Evolving Packers pass latest test, beat Chiefs 33-22

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Evolving Packers pass latest test, beat Chiefs 33-22

Green Bay emerges from shootout with second win in six days

By Pete Dougherty
pdougher@greenbaypressgazette.com

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It's getting awfully tough to call the Green Bay Packers anything less than a good team on the upswing.

No, the NFC doesn't have anyone playing near the level of the AFC's New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts. But after leaving Arrowhead Stadium with a 33-22 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, the Packers finished an impressive week in which they've expanded their offense and won back-to-back games in two of the toughest places to play in the NFL, Denver and Kansas City.

By beating the Broncos on the first play of overtime Monday night and the Chiefs in a fourth-quarter shootout Sunday, the Packers finished the first half of the season with a 7-1 record.

Denver (3-5) and Kansas City (4-4) might be middle-of-the-pack teams, but playing them in back-to-back road games — including facing the Chiefs on a short week and coming off their bye — was a true test for coach Mike McCarthy's young team. It passed in a big way and improved McCarthy's impressive road record to 9-3.

"It's huge," General Manager Ted Thompson said of defeating the Broncos and Chiefs on the road in a span of six days. "I doubt, historically speaking, if that's ever been done, to come here on a short week against a good team, and to go to Denver on a Monday night when they're going to kind of put all their marbles on the table. It's two huge wins on the road."

By winning a game that turned into a shootout over the final 16 minutes, the Packers sit tied with Dallas atop the NFC at 7-1, and tied for the second-best record in the NFL, behind unbeaten New England. They also maintained their one-game lead in the NFC North Division over the equally surprising Detroit Lions (6-2), who blew out the Broncos in Detroit on Sunday.

To win the way the Packers did, by matching Kansas City score for score in a game that saw 42 points put on the board in the final 15 minutes, 11 seconds, it's hard to blame the Packers for feeling something unusual is brewing for them.

A team that looked a year away, at the least, from challenging the better clubs in the league has found ways to win close game after close game.

On Monday night, it was quarterback Brett Favre's stunning 82-yard touchdown pass to Greg Jennings on the first play in overtime. Sunday, it was Favre hitting three more long passes, including to Jennings on a 60-yard bomb with 3:05 left that put the Packers ahead for good.

"We're halfway through (the season)," McCarthy said. "Good start. We're in first place. We've got a key division game coming up (against Minnesota). … That's really where our focus is.

"We're entering the third quarter of the season. I know Detroit's playing very well. They're right behind us. But we have a lot of football left. We still have some work to do. It's evident in some of the negatives that went on in the game, some of the repeated mistakes. We need to fix that. But I cannot say enough about our players week in, week out, how people are stepping up to help us win games."

Sunday's win came via a late scoring bonanza that suggests the Packers' offense is expanding and evolving.

With the help of a modestly improved run game and the addition of another deep threat at receiver in Koren Robinson, Favre completed three long passes that carried the day: a 48-yarder to tight end Donald Lee that set up a first-half field goal; a 44-yarder on a post pattern to Donald Driver in the fourth quarter that set up a field goal that put the Packers ahead 16-14; and the 60-yarder to Jennings that provided the winning points with 3:05 to play.

"I think a lot of teams are wanting to jump those little quick routes," Jennings said. "We've just put them on the back burner a little bit. We come to them when we need them, but at the same time, we need to get the ball downfield to get more big plays. And that's what you see happening."

The throw to Jennings was the biggest and most dramatic, coming four plays after Kansas City's incomparable tight end, Tony Gonzalez, caught a 17-yard touchdown pass over safety Atari Bigby that put the Chiefs ahead 22-16 with 5:18 left.

Kansas City coach Herm Edwards put his defense in the Tampa-2 set to protect against the deep throw, but McCarthy spread it out by putting four fast receivers on the field: Robinson and James Jones on the outsides, and Jennings and Driver in the slots.

Jennings lined up where the tight end would be in a three-receiver set the Packers probably would have used earlier in the year, before Robinson was reinstated from his one-year suspension.

Putting Jennings there meant linebacker Donnie Edwards was matched on him. Safeties Bernard Pollard and Jarrad Page were lined up deep but extremely wide, so Favre decided before the snap he was going to Jennings and made the heave off his back foot.

Jennings ran by Edwards, caught the ball and covered the final 20 yards untouched.

"The safeties, I don't recall ever seeing safeties that far apart," Jennings said. "It worked out to our favor. When I saw Donnie, I was like, 'If you cannot out-run this linebacker, something is wrong.'"

That play didn't win the game, because the Packers needed two more stops against a Chiefs offense that looked terrible much of the day but put up 15 points in a 6-minute span in the fourth quarter to take 14-13 and 22-16 leads. The defense got those final two stops, ending when Charles Woodson picked off light-armed Damon Huard and returned it 46 yards for the clinching sore.

So, despite Favre's two first-half interceptions, and despite the Chiefs' Gonzalez shredding the defense with 10 receptions, and despite giving up two fourth-quarter touchdowns, the Packers found a way to win in one of the loudest stadiums in the league.

"You can question us," Favre said. "I mean, I do, too. Did I think we were blowing chances? Absolutely. Did I think we were running out of time? Absolutely. Did I think we could do it? Sure. But week in and week out, I keep saying that's very difficult to do it the way were doing it. I would like to make it much easier, but somewhere we're doing it."