The season is going exactly how we should’ve thought it would go. A bunch of kids playing and showing some signs of production mixed in with a ton of frustration. What we’re learning is the opposition doesn’t matter. The Packers just need live reps, it’s moot on whom they’re facing.

Why am I optimistic? The goal this season was to get the kids reps, and the worst case scenario from this is they get them and turn out to be bad players. It doesn’t delay future moves to improve the team as the prudent thing to do is to let these kids play more than 6 games together before determining whether they’re “good” or “I’ve seen enough.” Former Packers QB, Kurt Benkert, also has done a great job recapping NFL games and scouting the Packers. Here’s one of quite a few of his takes on what’s going on, and it’s fixable, but still needs to be fixed.

Continuing with the optimism – Peter Bukowski has another great tweet with the above picture. Showing how feeble the Packers are in the 1st half and how great they are in the 2nd half. The QB’s stats reflect this as well. Either the kids improve (because, let’s face it, they can’t get much more inconsistent) and really take off, or things stay the same and we’ll have a better idea of who’s good or in need of replacing. At this point, picking games is as hard as ever, and I’m not sure how anyone can pick Green Bay to beat anyone, even though they’re capable of beating everyone.

Enter Minnesota…

While no single stat is the end all, be all (aside from Wins and Losses), here’s a decent look at current strength of the teams in the NFL to this point. Oddly enough, the Packers and Vikings seem to be about as identical as possible. Minnesota, who doesn’t have a rushing touchdown to date, it’s almost a sure bet they get at least 1 this week vs. the NFL’s 30th-ranked rush defense. Keep in mind, they just gave up 145 rush yards to the Broncos, who entered the week ranked 19th…this doesn’t bode well. Teams that can’t run the ball seem to still have the advantage against teams that can’t stop the run.

	Min O	(rank)	vs.	GB D	(rank)
Rush	74.9	30th		143.7	30th
Pass	293.9	3rd		211.5	8th
Total	368.8	11th		355.2	16th
Pts	21.6	18th		22.0	21st
	Min D			GB O
Rush	105.6	13th		90.8	24th
Pass	245.4	17th		212.8	23rd
Total	351.0	15th		303.6	26th
Pts	21.7	20th		21.7	17th
T/O	Min			GB
Takeaways	9	T-15th		5	T-27th
Giveaways	14	T-30th		7	T-9th
Diff.	-5	28th		-2	T-18th

Minnesota ranks 30th in rush offense, and just hung 452 yards against the San Francisco 49ers (now 8th-ranked defense in terms of yardage). The packers come in ranked 16th in yards, and will look to slow down the Vikings who are beginning to get on a roll (I don’t think anyone saw that win over San Fran coming), and just to get positive vibes going back in the locker room at 1265.

I’ve also been a big proponent of score differential (in all sports) as showing a team’s true strength, and I believe it to be true to both of these organizations as well.

The Vikings are 15th and Packers 16th in score differential in the league, and both seem to play close games. Minnesota’s opponents have been stronger, which would indicate they’re the better team, which I would agree since they’re far more experienced, especially at the QB position. Also, Kirk Cousin in Noon games is his best time slot…each team would greatly benefit from winning this game, but for different reasons. Green Bay for getting that good vibe again, meanwhile Minnesota is looking for the playoffs then to magically “get hot” and maybe even win something of significance for once in their franchise’s history.

As for a pure matchup, when Minnesota is on offense, their passing attack is 3rd while Green Bay’s pass defense is 8th…while Minnesota struggles to run the ball, Green Bay obviously more than struggles to stop the rush. Similarly while Green Bay has the ball, all the matchups stats are alike – what Green Bay must do to win the game is win the turnover battle (and time of possession), man this is like beating a dead horse. I don’t think that’s the case as we’ve seen the Packers have had 4 games come down to the last possession, coming out on top once in those occasions.

Vikings 31 (-1.5)
Packers 25

Season: 2-4
Overall: 89-56