Packers blow big lead, but make the plays they needed late to advance to NFC title game

I guess you can’t expect any Packer game this season to be anything but a nail-biter for nervous Nellies, and the divisional playoff game against the Seahawks was no exception. A 21-3 halftime lead, and 28-10 midway through the third quarter, suggested that the Packers were either going to cruise to victory and suffer the kind of ignominious collapse as they did in the 2014 NFC Championship game when the game was seemingly iced when Russell Wilson threw his fourth interception of the game with less than five minutes to play and the Packers leading 19-7. It appeared a strong possibility that this scenario was repeating; after the Seahawk offense has been stymied for most of the first halt, they scored on their first three drives after the break. 

The difference was that these were not quick strikes, but consumed 15 minutes of the time, thus when the Packer defense finally came back to life on the Seahawks fourth drive late in the fourth quarter, it was matter of something that Aaron Rodgers had failed to do in the 2014 game: get a first down or two and keep the Seahawks off the field. This time, two big third down throws to Davante Adams and Jimmy Graham forced the Seahawks to use their timeouts and the Packers were able to run out the clock for the 28-23 win and the “right” to face the 49ers in the NFC Championship game, who earlier beat the Packers 37-8 in a game in which Rodgers threw for just 104 yards on 33 pass attempts.

This game had a certain peculiarity to it; I know that some are calling Rodgers' performance "hot," but completing 16 of 27 isn't "great," and the Packers did come close to losing this game despite having a big lead.  Rodgers virtually ignored everyone in the passing game save Adams and Graham, who were the only receivers to catch more than one pass, and Aaron Jones was the only other one targeted more than once. Adams and Graham combined for 11 catches for 209 yards, while the six other receivers who were “targeted” caught just five passes for 34 yards. What does this mean? Did Rodgers in frustration for being blamed for the Packers passing woes say to himself that in order to win, he was only going to seek out the two veteran standouts, and the heck with the rest because he didn’t “trust” them? I’m not sure this is the best strategy, but Rodgers and the Packers got away with it this time because we are not talking about the old “Legion of Boom” in the Seahawk secondary. 

One interesting thing was that before the game Seahawk Coach Pete Carroll claimed that his playoff coaching experience gave the Seahawks an undeniable edge over the Packer coaching staff, which had almost none. Of course, Carroll might have recalled that Jim Harbaugh went to the Super Bowl in his first year as coach of the 49ers. It is still difficult to access precisely to what extent Matt LaFleur can be credited for the Packers 13-win season, since uncommon good fortune seemed to have something to do with it, rather than anything close to dominant play. But this victory lends some credibility to the idea that maybe Packer management did see something in LaFleur that others did not. What exactly that is I’m not sure, but if the Packers somehow pull it all together to beat the 49ers next week, whatever LaFleur’s contribution is should be a topic of conversation for commentators and “experts.”