shot of protecting him?
Green Bay (9-6) built a 28-13 lead at halftime, with Rodgers accounting for all four scores in the half.
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) – The resurgent Green Bay Packers moved one win away from another NFC North title. He threw a 17-yard touchdown to Chris Thompson in the first quarter and scored on a 9-yard run in the second.
That’s all Rodgers needs, especially with wide receiver convert Ty Montgomery emerging as a quality option at running back and top target Jordy Nelson finding a deep groove with 16 catches for 278 yards the last two weeks.
That did not include a Mike Zimmer-led defense that figured to give the offense the ball in favorable field position throughout the year.
The Packers have gotten healthier, they’re playing better and they’re one victory away from their fifth division title in six years. All the things the star QB does when he is at his best.
The last time Peterson suffered a knee injury, when he suffered a torn ACL and MCL in 2011, he rebounded to rush for 2,097 yards and was named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 2012. So it’s not like we’re jumping for joy and we can’t believe we’re in this spot. After all, the last time they were 8-6 after 14 games they won the Super Bowl.
Sure enough, after being checked out on the sideline by the team’s medical staff for not only his neck but also whether he showed any symptoms of a concussion, Rodgers was cleared to keep playing when Green Bay regained possession. Rodgers has completed 80.9 percent of his passes to Nelson in that time after completing 56.4 percent in the first 10 games.
Neither the Vikings nor Peterson have made clear whether he’ll play in the team’s final game on January 1.
Bradford finished 35 of 50 for 382 yards (highest yard total in his career) and three touchdowns (two of those TD passes came in prevent defense time when the Packers already had the game in hand).
That the game matters at all is a testament to the turnaround by the Packers.
“We put ourselves in a tough spot”, Rodgers said. “We had some adversity and we stuck together”.
“There’s not a lot of teams that could’ve come back from that”, outside linebacker Datone Jones said. “We get one under our belts, things might start rolling for us and we can run the table”.
Maybe they were sluggish after the team plane got stuck in the grass on the way to the gate at a Wisconsin airport on Friday night after making a safe landing, forcing a delay of more than five hours.
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This will be the 113th match between these two teams, and it will be one of the most important in the whole season.
