The Sports Xchange

GREEN BAY, Wis. — After scoring a decisive touchdown early in the fourth quarter on Sunday night, Green Bay Packers tight end Richard Rodgers didn’t want throw cold water on the team and its fans.

Yet, Rodgers tried to lend a voice of reason to anyone inclined to make a big deal about the Packers’ 27-17 win over the Seattle Seahawks before a spirited crowd of 78,433, the largest attendance at Lambeau Field for a regular-season game.

“It doesn’t do much for us; it’s the second game of the season,” Rodgers asserted. “They beat us in the NFC Championship (in January). That’s a little bit bigger game than the second game of the season. So, we have a long way to go.”

In the grand scheme of a 16-game regular season in which head-to-head results can have great bearing on playoff positioning and where those games are played in January, the Packers nevertheless took a huge step.

Not only are they off and running at the front of the NFC North with a 2-0 record, but the Packers already have essentially a three-game cushion between themselves and the winless Seahawks in the conference pecking order.

“It’s a big win, let’s put it at that,” linebacker Clay Matthews said. “Obviously, we wanted to win for a number of reasons. … In years prior, we might have started the season off slow, but hopefully we can keep stacking these victories.”

Green Bay has an extra day to savor the comeback victory since it doesn’t play again until it hosts the Kansas City Chiefs in next Monday night.

The Packers could benefit from the extended downtime as they continue to be beset by attrition in the early going.

They went into Sunday’s game without right tackle Bryan Bulaga, who is expected to be out until at least late October because of ligament and cartilage damage in his left knee.

Green Bay then lost featured back Eddie Lacy because of an injury to his right ankle in the opening minutes of play Sunday. James Starks carried the load the rest of the way.

Overcoming that adversity as well as rallying from a 17-13 deficit in the second half made the Packers’ long-awaited conquest of Seattle, the two-time-reigning NFC champion, that much sweeter.

After all, the Seahawks prevailed the last three meetings going back to the “Fail Mary” ending in 2012 and culminating with the improbable overtime outcome in the NFC title game.

“Obviously, it doesn’t count for anything more than a win, but it is probably one of the more satisfying regular-season wins that we’ve had, just to get that monkey off our back of not being able to beat these guys,” said right guard T.J. Lang, a seventh-year pro.

REPORT CARD VS. SEAHAWKS

PASSING OFFENSE: B — Better late than never, quarterback Aaron Rodgers had what would constitute as a prolific performance against Seattle’s notoriously unyielding defense. After averaging only 207 passing yards in five previous meetings against the Seahawks, Rodgers threw for 249 yards on 25-of-33 accuracy with two touchdowns and no interceptions for a workmanlike 116.9 efficiency rating. Rodgers was at his finest in Green Bay’s game-winning 10-play, 80-yard drive bridging the third and fourth quarters. He completed all eight of his passes for 78 yards, capped by a five-yard touchdown strike to tight end Richard Rodgers. And Rodgers may be in a league by himself for his ability to draw antsy defenders offside, as he did twice with Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett in the first half. Green Bay’s lone giveaway was on a catch-and-run fumble by James Starks, who took over for injured Eddie Lacy at halfback. Left tackle David Bakhtiari and, to a lesser extent, right tackle Don Barclay, who started in place of an injured Bryan Bulaga, struggled in pass protection. Rodgers was sacked twice.

RUSHING OFFENSE: B — The Packers’ injury-plagued offense took another big hit early in the game when Eddie Lacy had left the game only a few minutes into action during Green Bay’s first of two 10-play, 80-yard touchdown drives. Lacy, who carried the ball three times for nine yards, was carted back to the locker room later in the first quarter because of an ankle injury. That left James Starks as the lone halfback, with Alonzo Harris deactivated. Starks shrugged off his second-quarter fumble on the pass play by running hard and putting up solid numbers with 95 yards in 20 carries.

PASS DEFENSE: B — Situational outside linebacker Jayrone Elliott rose to the occasion in the final 7 1/2 minutes as the Green Bay defense preserved its newfound 24-17 lead. Elliott, an undrafted player in his second pro season, reached out with his right hand to intercept a screen pass from Russell Wilson intended for halfback Marshawn Lynch with the Seahawks on the move near midfield. Then, after the Packers cashed in that takeaway with a field goal to go up by 10, Elliott from behind punched the ball out of the grasp of running back Fred Jackson on a catch-and-run deep in Green Bay territory in the last minute of play. Earlier in the second half, Jackson split defensive backs Casey Hayward and Ha Ha Clinton-Dix on an in route toward the goal line to pull in a five-yard touchdown throw from Wilson. The Seahawks’ next possession resulted in their go-ahead touchdown, as a leaping Doug Baldwin (team-high seven catches for 92 yards) beat safety Micah Hyde for a 13-yard touchdown reception.

RUSH DEFENSE: B-minus — A week after allowing 189 rushing yards in its opener at the Chicago Bears, including 141 by Matt Forte, the Packers defense fared considerably better against the next marquee back on the early-season schedule. Nose tackle B.J. Raji said the mantra going into the game against Marshawn Lynch was “just swarm, man.” With Raji setting the tone by manhandling and pushing back Drew Nowak several times in the young Seahawks center’s homecoming as a Green Bay-area native, the Packers held Lynch a measly average of 2.7 yards per carry. Lynch finished with 41 yards in 15 touches.

SPECIAL TEAMS: A-minus — Mason Crosby racked up 13 points with four field goals and an early extra point to eclipse Ryan Longwell’s 10-year-old all-time team scoring record by three points. Just as alluring on this night, however, was the effectiveness of Crosby and punter Tim Masthay in combination with their relentless coverage units to impede Tyler Lockett, Seattle’s dazzling rookie kick returner. Of Crosby’s seven kickoffs, Lockett returned four. but averaged only 19.8 yards, with a long of just 26.

COACHING: B — To conclude a week in which head coach Mike McCarthy and his staff swept under the rug talk of the stunning overtime loss at Seattle in the NFC Championship eight months ago, Green Bay still exacted a sizable piece of revenge against its nemesis of recent years. The comeback victory was decided in the fourth quarter, first by play-caller Tom Clements’ working a speedy playmaker out of the backfield with a rotation of Randall Cobb, Ty Montgomery and Richard Rodgers replacing James Starks in the go-ahead touchdown drive. Defensive coordinator Dom Capers didn’t have an answer for quarterback Russell Wilson’s read-option runs for much of the second half, but his reliance on playing multiple guys at linebacker paid off by having the instinctive Jayrone Elliott on the field for two big takeaways. Special teams coordinator Ron Zook drew up a precise game plan to neutralize the speedy Tyler Lockett on kick returns. The Packers’ exhausting all three of their first-half timeouts in the first 13 1/2 minutes cost them what probably should have been a touchdown instead of a field-goal drive down to the Seattle one-yard line before halftime.