Shaun Church
The Seattle Seahawks hosted the Green Bay Packers in the first of 512 regular-season games played this season. What should have been a great contest turned into a laugher in part because All-Pro quarterback Aaron Rodgers refused to throw toward All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman, a choice that was painfully obvious and quite disappointing.
After the dust settled on the regular season, the Seahawks and Packers had earned byes, respectively.
Now they meet again, but this time the loser goes home while the winner will represent its conference in Arizona. How can the Packers get revenge for their early-season loss? What must the Seahawks do to protect home-field advantage and earn a second consecutive Super Bowl?
We’ll go over that and then end with a matchup to watch in this, the summit of NFC battles.
How Green Bay Wins: Take Advantage of Red-Zone Opportunities; Convert 3rd Downs
This is a twofer, but the Packers must do both to avenge their season-opening embarrassment. Winning in the NFL is a simple formula when it’s broken down to the most basic elements. If you score touchdowns in the red zone and convert third downs, you’ll win most games.
Rodgers and company limped out of CenturyLink Field with a Week 1 loss because they could not run the football and were caught behind the chains far too often. Here’s a breakdown of the Seahawks defense this season in their wins and losses. We’re looking at average yards to go and yards gained per down:
In its 12 wins, the Seattle defense was especially stingy on first and third downs. But in its four losses, that same defense could not get off the field. Overall, the Seahawks finished eighth in third-down defense, allowing offenses to convert 37.1 percent of opportunities. But in losses, offenses converted at a 53.1 percent clip.
The Packers had one of the better red-zone offenses this season, scoring touchdowns on 60.7 percent of their trips inside the opponents’ 20-yard line. Here’s how they fared in wins and losses. Note the average opportunities per game:
The more often Green Bay got to the red zone, the better chance it had of winning. That comes from moving the football, which comes from converting third downs and controlling the clock.
And it all comes together. If the Packers convert red-zone chances as well as their third downs, they should be in good position to pull off a sizable upset over the defending Super Bowl champs.
How Seattle Wins: Be Yourself
We don’t need in-depth statistics or analysis to predict how the Seahawks can win this football game. To win, they have to do what they have been doing for the past three seasons: Run the ball successfully, give quarterback Russell Wilson chances to make plays with both his arm and his feet and rely on the league’s best defense to limit its best quarterback.
If the Packers see the same Marshawn Lynch they saw in their first meeting with the Seahawks, it could be a very long day for the Cheeseheads. He carried 20 times for 110 yards (5.5 yards per carry) and two touchdowns in Seattle’s 36-16 thumping of Green Bay back in September.
If the Seahawks play the same type of defense they have played over the better part of two months, they will be unbeatable on Sunday.
Seattle traveled to Kansas City for a Week 11 matchup and lost, 24-20. Since allowing 24 points to the Chiefs, the Legion of Boom defense has given up just 56 points in seven games—all Seahawks wins (duh). In case you’re bad at math, that averages out to eight points per game allowed.
EIGHT.
Matchup to Watch: Aaron Rodgers vs. Richard Sherman
The now infamous matchup of Rodgers and Sherman brings us to the most important element of this game. It’s going to be the single biggest talking point during the pregame shows, and you can bet Fox announcers Kevin Burkhardt and John Lynch will mention it incessantly until Rodgers throws Sherman’s way.
In their 2012 meeting—the even more infamous “Fail Mary” game—Rodgers targeted Sherman five times, connecting with receivers James Jones and Greg Jennings, as well as fullback John Kuhn, four times for 44 yards against the most feared cornerback in the NFL, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required).
Rodgers will not avoid Sherman this time around. He simply cannot. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the quarterback throw the cornerback’s way on the first drive just to see how it works out. The plays were there in their first meeting this season; Rodgers simply shut the entire right side of the field off…he didn’t even look that way to see his receivers were open multiple times against Sherman.
Jordy Nelson is an obvious choice to try and get deep on the big corner, but Davante Adams could be an option as well. The big, physical rookie receiver out of Fresno State had a limited role during the regular season, but against the Dallas Cowboys last week he had a breakout game of sorts, leading the team with 117 yards on seven catches, including a nifty 46-yard catch-and-run for a touchdown near the end of the third quarter.
Photo credit: USA Today
