Kings of the North: Why the Green Bay Packers beat the Detroit Lions

Sustaining Drives In The 2nd Half

“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish”.

That rang true in this game, particularly in terms of the way drives were sustained (or not) by Green Bay.

In the first half, Green Bay had five drives; just one of those would cross the minor milestones of 4 minutes and/or 7+ plays. Among those drives, we saw three punts, a field goal, a touchdown; the touchdown came on that singular long drive. With these short, quickly-ending drives, the Packers found themselves lucky to only be down 14-10 at the half.

The second half was a vastly different affair. There were four meaningful drives in the final two quarters (not counting two kneeldown drives), and they all saw the Packers eating up clock and sustaining possessions in a much more effective manner than in the previous two quarters.

Each of these four drives lasted at least 4:37 of game clock and managed 8 or more plays; between them, 20:02 of the 30 available 2nd half minutes were eaten away. In those four possessions, the Packers scored three touchdowns and punted only once.

Meanwhile, their own defense was stepping up (with the added bonus of being more rested due to these sustained offensive drives), holding the Lions to only an additional field goal until a bad punt by Jacob Schum gave Matthew Stafford a shot at a garbage-time TD with 13 seconds remaining.

With these sustained drives providing the offense with multiple scores and the maligned defense getting as little time as possible on the field, Green Bay fully transformed a 14-10 deficit into a 31-17 lead that easily held up in garbage time for the eventual 31-24 ending score.

Next: Davante Adams' resurgence

With the playoffs ready to begin this weekend, Green Bay will need more of this second-half showing if they have hopes to continue running the table all the way to a championship.