– They play only one more team currently with a winning record, and that team just lost one of the key members of its defense.
To say the Packers are in the best spot of any team in the NFC going into the final five weeks of the regular season might be a stretch, what with all their injury issues, including Aaron Rodgers’ fractured toe.
There’s optimism outside linebacker Za’Darius Smith and cornerback Jaire Alexander will play again this season as well.
Yosh Nijman has held up better than anyone could have imagined at left tackle while Rashan Gary has emerged as a star pass-rusher, and Rasul Douglas went from Cardinals’ practice-squad player to big-play cornerback for the Packers.
It gave Rodgers a chance to rest his fractured pinky toe and it meant the Packers would be as rested as any team in the league at this point in the season.
“You always want the bye to work to your advantage,” LaFleur said.
Despite another missed field goal — Mason Crosby’s ninth of the season — the game before the bye, first-year coordinator Mo Drayton sounded optimistic a missed field goal won’t doom their season.
You’re supposed to celebrate every win because they’re hard to come by in the National Football League, but that last kick, it just dug at me a little bit and I really couldn’t celebrate the way I wanted to.