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.”
But 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 now 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 have a date with the 12-1 Kansas City Chiefs while the Packers play another losing team, the Carolina Panthers (4-9), at Lambeau Field.
Without the No. 1 seed last year, the Packers won their divisional-round playoff against the Seattle Seahawks following the bye week they earned as the No. 2 seed, but then got rolled in the NFC title game at the San Francisco 49ers.
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 winning Super Bowl XLV. Since then, he and the Packers have lost three times while on the Super Bowl doorstep — at Seattle in the 2014 conference title game, at Atlanta in the 2016 game and last season at the 49ers.
Regardless of where they play, the Packers showed their worth in several ways on Sunday:
Rodgers, with three touchdown passes (to three different players), moved into fourth place in NFL history for the most games with three or more TD passes with 73, passing Brett Favre. It also was his 26th career game with both a passing and rushing touchdown — the third most by a player in NFL history after Cam Newton (42) and Steve Young (31).
Davante Adams, with seven catches for 115 yards, continued his run of consecutive games with a touchdown to eight — the most in Packers history, breaking Don Hutson’s record of seven that dated back to the 1940s. The eight-game streak tied for the third-longest single-season streak in the NFL during the Super Bowl era behind only Jerry Rice (12 in 1987) and A.J. Green (nine in 2012). It was his career-best 14th touchdown catch of the season. And Adams 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.
And the 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 with a rib injury.
About the only thing that went terribly wrong for the Packers was another special teams gaffe, allowing 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.
