Packers at Vikings: Three Reasons to Believe Tonight

There are plenty of reasons why the Packers will lose their big New Year’s Eve showdown at the Vikings on Sunday night. Here are three reasons why they’ll win to keep their playoff hopes alive.

GREEN BAY Wis. – For the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings, the last game of the calendar year will be about the last men standing.

The Packers on Sunday night will line up without Christian Watson and Jaire Alexander. The Minnesota Vikings will go without Kirk Cousins and T.J. Hockenson. Can Jordan Love beat Vikings rookie Jaren Hall? Or will Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison demolish Green Bay’s makeshift secondary?

Here are three reasons why the Packers will beat the Vikings and keep their playoff hopes alive.

1. Jordan Love > Jaren Hall

Football, in its simplest form, more often than not comes down to this: Which team has the best quarterback?

The team with the best quarterback wins most games. The Packers had that X-factor in their back pocket from 2008 through 2022. Because they had Aaron Rodgers, they won more games than any team other than the Patriots during those 15 seasons.

On Sunday night, the quarterbacking matchup will be Jordan Love, who is one of the hottest quarterbacks in the NFL, vs. Jaren Hall, a fifth-round rookie with 10 passing attempts on his resume.

Starting with Week 10, when Love rallied the Packers past the Chargers, 31 quarterbacks have thrown at least 100 passes. In that group, Love ranks third in passer rating (107.6), fifth in completion percentage (67.8), third in touchdowns (13), tied for first in interceptions (one) and 11th in yards per attempt (7.4).

In other words, he looks nothing at all like the quarterback who led the Packers to a feeble 4.4 yards per dropback in a 24-10 loss against Minnesota two months ago.

“I think we’ve grown a lot,” Love said. “Just watching our first game that we played the Vikings and just seeing plays that are being made, some of the missed opps we had, I think we’re definitely a different team and a different offense. Some of those plays we missed on, we’ve grown into understanding what we need to do and ways to fix that going forward, so I definitely think we’re a better offense than we were the first time we played.”

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In that game, the Packers scored a season-low 10 points. They are coming off a season-high 33 against a strong Panthers defense.

“Man, watching that last game against the Vikings, that was a pretty ugly game for us,” offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said.

Hall’s NFL debut came at Green Bay after veteran starter Kirk Cousins suffered a torn Achilles. He started the following week against Atlanta but suffered a concussion. He’s back in the saddle after Nick Mullens threw for an impressive 714 yards but a killer six interceptions in back-to-back losses to the Bengals and Lions.

With the season on the line for both teams, the Packers feel like they’ve got a good handle on how Love will handle the moment. The Vikings haven’t the faintest idea.

“There is an unknown factor for a guy who just hasn't played a lot of NFL football,” Vikings offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said. “We liked a lot of the things we saw in a very small sample size against Atlanta before he got hurt.

“There certainly are some things that we just don't know how he'll respond. But you feel like you know the person. You know his day-to-day work ethic, you know his preparation, and so you feel like you're betting on traits when you're putting him in the game.”

2. Golden Goal-To-Go

Quarterbacks win games. You know what else wins games? Scoring seven points rather than three.

The Packers have been oddly underwhelming in the red zone (21st-ranked 51.8 percent touchdowns) but incredibly awesome in goal-to-go situations (top-ranked 94.7 percent).

Green Bay has had first-and-goal 19 times this season. It’s scored 18 touchdowns. For perspective:

- It might be the best touchdown rate in NFL history. The NFL has kept red-zone and goal-to-go data since 1999. The previous best was the Titans’ 94.1 percent in 2020. Only a handful of teams finished the season at better than 90 percent.

- When the Packers led the NFL in red-zone success in 2020 with what might have been the best touchdown rate in NFL history, it’s goal-to-go success rate was 90.5 percent.

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- The last time the Packers were No. 1 in red-zone success was 2001. They scored touchdowns 79.2 percent of the time. That was a fairly typical touchdown rate at that time.

“Obviously, the production’s been great,” Stenavich said. “It’s one thing we stress a lot is red-zone offense. I’m pleased with it. Obviously, we’ve got to keep going. Every game’s a new game. We’ve just got to stay hungry and be ready to go. You have to run the ball in the red zone, you have to do this, you have to do that, but we’ve been pretty balanced down there when we look at who’s scoring touchdowns and how we’re getting the touchdowns.”

Green Bay will be attacking a Vikings defense that ranks 20th in goal-to-go situations with an opponent touchdown rate of 73.9 percent.

According to Stathead, on passes from the 10-yard line to the goal line (but not necessarily goal-to-go), Love is a mediocre 18-of-34 passing but those 18 completions have resulted in 16 touchdowns.

“We’ve been able to throw the ball,” Stenavich said. “We’ve been able to run the ball. I like our balance down there and I think that’s what’s helped us is our ability to kind of do everything down there.”

3. Homefield Disadvantage

Minnesota’s U.S. Bank Stadium is one of the loudest venues in the NFL.

“Their fans are very supportive of the home team and they do a great job of making it chaotic for the opposing team, especially for opposing offenses,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “That’s something that we’ve stressed, we’ve shown. You see it on their tape, whether it’s delay of game penalties, false starts.

“Especially when you combine that with some of the looks they give defensively, there’s going to be adjustments, so you’ve got to make it a priority to get lined up, to give yourself a chance to even make any adjustment.”

However, the Vikings are 2-5 at home this season, including losses to Chicago (12-10) and Detroit (30-24) over the past month. Offensively, they’ve scored the seventh-fewest points at home. Defensively, they have the fifth-worst opponent passer rating despite the assist from the fans.

Overall, while Minnesota beat Atlanta and New Orleans after Cousins’ injury, it’s 1-4 in the last five games. The only win? 3-0 over the Raiders.

While the Vikings aren’t a hot team, they are a sloppy team. In those four losses, they are minus-9 in turnovers. For the season, they are ranked 30th overall and 30th in home games in turnover margin and are 31st in giveaways in home games.

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