Green Bay Packers Post Bye Week Superlatives

Before we wrap up the bye week and begin to look ahead to the Green Bay Packers Week 13 matchup with the Chicago Bears, I wanted to run through a few player superlatives from the first 12 games of the season.

A superlative is defined as “an exaggerated or hyperbolical expression of praise.” I do these types of articles a few times over the course of the year because it’s a fun exercise, and with the definition being so open-ended, more often than not we are all going to have different answers.

So let’s take a look at our post-bye week superlatives for the 2021 Green Bay Packers.

Biggest Surprise: De’Vondre Campbell

There are several candidates for this category, but the level of play from De’Vondre Campbell this entire season has been a big surprise–I’m not sure anyone saw this coming.

I am going to take a mini-victory lap because I had been clamoring for the Green Bay Packers to sign Campbell since the 2020 offseason. I just really thought he was a well-rounded linebacker with his ability to blitz, stop the run, and his effectiveness in coverage–but again, I did not expect him to be this good.

Through the bye week, Campbell has logged eight pressures, according to PFF ($$), along with 74 tackles — he’s only missed four — and he’s allowing only 6.5 yards per catch. In fact, he is PFF’s second-highest graded linebacker this season.

Breakout player: AJ Dillon

Outside of the Tennessee game a season ago, we didn’t see much of AJ Dillon with him being the third running back on the roster. But this season, he has been a very good complementary back to Aaron Jones and has shown that he has no issues with any RB1 responsibilities that come his way.

On the ground, Dillon has tallied 543 rushing yards on 4.2 yards per carry. As a pass catcher, he has 27 receptions, which is the fourth-most on the team, and 261 yards along with four total touchdowns. Dillon has also shown that he is quite reliable in pass protection as well.