Packers Led by 12 in the Third and Lost by 17: Minnesota Scored 29 Straight to Flip the Opener
Green Bay controlled the game into the second half and then did not score again. Carson Wentz, pressed into duty by a first-quarter concussion, led four consecutive touchdown drives.
There are bad losses and there are losses that leave a mark, and Green Bay's 39-22 defeat in Minnesota on Sunday belongs in the second category. The Packers were ahead by twelve points in the third quarter. They did not score again. Minnesota closed the game with 29 unanswered points, which is the kind of run that stops being about play-calling somewhere in the middle and starts being about whether a team can stop a slide once it begins. Green Bay could not, and the final margin — seventeen points the other way — flattered nobody.
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The strange part is that Minnesota did it with its backup. Kyler Murray left in the first quarter with a concussion and Carson Wentz came on in relief, then led four consecutive touchdown drives across the third and fourth quarters. Jordan Love, meanwhile, fumbled once and threw an interception in the fourth as the game got away. The Vikings' defensive approach was not subtle about where the pressure was coming from: they blitzed on 78.3 percent of their plays, a figure so far outside normal that it reads less like a game plan than a dare.
We're gonna be aggressive and we're gonna try to go for the throat in that situation.— Matt LaFleur, Green Bay Packers head coach
LaFleur's comment was about aggression, and it is worth sitting with given how the afternoon ended, because aggression was available to both teams and only one of them still had it in the fourth quarter. On the other sideline, Kevin O'Connell was talking about a quarterback who had been on the field for less than three full quarters. "I was really proud of Carson for that," the Vikings head coach said of Wentz's composure after being thrust into the game without warning. O'Connell also noted that Murray "came in feeling pretty good" afterwards, though he remains in the league's concussion protocol with decisions being taken a day at a time.
How the opener turned over
Minnesota 39, Green Bay 22.
Green Bay led by 12 in the third quarter and did not score again; Minnesota closed with 29 unanswered points.
Kyler Murray left in the first quarter with a concussion; Carson Wentz replaced him.
Four consecutive touchdown drives across the third and fourth quarters.
The Vikings blitzed on 78.3% of their plays.
Jordan Love lost a fumble and threw an interception as the game slipped away.
For Green Bay the diagnosis is uncomfortable precisely because it is not complicated. A twelve-point third-quarter lead surrendered to a backup quarterback, against a defense that told you on every snap it intended to blitz, is not a talent problem or a scheme mystery. It is a question about what happens when the plan stops working and someone has to improvise, and Sunday's answer was a fumble and an interception. That is a fixable thing in September and a defining one in December, and which of those it becomes is decided in the weeks immediately after a game like this rather than in the game itself. There is also a version of this loss that is simply about the opponent being braver. Minnesota lost its starting quarterback in the first quarter and kept attacking anyway, on both sides of the ball, which is a harder thing to do than protecting a lead and a more useful habit to own in September.
Green Bay has a fortnight of hard film to sit through, and the uncomfortable truth is that most of it is not about Minnesota.
What Week 1 Actually Told Us
Answering pressure. A 78.3% blitz rate is an invitation, and Green Bay did not solve it once the lead started shrinking.
Writing off the season in September. A blown lead in Week 1 is a data point, not a verdict, and the roster that built the lead is the same one that lost it.
Whether Minnesota's blitz rate becomes the template other defenses copy against Love. Opponents watch the same film everybody else does.
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Sources: NFL.com — Five storylines from Week 1, NFL.com — What We Learned from Sunday's games, Vikings.com — O'Connell's Week 1 takeaways