Green Bay Packers’ Defense has been Dominant the Last Month

The Green Bay Packers have won their last four games and that is in large part due to the performance from their defense over the last month.

If we rewind back to the Green Bay Packers’ first game after their bye week, it was against the San Francisco 49ers on National Television and a win could have gone a long way towards determining who was the top-dog in the NFC at that point. Unfortunately, it became a game that the Packers and their fans just wanted to forget about.

The 49ers came out and punched the Packers square in the mouth and embarrassed them on both sides of the ball in a 37 to 8 blowout victory. Up to that point in the season the Green Bay defense’s mantra was “bend but don’t break” but in that game, they had been completely broken. San Francisco would total 339 yards on 7.5 yards per play, which included 9.9 yards per pass attempt and 5.1 yards per rush. And the 49ers did that much damage with just 45 total plays on offense.

While nobody is going to deny how discouraging that performance was, since then, the Green Bay Packers’ defense has been absolutely dominant.

Over their last four games against New York, Washington, Chicago, and Minnesota, the Packer defense is allowing just 12.75 points per game, they are averaging two turnovers per game, and opposing offenses are totaling less than 300 yards. Green Bay has also continued their stellar red zone performance as they’ve allowed just four touchdowns in nine appearances, along with an average of three sacks per game, while holding opponents to only 4.3 yards per play during this stretch.

And on Monday Night against Minnesota, they put together their best overall performance of the season. The Vikings would end up totaling just seven first downs, they were held to 139 total yards at a measly 2.6 yards per play, and Kirk Cousins was sacked five times.

As a result of their dominance over this four game span, the Packers are now ranked 18th in total defense after spending much of the season in the 25 to 28 range, their 19.5 points per game that they allow is the ninth fewest in the NFL, and they are seventh in total takeaways.

Not to mention that individually, we’ve seen Kenny Clark dominate, Za’Darius Smith playing at an All-Pro level – which is what he’s done most of the season – along with Dean Lowry making some noise, and a secondary that has limited the big play and overall production in the passing game.

Sure it is easy to point out that they haven’t exactly gone up against the greatest of quarterbacks in these games, but you can only play who is on the schedule and they’ve done exactly what good defenses should do against below average quarterbacks. Which is dominate.

With the Green Bay Packers’ offense still having their inconsistencies, they will need this defense to continue playing well for a deep playoff run. And it looks like Mike Pettine and his squad may be peaking at just the right time.