Dolphins gift Packers playoff hope
The Green Bay Packers are back in it. They still have some things working against them in their bid for a wild-card playoff berth, and they owe a big thanks to the Miami Dolphins’ coaching staff and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa for helping stay in the race this week.
But with their 26-20 win at Miami on Sunday, the Packers extended their lastgasp, late-season win streak to three games and in the process have seen their playoff chances go from a pipe dream to something approaching a 50-50 proposition with two games to play in the regular season.
It’s still very hard to see this turning into the Packers’ 2016 season redux and a run not only into the playoffs but to the NFC title game. Rashan Gary’s seasonending ACL tear this season was a huge blow that will very likely catch up to the Packers this season, either in the next two weeks or, if they get there, in the playoffs.
But the Packers offense has come to life late in the season, and as long as Christian Watson can recover quickly from a hip injury that knocked him out of Sunday’s game, it’s capable of keeping up with a lot of teams in this league, which wasn’t the case for much of the season. So while defeating Minnesota this week and Detroit in the regular-season finale, both at Lambeau Field, is no easy feat, finishing with a five-game winning streak looks a lot more doable for the 7-8 Packers than it did three weeks ago.
In a nutshell, if the Packers win out, then they’re in the playoffs if either Washington loses once (at home against Cleveland or Dallas) or the New York Giants lose twice (Indianapolis at home, and at Philadelphia).
“I’d like to be 10-5, 11-4,” quarterback Aaron Rodgers said after the game. “But considering where we were a few weeks ago, a lot has happened in our favor. All the games that needed to go a certain way went a certain way. Now obviously much, much left. But again, we’ve played meaningful games in December, we won all three of those. Now we’re playing meaningful games in January. We got to win those.”
Give the Packers credit for doing what it took to win Sunday. They got a big boost in field position from Keisean Nixon, again. Their defense finally won the turnover battle, in a big way this time with three interceptions and a fumble recovery. And with the ball in their hands and a three-point lead with 6:02 to play, they burned 4 minutes off the clock and kicked a field goal that meant Miami couldn’t tie with a field goal.
But the Packers owe a debt to the Dolphins, too.
For starters, it’s mind-boggling that after running the ball through the guts in the first half, Miami coach Mike McDaniel strayed from the run when he met a little resistance in the second. One time in the third quarter, after moving to the Packers’ 32, McDaniel threw on three straight plays, picked up 2 yards total along with two incompletions, and watched kicker Jason Sanders miss a 48-yard field goal. Then the next time Miami got the ball back, again with the game tied, McDaniel threw on first down, and Tagovailoa threw the first of his three interceptions.
Tagovailoa obviously has had his moments this season – he came into the game with a league-leading 107.8 rating. But he had a horrendous second half in which all three of his interceptions were thrown almost right to the Packers. The first, by Jaire Alexander, was a daily double in that it was horrible decision (thrown into an area with four Packers defenders) and a bad throw (overthrown). And his third must have been thrown either without looking or by rote, because Rasul Douglas just read him and dropped deep enough in zone coverage so that the ball hit him between the numbers.
“We knew he’s a guy that’s going to anticipate, and he’s gonna let the ball go,” coach Matt LaFleur said of Tagovailoa. “But if you can read the quarterback the right way, that also gives you some opportunities defensively.”
Add onto that Dolphins defensive coordinator Josh Boyer’s decision to blitz Aaron Rodgers rather than sit back in twoshell coverage, like almost everyone else has against Rodgers, and it’s no wonder the Packers won this game. According to ESPN.com, Miami’s 26 blitzes were the most against Rodgers since 2017, and he punished the Dolphins with 192 yards passing and a touchdown against the blitz.
Still, no matter how the Packers got there, the fact is they came back from a 10-point deficit, got the lead and closed out the game on the road against a team that has the most dangerous pair of receivers in the NFL.
Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle gashed coordinator Joe Barry’s defense for one big play each (Hill a 52-yarder to the 1, Waddle an 84-yard touchdown) and a combined 189 yards in the first half, but only 57 yards total in the second half. So whatever coverage adjustments Barry made at halftime, they worked.
The Packers now face another de facto playoff game this week against a Minnesota team that’s even better than Miami on offense. The Vikings have the game’s best receiver (Justin Jefferson), a top-end running back (Dalvin Cook) and a quarterback who’s capable of getting scorching hot in any given week, though he’s also prone to the big mistake.
The early line has the Packers as a three-point underdog to a 12-3 Minnesota team that still has a lot to play for in its battle for the first or second seeding in the NFC.
The Packers’ biggest concern at this point is Watson’s hip injury. If he can’t play this week, it will be a huge blow because they need his defense-threatening speed to keep the Vikings’ safeties out of the run game. Watson’s injury also raises longer-term questions, because he’s been hurt more than healthy since training camp (offseason knee surgery, a recurring hamstring, a concussion and now the hip). They can only hope this has just been a bad-luck season for the secondround draft pick and not a sign of things to come.
Regardless, the Packers at the very least are playing games that matter at the end of the season, which looked like a non-starter while they were losing seven of eight games in October and November. A potentially horrible season doesn’t look so horrible anymore, though it still could end up being too little, too late.
“Everybody knows the stakes,” running back AJ Dillon said. “You gotta win out from here. What better place to go do it than at Lambeau? Two division opponents. The teams we needed to lose lost. Now we just need to go out there and win these things.”