Packers Stock Report: Bring on the Patriots Edition

TJ Lang

Now that the Green Bay Packers have gotten the junior varsity game against the Minnesota Vikings out of the way, it’s time to focus on the real deal and the New England Patriots.

I’ll be in the stands at Lambeau for the Sunday showdown. The Packers have never lost with me in Lambeau. They’ve tied, but never lost. Take that for what it’s worth.

But before I fire up the grill in the parking lot of the Green Bay Distillery, pop open a Spotted Cow, and cook up some three-cheese brats from Grundhofer’s Meat Market, we must bang out this week’s Packers Stock Report:

Rising

Eddie Lacy
An illness? 10 defenders in the box? Game on the line? It didn’t matter. Eddie Lacy kept plowing forward to help the Packers rumble to another win. Just like he did last season, Lacy tore up the Vikings and looks to be gaining steam as the season heads into the home stretch.

Aaron Rodgers
QB1 doesn’t get top billing over Lacy this week, but he still had another great game, even if his numbers weren’t as great as they’ve been in recent weeks. That throw to Cobb to set up the Packers first touchdown was amazing, as were several scrambles that turned dead plays into positive gains and first downs.

T.J. Lang
Hats off to Lang (and Josh Sitton) once again for not only playing hurt, but playing well while not 100 percent. Given how cautious the Packers staff is with injuries, I thought Lang’s day was done when he hobbled off in the first quarter. But he was back out there next series, helping Lacy pile up yards.

Steady

Mike Daniels
If the Packers are going to beat the Patriots on Sunday, they need more of what Daniels did on his sack of Teddy Bridgewater: Win a 1-on-1 matchup and get to the quarterback. Brady will tear apart excessive blitzes or tricky looks that might work on the other 31 teams in the league. Victory for the Packers will happen if they win individual matchups up front on defense.

Bryan Bulaga
According to Pro Football Focus, Bulaga has graded out positively four of the last five weeks. Let’s hope that knee/hip/whatever else Bulaga has injured in the past holds up the rest of the season.

Falling

James Starks
Before Sunday, Starks was already fading, not because of anything he did wrong, but because Lacy was running so hard and starting to catch passes. Well, after fumbling in his first and only carry against the Vikings, Starks is no longer fading, but falling.

A.J. Hawk
Hawk has gone from slow, to sloooooow, to slooooowwwwwwwwww.

Detroit Lions
The Lions are now looking up at the Packers in the NFC. They’re also back to their dirty and desperate ways. The sooner the bottom falls out of their season, the better.

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Adam Czech is a a freelance sports reporter living in the Twin Cities and a proud supporter of American corn farmers. When not working, Adam is usually writing about, thinking about or worrying about the Packers. Follow Adam on Twitter. Twitter .

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9 thoughts on “Packers Stock Report: Bring on the Patriots Edition

  1. And besides having become glacially slow, Hawk went out and got himself a pair of ‘happy feet’. You know, the ones that go tap-tap-tap as he’s making up his mind whether he wants to try and make the tackle 8 yards or 10 yards downfield.

    Dom Capers equation for ILB?

    Slow + indecisive + make defense calls = starter.

  2. Adam you had me at Spotted Cow. Thank God that you will be in the stands tilting the field. Your attendance in combination with Eddie Lacy establishing the running game may be enough but I want two other factors to play out. Our defense needs to take away the seam routes and underneath stuff so that Brady must wait for downfield options. I also think that MM and Capers need to call their best game and beat Belichick. He needs a good throttling. Go Packers.

  3. I’m happy with a fair fight. But the refs seem to be calling a lot of paltry penalties against packers, and negating some big plays and a lot of momentum. Two big plays were negated last week….so the numbers would have been higher for Lacy and Nelson, and probably not much of a contest. I guess the refs were feeling sorry for vikes.
    But we all can predict that the Patriots DBs are going to be very aggressive, and of course the refs seem to have accepted Patriot’s physical play…and give them a wider Bell-curve than any other team. I’ve never watched a Pats game and came away thinking they got the short stick from the refs. Most favored team by the zebras.

    1. In general refs are slower to call muscle against muscle battles. The missed assignment or getting beat reaction is almost always called. Micah Hyde or Davante Adams getting beat and trying to grab their assignment is stupid and obvious. If we don’t want to be covered by flags, we need to KNOW and EXECUTE our assignments. I believe that most of the penalties last Sunday were earned.

    2. Yes but they will be in Lambeau, Football mecca and where there are football gods bigger than BB

  4. The Lions losing was a double bonus for the Packers. It gave them the NFC North lead, and it ensured they wouldn’t have to face an angry Patriots team that just lost at home.

  5. Switch Rodgers and Bulaga and this list makes sense. Can we **really** say that Rodgers’ level of play is rising?? He wasn’t half as good on Sunday as he has been in the past few weeks. I know he’s a good player, but c’mon. How bad would he have to fall to drop down into the “steady” category?

    Now Bulaga, on the other hand, truly IS “RISING.”

    Also, just to be nit-picky, the Lions peter out and disintegrate EVERY year… so probably we should say that they are steady. 🙂 Same old same old in Detroit.

  6. Nice call with Bulaga. He’s been almost silent the past month and for an offensive linemen that’s what you want. He is everything you look for in an offensive linemen. I hope he can continue to stay healthy. Hell of a player.

  7. Love what this team is becoming on O. Great benefit of having Lacy I think is it gets the O line pumped up. Lang is Lang but I wonder if he and others like the fact that Lacy softens up the D for them. O is balanced and getting better. If we get any good ILB and special teams play… Look out

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