Well, that was exhausting.
The Green Bay Packers took a while to show up, but their half-assed effort was enough to beat the New York Jets 31-24 in the home opener.
After staking the Jets to a 21-3 lead, the Packers slowly started to chip away. The defense, that looked all too willing to give up big plays, eventually stiffened and the offense, which had no rhythm early, found enough to outscore the Jets 27-3 from the late second quarter on.
The Packers offense was basically this — throw it in Jordy Nelson’s direction and hope for the best.
Seriously, we’re not really sure what the Packers’ game plan was, but we’re pretty sure someone’s dog took a crap on a piece of paper and they went with that.
The Packers had no running game to speak of and, in fact, didn’t even really try to run in the first half. Aaron Rodgers looked like he wanted to spread the ball around early, but no one stepped up.
Jarrett Boykin, who had two early opportunities, dropped both balls and may have lost his No. 3 receiver role to Davante Adams in the process. Adams contributed five catches for 50 yards.
Randall Cobb, meanwhile, caught two touchdowns, but had only 39 yards receiving. Andrew Quarless was the only tight end to catch a ball and he caught just that — one.
No, Sunday was Jordy or bust for the Packers. Thankfully, Nelson delivered with nine catches for 209 yards and a TD. Nelson accounted for a little less than two-thirds of Rodgers’ 346 yards passing and more than half of the Packers 390 total yards.
On defense, it was a sea change for the Packers from week 1. And that was good for the most part.
The Jets did exactly what we thought they were going to do — pound the ball with Chris Ivory and Chris Johnson. Well, those guys went pretty much nowhere between the tackles.
Ivory finished with 43 on 13 carries and Johnson had 21 on 12 carries.
Gone were the constant missed tackles and gaping holes up the middle. You can probably credit new starting inside linebacker Jamari Lattimore with helping to improve that, but both inside linebacker A.J. Hawk and nose tackle Letroy Guion also played a hell of a lot better this week than they did in week 1.
Hawk had 10 tackles, Lattimore seven and Guion had two.
The real star of the game defensively was defensive end Mike Daniels, though. Daniels finished with five tackles and a sack and looked like the playmaker we expected him to be.
While all of that was good, where the Packers ran into trouble is on the outside.
Basically, all the Jets had to do was get outside the tackles and there was a big play waiting for them. That’s because Clay Matthews is unaware of what outside contain means.
We can appreciate that he wants to make every play. Maybe he even feels like he HAS to make every play, but stay home and take care of your assignment once in a while, huh?
With the Jets running game nonexistent for the most part, that put the outcome in the hands of quarterback Geno Smith, which is exactly where the Packers wanted it.
Smith had his moments, but couldn’t quite rally his team. Or maybe he could have, if some joker wouldn’t have called a time out.
With the Jets down by seven, late in the fourth, Smith lofted a 36-yard touchdown pass to Jeremy Kerley in the back of the end zone over two Packers defenders. Great catch, hell of a throw, tie game.
Except… the refs announced the Jets had taken a time out prior to the play and the tying score was erased like it never happened.
The Jets would fail for good a few plays later.
And at the end of the day, a win is a win, regardless of how ugly or torturous it was. At 1-1, the Packers are tied for the NFC North lead after both Minnesota and Detroit crapped the bed earlier in the day.