Green Bay Packers clinch NFC North with win over Detroit Lions as No. 1 seed remains in play
When the Green Bay Packers clinched the division last season, they donned NFC North champions hats and T-shirts that read, “The North is not enough.”
As it turned out, that had to be enough, as they headed into the playoffs unable to secure the No. 1 seed.
They’re now in position for more.
Sunday’s 31-24 win over the Detroit Lions at Ford Field wrapped up the division title, and with three games to go, the Packers are in position to secure the all-important top seed in the NFC, thanks to the Philadelphia Eagles’ win over the New Orleans Saints.
The Packers matched the Saints for the best record in the NFC at 10-3 but own the head-to-head tiebreaker, thanks to their Week 3 win in New Orleans. What’s more, the Saints next have a date with the 12-1 Kansas City Chiefs, and the Packers play another losing team, the Carolina Panthers (4-9), at Lambeau Field.
Without the No. 1 seed last season, the Packers won their divisional-round playoff against the Seattle Seahawks following the bye week they earned as the No. 2 seed, but then they were rolled by the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC title game.
After Sunday’s win, Packers receiver Davante Adams showed up to his postgame Zoom interview wearing a T-shirt that said “Won Not Done.”
“We’re definitely not done,” Adams said. “We’ve got a lot more work to be put in to get to where we ultimately want to be, but we’re putting ourselves in a pretty good position right now.”
There’s no bye for the No. 2 seed this year, and Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers badly wants an NFC Championship Game at Lambeau Field. He has played in four of them — none at home. He has won only one, his first, at Chicago following the 2010 season and on the way to Super Bowl XLV. Since then, Rodgers and the Packers have lost three times on the doorstep of the Super Bowl: at Seattle in the 2014 conference title game, at Atlanta in the 2016 game and last season at the 49ers.
“We’ve played in, I believe, four NFC Championship Games, all four on the road, so being able to have the whole thing come through Green Bay is something that we’ve talked about for a long time, and we’ve wanted, and we’ve never had,” Rodgers said. “I think that would definitely be in our favor, with the weather that we have in Green Bay, play at home, be on our schedule. So that’s obviously in play. It was always in play, but it’s definitely in play now.”
Regardless of where they play, the Packers showed their worth in several ways Sunday:
Rodgers, with three touchdown passes (to three different players), moved into fourth in NFL history in games with three or more TD passes, with 73, passing Brett Favre. It was Rodgers’ 26th career game with both a passing touchdown and a rushing touchdown — third most by a player in NFL history, behind Cam Newton (42) and Steve Young (31).
Davante Adams, with seven catches for 115 yards, extended his run of consecutive games with a touchdown to eight, most in Packers history, breaking Don Hutson’s record of seven that dated to the 1940s. The eight-game streak tied for the third-longest single-season streak in the NFL’s Super Bowl era, behind only those of Jerry Rice (12 in 1987) and A.J. Green (nine in 2012). It was Adams’ career-best 14th touchdown catch of the season — and he missed two full games and half of another.
Tight end Robert Tonyan caught his ninth touchdown of the season, the most by a Packers tight end since Bubba Franks’ nine in 2001.
The Packers’ defense, despite some badly timed penalties, continued its run of sacks. After registering seven the previous week against the Eagles, the Packers recorded four sacks and put a hit on Matthew Stafford that forced him to watch the final minutes on the sideline because of a rib injury.
About the only thing that went wrong for the Packers on Sunday was another special-teams gaffe, as they allowed a 71-yard kickoff return after Mason Crosby’s 57-yard, fourth-quarter field goal that Crosby saved from being a touchdown with a sideline tackle.
All of that added up to the Packers’ second straight division title in Matt LaFleur’s two seasons as head coach.