Colts’ Defense Will Provide Measuring Stick for Packers, and Vice Versa

Indianapolis' superb defense might provide the toughest test to date for a Packers offense that has feasted on cupcakes.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Matt LaFleur has seen enough video of the Indianapolis Colts’ defense to understand the challenge that awaits his offense on Sunday.

“There’s a reason they’re the No. 1 defense in the National Football League in terms of yards and they’re in the top three in like almost every category,” the Green Bay Packers’ second-year coach said on Wednesday. “What they do is they just play sound, they play fast, they play together. You talk about it taking all 11, you see that on their tape. It is all over the place.”

The Colts are fourth in scoring defense with 19.7 points allowed per game. While the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are eighth, the injury-ravaged San Francisco 49ers are 10th and the New Orleans Saints are 13th, the Minnesota Vikings (23rd), Atlanta Falcons (25th), Houston Texans (26th), Detroit Lions (29th) and Jacksonville Jaguars (31st) are in the bottom 10 in the league. That’s two top-10 defenses – with one of those having four starters on injured reserve – and six games against bottom-10 defenses.

The Colts are third in the NFL in rushing yards per attempt and fifth in passing yards per attempt. They’re especially strong against the pass, ranking second in interception percentage, third in opponent passer rating and ninth in sack percentage.

Having played six games against defenses in the bottom quartile of the NFL in opponent passer rating, Aaron Rodgers is having an MVP-caliber season. He scoffed at the notion this would be a measuring-stick game.

“I think every game is a measuring stick, and there’s ways we can look at every aspect of our matchup and use it to our advantage when critiquing ourselves or coaching up certain things,” Rodgers said on Wednesday. “Numbers are used to project things, but they’re also a reflection of performance.

“Obviously, they’ve had really nice performances so far through nine games on defense. We’ve done really well on offense, so it is a good matchup we look forward to. But I don’t know about measuring stick. I think every week in the NFL, it’s about winning and it’s about execution. We’ve played great defenses in the past and done well and we’ve played defenses that ranked really low and not done well. It just depends on the execution and how things match up on Sunday.”

By the NFL’s standard way of measuring defenses, this will be Green Bay’s fourth game against a top-five defense. The Colts are No. 1 in yards allowed, the Buccaneers are third, the Saints fourth and the 49ers fifth. Tampa Bay dominated the Week 6 game. Rodgers and Co. failed to reach midfield during the final three quarters. However, against New Orleans, Rodgers had a 124.9 passer rating and led the Packers to 37 points without Davante Adams. Against San Francisco, Rodgers had a 147.2 passer rating and led the Packers to 34 points without Allen Lazard.

The Colts’ defense isn’t loaded with stars, though defensive tackle DeForest Buckner and linebacker Darius Leonard are elite performers. However, it’s a unit that’s loaded with speed and misses fewer tackles than any team in the NFL.

Then again, while Green Bay has mostly beaten up on bad defenses, the same is true for Indianapolis’ defense. Last week’s victory over Tennessee was its only game against a team in the top 10 in scoring or with a quarterback in the top 10 in passer rating. In fact, until facing Ryan Tannehill last week, the Colts hadn’t faced a single quarterback in the top 15 in passer rating.

Ultimately, none of the numbers or schedules matter. The game will be decided who executes.

“We just beat the Jacksonville Jaguars by a score so it just kind of tells you what this league is about,” Adams said. “That’s not me talking down on the Jags but, obviously, they were a 1-7 team going into that game. Obviously, only having one win, you think about it, we should go and dominate a game like that and we didn’t. We played some really good defenses. Obviously, Minnesota lost a few guys in their back end but I consider them a good defense.

“Every game in this league is difficult to win so, at the end of the day, we don’t really gauge off of that. We just gauge off of the intensity, the way we’re playing, play style. Every game’s hard to win so you’ve just got to take the ones you can take. If you beat a team that’s not as great, you can’t apologize for a victory. If you go out and play a team who’s a better defense, you can feel a little better about yourself but that’s not to say that they’ll be on top of their game that day or that they won’t be on top of the world. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do, go out and execute, and we’ll obviously feel good about it when we come out on top.”