Detroit Lions: Five Things to Know About the Green Bay Packers
By Bob Heyrman
The Detroit Lions head to Lambeau Field tonight in prime time. It’s Monday Night Football featuring the NFC North. It’s sure to be an exciting game, and believe it or not, a series the Lions have dominated of late.
The Detroit Lions enter the evening hoping to win their fifth straight game over the Green Bay Packers and what would be the third consecutive victory inside Lambeau Field. Wins are hard to come by in Lambeau if you are not wearing a Green Bay jersey.
Lambeau may be the toughest place to win for a road team aside from CenturyLink Field in Seattle and Gillette Stadium. CenturyLink Field is merely deafening. The ruckus crowd always shows up with their voiceboxes lubricated and ready to put in a full shift.
They make it so difficult for the opponent to communicate primarily on offense. Gillette Stadium is similar, but I feel the fans are so used to winning year after year that maybe the fans aren’t as wild week to week.
Lambeau Field is very similar, but there is always a remedy for the craziness–get an early lead. The Detroit Lions will need to roll into Green Bay, run the football effectively, get off the field on third down, and continue to stay ahead of the chains. The Lions can’t afford to get into those long down and distance, 2nd and 15 or 3rd and 12 downs regularly and expect to win the football game.
The Packers are coming off of an impressive win in Dallas. Aaron Jones scored four times on the ground for Green Bay. Jones rushed for North of 100 yards and also added 7 grabs totaling 75 yards last week in Dallas.
The Detroit Lions will need to neutralize him and force Rodgers to throw the football. Typically when the ball is in Rodgers’ hands, it’s not the best gameplan, but he’ll be without his number one pass-catcher Davante Adams. Adams, one of the best receivers in all of football, is a significant loss.
That ‘impressive’ Packers victory over Dallas just a week ago became a bit skewed yesterday when the Cowboys lost to the New York Jets. It was the Jet’s first victory of the season.
We’ve teamed up with Paul Bretl of Dairyland Express, who covers everything Wisconsin (check them out) to get a better grasp of this Packers club and what we can expect from them tonight. You can also check out our exchange here, where I answered five questions regarding the Lions.