Packers Player Of The Game
Brett Favre exorcized the demons of his 1999 meeting with Mike Holmgren with a no-turnover, two-touchdown performance. Favre was 19 of 25 on the day for 185 yards. He completed passes to eight different receivers including seven to Donald Driver. Ahman Green also had a strong day, with his third 100-yard performance of the season. Green had 27 carries for 118 yards and two touchdowns.
Seahawks Player Of The Game
When Seattle was moving the ball, it was usually thanks to the running of Shaun Alexander. With 20 carries for 102 yards, Alexander finished the day with a 5.1-yard average. He also provided the Seahawks' only touchdown. Koren Robinson also turned in an outstanding performance, with a game-high eight catches for 76 yards.
Stat Of The Game
The Green Bay Packers scored on five straight drives, in large part because they had zero turnovers.
Play Of The Game
With the Packers leading 14-7, Seattle seemed poised to tie the game early in the second quarter. Starting from their own 10-yard line, the Seahawks drove to the Green Bay 11-yard line on 12 plays, facing third down only twice. But on third-and-9 at the Green Bay 10-yard line, Matt Hasselbeck's pass to Darrell Jackson was batted incomplete by Bhawoh Jue in the end zone. Mike McKenzie had broken up a touchdown pass on the prior play. By holding Seattle to a field goal, Green Bay's defense made a most important stand. Other than a last-second field goal at the end of the first half, the Seahawks wouldn't score again.
THEY SAID IT
GM/Head Coach Mike Sherman -
On offensive execution: "We had a great week of practice. I thought we had great preparation and game planning. That is a very good defensive football team coming into this football game and we were very much aware of that and knew we had to get them running one way and maybe go back the other way with some of our misdirections and whatnot. They are a good defense and not easy to run against."
On defensive adjustments in second half: "We pressured them maybe a little more then we did in the first half. Obviously the score dictated some of what we were able to do defensively. I was really proud of them, been proud of how the offense came out and do what they did on the first five possessions of play. But I am really proud of our defense. We were struggling, we could not stop them in the first half. They were running the ball we force a turnover and they come down again and score and we were really struggling stopping them. It's not so much the bad things that happen to you on a football field or in life, its how you react to them. And at halftime we get that shored up and the guys come out in the second half and pitch a shut out. And I think that was the key to the football game. If we couldn't stop them this would have been a 38-37, 40-38 type of ballgame, but fortunately we were able to do that. So as bad as the first half was for our defense I'm extremely proud of the fact that we were able to not panic and give in to this thing, but they fought back and played a better second half."
On offensive efficiency: "I thought Tom Rossley did a fantastic job as he has throughout this year. I thought we did a good job of executing our offense. If you execute the offense it works."
On unsportsmanlike conduct penalty assessed to Green Bay bench: "We saw some guys kind of jawing back and forth and one of our coaches tried to go out there and break it up and they thought we were challenging the official and that time on the call. We didn't disagree with the call it was fourth down and we won the down and there wasn't any disagreement, we just wanted to get our players off the field. You know I thought on the change of possession the opportunity to go out and greet your players was allowed but obviously today it wasn't."
On Marques Anderson: "You know it just goes to show you how guys have to just hang in there and not wallow in despair when things don't go your way. He had a great week of practice and an opportunity to play this week because of Antuan's injury and I thought he showed up and made some plays."
On Brett Favre: "I mean Brett was in a zone and it happens some times. He was in a zone and making plays. It didn't have anything to do with who was on the other sideline I promise you, it has everything to do with the guys we had on the field making plays for him and him making good decisions and just play. I thought he was outstanding today. Just his leadership and how we played together I thought was outstanding."
Defensive Coordinator Ed Donatell -
On defense: "We're still learning and growing. We have a couple of new guys. We're still working with four new starters, so we're growing. The important thing is that we got a win today."
On difference between first- and second-half performance: "We made some amendments to our game plan. As a coaching staff we got that message to our players, but the players are the guys that carried out the adjustments and they went out there and kept them off the scoreboard."
Offensive Coordinator Tom Rossley -
On Ahman Green: "He ran pretty hard. It's back to back weeks now where he's had over 100 yards. With a six-day preparation, you have to give (credit) to our players. They came back and got ready. Win on Monday night and winning the next Sunday afterward, that's tough, but they worked hard and they did a great job. But it's still early in the season, we're not patting ourselves on the back by any means, we have a lot of hard work ahead of us."
Na'il Diggs -
On win: "Any time you win, you get a sense of momentum, regardless of who you beat. A victory is a victory, no matter who it's against or what time of the season. They all count and they're all important. This is a huge step because we've been so up and down that we just play consistent and put consecutive wins together."
On impact of scoring drives on defense: "Any time our offense scores it gets us jacked up, just like if we get an interception or something it gets the offense jacked up. We all work off each other and feed off each other. They played outstanding today."
Brett Favre -
On passing game: "I thought we mixed it up well today. Once again the passing yardage was not a lot, but that is so deceiving when we run our style of offense. And it is not how far you throw it, it's how effective you throw it and run it and I thought we mixed it up extremely well."
On five straight touchdown drives: "I can't recall when the last time we ever had five straight touchdown drives. That's impressive. I don't care who you play. How good a defense is or how bad a defense is -- at some point you falter and we didn't."
On importance of game: "It was in so many ways a measuring stick for us. We're 2-2 and there 3-0. I don't know what the point differential was going into this game, but in our minds we were underdogs and should have been even though we were playing at home. We lost to Arizona and they blew Arizona out. You can't live in the past but we knew it shouldn't have happened, but yet it did and you know another reason we had to get in the plus category, get to 3-2 because from here on out it doesn't get any easier and we needed that game bad. We should never lose at home and unfortunately we did once already and we have to establish ourselves as a place you don't want come in and play. I thought we did a good job of that today."
On offense changes since Holmgren: "It's changed a lot, and I say for the better. We won a Super Bowl with Mike, but you win championships with defense and having a sound run game. We had a sound run game then. We have a great run game (now). It takes a lot of pressure off the quarterback; it eats up the clock, sets up a lot of the things that I think I do well -- in keep passes and stuff -- and that really hasn't changed. We ran a lot of keeps back in Mike's days, but in my opinion if you are playing us and we are hitting on all cylinders, every play looks the same. It may look like a run and it's a keep. You force people to stay at home and if they don't, you penalize them for it which is a lot different from days of old."
On talking to Coach Holmgren before the game: "I talked to him and said, 'Hello...doing great and keep it up.' Seems like he is having fun again. When that's the case, I mean look out. I think he can build a championship there in a hurry. Matt's playing well and I told him that and I asked him if he is chewing out Matt like he used to chew me out and he said no he scaled back a bunch."
On Tom Rossley: "I thought Tom called a great game. I thought he called a great game in Chicago. From the outside looking in, people say, 'Well, you know you won the football game.' But it is easy to say that. I thought we mixed it up well."
On jawing with Seahawks player: "He kind of twisted a nerve I guess. He did hit me pretty good and got up talking a little smack and I just told him he messed with the wrong guy today."
Mike Flanagan -
On sense that offense would have big day: "You can just feel it when you're close, and we knew we were there. We weren't having to make any adjustments, it was just a matter of staying on a block or making the right read. It was just right there. We were right there, we could feel it. We knew it was going to go."
On running game: "As offensive linemen we always want to run the ball and we feel we can do it every week. It's just a matter of us doing it. I think we've been playing well as a group, but there's things we need to correct and we need to continue to get better. We can't do this yo-yo crap. This get Ahman 180 (yards rushing) and then 40 (yards). We need to be consistent."
Ahman Green -
On playing against former team: "It brought me back to when I transferred high schools and played against my old high school team in Omaha, Central vs. North. It's just a game, got to go out there and have fun, just got to stay focused and better not get too caught up in the other emotions."
On if he proved anything to Mike Holmgren: "I don't know. I probably did. Like I said in the beginning, it was a business deal. Once I came here it was something at that time he thought I was better off with another team and I take it as that. It was a blessing in disguise for myself, for my teammates here in Green Bay and that' about it. I am very grateful and fortunate for the guys I got around me. Basically when I got drafted as a rookie – just a team to give me an opportunity and that's what Coach Sherman and the Packers did when I came here back in 2000. It has been kind of a work in progress every year, but as long as I can get myself better and help my team get better, you know that's the biggest thing, so we can win games out here."
On reason for offensive success: "Because we were focused. We knew the biggest thing was the turnover battle because there were 12 going into this game. And if we win that battle and hold on to the ball and do what we are supposed to do, offensively we will be okay. And that's basically what happened out there."
On the offensive line: "You know I love those guys. They make my job a lot easier – them and William (Henderson) in the backfield. I mean it's going to be interesting what I am going to have to do for these guys this offseason. Regardless of what we do and get paid, because this is our job. But we have to have extra incentives there because you are playing with a group of guys that 20 or 30 years down the line you are never going to forget them. Because they got stepped on for you, poked in the eye for you, cleated in every part of their body that you probably don’t even want to mention, but they are out there giving their body for me and William and Brett, and I love those guys. They do their jobs day-in and day-out and there are no complaints."
On Mike Holmgren attributing trade to asthma problem: "I think its kind of funny to me, because I played football for 19 years and six of them in the NFL, for a coach to say that for the first time. I mean that is the first time I have heard a coach at any level use that for me as an excuse. I mean I have had that since little league and I had that in high school and my coach knew about it and also in college my coach, Tom Osbourne, who coached me at Nebraska, knew about it. So they knew I would need a break every now and then. For a coach to use that as an excuse, it's new, but hey, you never know what's going to happen every day when you wake up. You might hear something new or learn something new."
Marco Rivera -
On offensive efficiency: "Things were going. Brett was in the zone. The running game kind of had a good mix of run, pass, play-action. They were a very aggressive defense and we tried to use that against them just on some play-action and it kind of worked."
On Brett Favre: "He wanted this game bad. You know, Brett, he played hard. I've always said, we feed off of our quarterback. When we see it in his eyes and we feel it, it trickles down to the rest of us and we just put it together."
Darren Sharper -
On interception: "I just read Hasselbeck's eyes and kind of assumed that they were going to throw the ball short. Once he started looking a certain way, I just jumped that route really quick."
On defense: "To come back and make corrections the second half of the game, we're excited about that. But we need to start fast."
Mike Wahle -
On offensive efficiency: "We found out early what plays were going to work against them and we just kept running them, kept pounding them. Three-yard runs turn into seven-yard runs and so on and so forth. And as the game wore on we got stronger and stronger."
GAME NOTES
Brett Favre's first rushing attempt of the season came on a 3-yard run for a first down in the first quarter.
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With wide receiver Donald Driver's 34-yard touchdown reception, the Packers have scored a touchdown in 50 consecutive games, the third-longest current streak in the league behind Jacksonville (60) and Denver (53).
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Running back Ahman Green became Lambeau Field's all-time leading career rusher, passing Dorsey Levens (2,315). He now has 2,344 career rushing yards at Lambeau.
Green's 1-yard second quarter touchdown run moved him into fifth place for Packers rushing touchdowns, supplanting Ted Fritsch (31). With two TD runs today, Green now has 33 for his Packers career.
Green surpassed the 1,000 carry mark for his career. He needed just eight carries coming into the game and, after today's game, has 1,019 for his career.
Green notched his seventh multiple rushing touchdown game of his career on his 1-yard plunge late in the first half.
With 118 yards rushing, Green registered his 17th 100-yard rushing game of his Packers career (18 NFL career). It was his third such game of the season.
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Tight end Wesley Walls made his first reception as a Packer on a 5-yard catch in the second quarter.
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According to Elias Sports Bureau, the 58-yard field goal by the Seahawks' Josh Brown is the longest ever converted against the Packers, home or away. The previous long was a 56-yarder by the Giants' Ali Haji-Sheikh at New York, Sept. 26, 1983. The longest against the Packers in Lambeau Field previous to today was a 54-yarder by Efren Herrera, Nov. 1, 1981.
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End of 4th quarter. Game over.
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On fourth-and-10 at the Green Bay 33-yard line, Matt Hasselbeck was forced to throw the ball away to avoid a sack. After the play the Green Bay bench was charged with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. After the penalty, the Packers take over at their own 18-yard line (5:28, 4th quarter).
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Facing fourth-and-3 at the Green Bay 9-yard line, Matt Hasselbeck's pass for Darrell Jackson was dropped in the end zone. The Seahawks were flagged for illegal motion on the play, but the Packers declined the penalty (11:14, 4th quarter).
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End of 3rd quarter.
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William Henderson took Brett Favre's shovel pass 2 yards into the end zone for another Packers touchdown, 35-13 (0:39, 3rd quarter). Donald Driver had a 3-yard reception on third-and-3 and a 12-yard catch on the drive. Javon Walker made a 6-yard reception and drew a pass interference penalty that brought the ball to the Seattle 6-yard line. The Packers scoring drive was 9 plays, 56 yards. Time of the drive was 4:53.
The Packers started the drive courtesy of Darren Sharper's interception.
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Facing third-and-3, Matt Hasselbeck's pass for Darrell Jackson was intercepted by Darren Sharper. Sharper returned the pick 14-yards to the Green Bay 44-yard line (5:32, 3rd quarter).
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Tony Fisher's 11-yard touchdown run increased the Packers' lead, 28-13 (11:09, 3rd quarter). William Henderson hurdled a defender on a 14-yard catch-and-run earlier in the drive. Ahman Green fought off a tackle on a 9-yard gain. Bubba Franks made an 8-yard catch. The Packers scoring drive was 8 plays, 53 yards. Time of the drive was 3:26.
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The Packers defense shut down Seattle on the opening possession of the second half. Mike McKenzie and Marques Anderson each broke up passes. Bhawoh Jue hurried Matt Hasselbeck to help force an incompletion on third-and-10. Tom Rouen's first punt of the game went 32 yards, allowing the Packers to take over at the Green Bay 47-yard line (14:30, 3rd quarter).
Chukie Nwokorie injured his right knee on the drive. His return is questionable.
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End of 2nd quarter. Halftime.
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Josh Brown hit a 58-yard field goal as the first half ended, 21-13 (0:00, 2nd quarter). Michael Hawthorne sacked Matt Hasselbeck for a 7-yard loss on the previous play, but it wasn’t good enough to keep Seattle from scoring. Darrell Jackson had a 20-yard reception on the 5-play, 37-yard drive. Time of the drive was 0:36.
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Ahman Green picked up his second touchdown of the day on a 3-yard run, 21-10 (0:36, 2nd quarter). Green had a total of 5 carries for 30 yards on the drive. The longest play of the drive brought the Packers across midfield when Brett Favre avoided a sack and hit Bubba Franks, who broke two tackles en route to a 20-yard gain. Wesley Walls made his first reception as a Packer, a 5-yard catch from Favre to start the drive. The Packers scoring drive was 9 plays, 68 yards. Time of the drive was 4:52.
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Josh Brown's 27-yard field goal brought the Seahawks closer, 14-10 (5:28, 2nd quarter). Bhawoh Jue broke up Matt Hasselbeck's pass to Darrell Jackson in the end zone to save a touchdown on third-and-9 from the Green Bay 10-yard line. Mike McKenzie broke up a pass intended for Jackson in the end zone one play earlier. Seattle faced third down only three times on their 16-play, 80-yard drive. Robinson made 5 catches for 45 yards. Time of the drive was 7:45.
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Ahman Green plowed his way into the end zone for a 1-yard touchdown, 14-7 (13:13, 2nd quarter). On the previous play Donald Driver made a 7-yard reception on third-and-7. Earlier on the drive, Driver had a 5-yard run on an end-around and another 7-yard reception. Antonio Freeman had a 14-yard catch on third-and-4. The Packers scoring drive was 13 plays, 66 yards. Time of the drive was 7:18.
Green's touchdown moved him to No. 5 in Packers history in terms of rushing touchdowns (32), passing Ted Fritsch (31).
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End of 1st quarter.
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Shaun Alexander's 1-yard run up the middle allowed Seattle to tie it up at the end of their second drive, 7-7 (5:31, 1st quarter). In addition to his touchdown run, Alexander had four carries for 23 yards on the drive. Maurice Morris had an 18-yard run. The Seahawks scoring drive was 9 plays, 71 yards. Time of the drive was 4:23.
Gilbert Brown injured his left knee on the drive. His return is questionable.
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Brett Favre rolled left and found Donald Driver down the sideline for a 34-yard touchdown to put the Packers on the scoreboard first, 7-0 (9:54, 1st quarter). Earlier on the drive, Favre rolled right and ran for a first down on third-and-3. The Packers scoring drive was 5 plays, 49 yards. Time of the drive was 1:55.
The Packers gained possession courtesy of Marques Anderson's fumble recovery.
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Running back Shaun Alexander rushed for a total 26 yards on Seattle's first two plays from scrimmage, but on the third play of the Seahawks' drive Alexander was stripped by Cletidus Hunt. Alexander's fumble was recovered by Marques Anderson at the Seattle 49-yard line (11:49, 1st quarter).
Seattle challenged the ruling on the field, claiming that the runner was down by contact before the fumble. Replay confirmed the ruling on the field.
Joe Johnson injured his right triceps on the drive. His return is questionable. Last season Johnson was placed on injured reserve with a torn left triceps.
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The Packers picked up one first down on their opening possession, but were forced to punt after that. Antonio Chatman faked a reverse to Tony Fisher on the opening kickoff en route to a 31-yard return. On first down, Brett Favre hit Bubba Franks for a 12-yard gain. Ahman Green followed with two runs for a total of 5 yards and Favre fired incomplete for Robert Ferguson on third down. After catching a high snap, Josh Bidwell's 25-yard punt was fair caught at the Seattle 20-yard line (12:59, 1st quarter).
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Temperature at kickoff is 48 degrees.
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The following Packers players are inactive for today's contest: Brennan Curtin, Antuan Edwards, Aaron Kampman, Nick Luchey, Craig Nall (third quarterback), Jamal Reynolds, Marcus Spriggs, Reggie Swinton.
Marques Anderson will start in place of Antuan Edwards. |
