Snowy Success: Why Green Bay Packers beat Houston Texans

98 to lead, 89 to seal

Despite all the praise I’ve doled out so far, this undoubtedly was an uncomfortably close contest for most of the afternoon.

Despite getting their defense’s best first half showing of the year, finding more balance than we’ve seen since September on offense, Rodgers-to-Jordy having a good portion of their eventual best showing as a duo this year, and field position weighed drastically in their favor, Green Bay and Houston were tied 7-7 towards the end of the 3rd quarter. The game could still easily have gone either way with a big play or mistake from one of these squads, and there had to be more than a few frustrated grumbles building up amongst fans.

Then, in by far the worst circumstances facing them on Sunday, things flipped.

Green Bay began their third drive of the second half from their own two yard line; a quick incompletion to Davante Adams brought up second down, and expectations of a punt had to be all but accepted even after a 9 yard toss from Rodgers to Richard Rodgers to bring up 3rd & 1. All of a sudden, Ty Montgomery bursts out to the right for a 13 yard gain, keeping things alive. A 3rd-&-8 would soon follow, punting seemingly inevitable yet again; wrong, as Rodgers found Jared Cook for 10 yards.

As the quarter turned, so did the gears of Green Bay’s offense. A 17 yard pass to Adams on the next play; first down. A 4 yard run by Montgomery, followed by an 11 yard scramble by Rodgers; first down again. Rodgers missed Adams deep on a throw after that, but then a defender slipped in the snowy muck the next play; because of that, Rodgers found his main pal Jordy wide open in the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown.

At the end, it was a 12 play, 98 yard drive to put Green Bay ahead for good.

That wasn’t the end of things, though; with 12:32 left in the game, Houston did have plenty of time to try mounting a score to tie things back up.

While the 98 yard drive gave the Packers the lead, it was their next drive which sealed it.

In terms of pure numbers it wasn’t as strong of a drive (8 plays, 89 yards), but this final scoring effort from Green Bay effectively removed whatever hopes Houston had for coming away from their trip with a victory.

The Packers didn’t start as pinned back this time, but drives starting this far back still rarely succeed at adding points to the scoreboard. In 2016, there have been 446 drives which began inside an opponent’s 12 yard line; just 23.5% have become scores for that team, while 55.8% have become punts and 11.4% have become turnovers. Green Bay had seen 13 of these drives themselves through twelve weeks; they became scores only twice (1 TD, 1 FG).

With the odds stacked against them adding to their lead, Green Bay went on to do so anyway.

Unlike on their prior scoring drive, Green Bay was effective from the outset. The team faced just one third down as they blazed down the field. They picked up a first down or score immediately on three of their five first downs on the drive. They hit a handful of big plays, both on the ground (Montgomery 11 yard run, Jeff Janis 19 yard sweep) and through the air (21 and 28 yard completions to Jordy).

The drive ended with a powerful smash through the defense by Aaron Ripkowski (his 2nd TD plunge in as many weeks), giving Green Bay a 21-7 advantage with 4:11 left on the clock.

The game may not have ended there, but the odds were heavily against Houston completing a comeback at that point. They did go on to score a touchdown, but with that drive eating the clock down to under two minutes, there wasn’t much left for them to do to make it happen.

A failed onside kick gave Green Bay the ball near midfield, where they subsequently ran down the clock before a Schum punt pinned Houston at their own 12 with 0:04 remaining; the aforementioned lateral play went nowhere, officially locking in the win for the Packers.

There were plenty of factors which put Green Bay into position to win, but these final two drives are the encapsulation of where they took it and effectively sealed it.

With this one in hand, at 6-6 the team has everything right in front of them in their hopes to continue their playoff streak alive. They play a Seattle team this weekend which is now without Earl Thomas (one of their two best defenders, and one of the league’s best safeties) before taking on each of their division rivals.

Without a major slip-up from Detroit, they probably need them all; 9-7 almost certainly isn’t cutting it for the wild-card spots this year, and the Lions would need to drop two before also losing to Green Bay in the season finale in Detroit.

Next: Five reasons why Packers will still make the playoffs

The win was by no means visually appealing, but these two drives gave the team the final push they needed to stay in position to still capitalize on what little chance they have left to keep playing a month from now.