Green Bay Packers v. Vikings: 5 positional battles to watch

In week two the Green Bay Packers face the Minnesota Vikings at Lambeau Field. During the game, these will be five positional battles to keep your eyes on.

For the second week in a row to begin the NFL season, the Green Bay Packers will face a divisional opponent, this time it will be at Lambeau Field against the Minnesota Vikings. Each team enters the game 1-0 but they each earned their victories in very different fashions.

The Packers had a brutally tough matchup against the Chicago Bears where the Green Bay defense stole the show while their offense left quite a bit to be desired. Meanwhile, the Vikings had coasted to a pretty easy win at home against the Atlanta Falcons in what many thought would be a much closer game.

But now as we turn our focus to week two, the winner of this game will be the early NFC North divisional leader and once again, this will likely be another difficult game for the Green Bay Packers that I expect to come down to the wire as it did in Chicago.

So once the game begins, these are five crucial positional battles to keep your eyes on that will likely determine the outcome of the game.

The Smiths v. Kirk Cousins

In their Green Bay Packers debut, both Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith stole the show as they combined for 16 total pressures, including 2.5 sacks in what was a very dominating performance by the EDGE rushing duo.

This week we hope for a similar performance as getting pressure on Vikings’ quarterback, Kirk Cousins will be key. Against Atlanta, because of their running game and defense, Cousins barely had to throw the ball. He would attempt only 10 passes but still, the Minnesota offensive line struggled quite a bit in pass protection.

On Cousins’ limited drop-backs, he was still sacked once and put the ball on the ground twice from the Falcons’ defensive front creating pressure. In total, Pro Football Focus would give the Vikings’ offensive line a pass-blocking grade of 26.9, which finished 32nd in the NFL, nearly 15 points lower than the 31st ranked team.

Unless something drastically changes before Sunday’s game, Za’Darius and Preston each have the potential for big days against Minnesota.

Packers’ front-seven v. Dalvin Cook

As I mentioned above, the Vikings relied very heavily on their running game and Dalvin Cook was able to have a big game as a result. Cook finished Sunday’s game with 21 carries for 111 yards, two touchdowns and 5.3 yards per rush. We should expect another heavy dose of Cook against the Packers this week.

For whatever reason, in week one Chicago was quick to abandon the run and even on the rushing attempts that they had, the Packers were able to bottle up Tarik Cohen and David Montgomery pretty well. As a team, the Bears would finish with only 3.1 yards per carry but I wouldn’t expect Minnesota to give up so quickly if things start slowly.

However, if Green Bay is able to slow down Cook, I really do like their chances of leaving this game with the win.

Packers’ corners v. Stefon Diggs & Adam Thielen

Even in their limited opportunities against Atlanta, Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen were still able to produce. Of Cousins’ eight completions, five went to either Diggs or Thielen as the dynamic duo would total 80 yards and a touchdown.

Jaire Alexander, Kevin King, and Tony Brown are going to have their hands full and realistically, we should expect that either Diggs or Thielen are going to produce to some extent but limiting their production will be a necessity.

Davante Adams v. Xavier Rhodes

Against the stout Chicago Bears defense, it was a fairly quiet week for Davante Adams and this week with Minnesota should be another challenge for him and this Green Bay Packers’ offense.

Last week the Vikings were able to hold Julio Jones to just six receptions on 11 targets for only 31 yards. For much of the game, Minnesota had Rhodes on Jones with a safety covering over the top. We should expect Adams to get similar treatment to this.

But even so, Adams has had success against Rhodes in the past and in the two games in 2018 between the Packers and Vikings, Adams would total 13 receptions for 133 yards and two touchdowns.

Aaron Jones & Jamaal Williams v. Vikings’ run defense

The Minnesota Vikings’ EDGE duo of Danielle Hunter and Everson Griffen have both been very good run defenders over their careers but with that said, the Falcons were able to find some success on the ground last week. Although they’d total only 73 yards, that was more so because of them playing from behind. Atlanta still averaged, however, 4.3 yards per rush during the game.

Last week was a tough one for both Jones and Williams and the lack of a running game really stunted any momentum that the offense was trying to build. Under Matt LaFleur, the running game is a much more important part of the offense and establishing it early on is a must. Jones and Williams will have to be better in week two.

This should be another highly contested game for the Green Bay Packers, but if they can win and start off 2-0 within the division, they will be sitting pretty. Whichever team does end up the winner of this matchup will likely have also won a majority of the positional battles listed above.