Lamar Jackson may not play because of an ankle sprain. Even if he does, I don’t see how Baltimore will be able to beat one of the league’s consistently-elite teams.
WHAT: Week 15, Game 14 vs. Green Bay Packers
WHEN: 4:25 p.m. (ET); Sunday, December 19
WHERE: M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore (70,745)
RECORDS: Packers, 10-3; Ravens, 8-5
LIFETIME SERIES (regular season): Packers lead, 4-2. Green Bay has a pair of two-game winning streaks against the Ravens, both broken by Baltimore victories. The Ravens won the most recent meeting, shutting out the Packers at Lambeau Field, 23-0, in 2017. Green Bay has split its two meetings with the Ravens in Baltimore, losing in 2005 in a Monday-night Baltimore blowout and winning a two-point game in 2013.
TV AND LOCAL RADIO: WBFF-TV, Channel 45 (Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, booth; Erin Andrews, Tom Rinaldi, sidelines), local radio 97.9 (Gerry Sandusky, Obafemi Ayanbadejo, booth)
REFEREE: Brad Allen
About the Packers
The Packer franchise was formally founded in 1919 by boyhood high school football rivals Earl “Curly” Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun. The Indian Packing Company, the meat-packing plant where Lambeau worked, gave him $500 for uniforms – roughly $7500 in today’s money – but required him to name the team after the company. The American Professional Football Association granted the team entry into the league in 1921; the team briefly folded, but Lambeau got new financial backers, and the team would go on to operate longer in one city than any other current team in the league.
Green Bay is the third longest-running NFL franchise in existence, trailing only the Chicago Bears and Arizona Cardinals, both of which have operated in multiple locations. The Packer franchise has been up and running since 1921, the league’s second season of existence, and it can claim a record 13 championships (including nine in the pre-Super Bowl era). Green Bay is the only team to have won three consecutive NFL titles, and it has done so twice (1929-31, 1965-67). In the 1960s, Green Bay won five titles in a remarkable seven-year span, a feat not likely to be repeated.
The 1966 and 1967 championships put the Packers into the first two Super Bowls, where they won Super Bowl 1 in Los Angeles (over Kansas City) and Super Bowl 2 in Miami (over Oakland). They also took home the Vince Lombardi Trophy (named after their own iconic coach) at Super Bowl 31 in New Orleans (over New England) and Super Bowl 45 in Arlington, Texas (over Pittsburgh). They came up short in Super Bowl 32 in San Diego (to Denver) on a last-minute touchdown.
Over 100 completed seasons, the Packers have snagged an NFL-record 34 playoff berths, one more than the second-place Dallas Cowboys. That total includes six wild-card berths and a league-record 28 division titles, four more than Dallas and Pittsburgh (24 each). The Packers seem poised to win the NFC North Division for the 12th time in the 20 years the division has existed.
Green Bay will likely make the playoffs this year for a third straight season and the 11th time in the last 13 campaigns. From 2009-16, the team went on a run of eight straight postseason appearances, a team-record skein, and the third-longest in NFL history. The Packers have more seasons of ten or more wins than any team in history. They have made a record 18 appearances in either the NFC Championship Game or the pre-merger NFL championship contest, including the last two and five of the last eight, surprisingly losing all of those recent games.
When the Baltimore Colts were part of the NFL, their rivalry with Green Bay in the 1960s was just as intense as it was with the Miami Dolphins in the 1970s. The Ravens’ present-day battles with the Pittsburgh Steelers would be a fitting comparison. The Colts and Packers were aligned together in the Western Conference (for competitive-balance purposes) until 1966. They were then completely split up via the 1970 AFL-NFL merger and placed into different conferences. The teams met twice yearly from 1953-66, then once a year through 1970 before the merger. All told, the Colts went 16-18-1 against Green Bay; the tie happened in the final meeting before the Colts moved to Indianapolis, a snow-filled 20-20 overtime clash at Memorial Stadium during the 1982 strike-shortened season.
The Packers make no bones about celebrating their rich history. They are second in the league in Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrines, with 27, three behind the first-place Chicago Bears. Five other Hall of Famers played for Green Bay at some point in their careers. The most recent Packer enshrinee is defensive back Charles Woodson, who entered the Hall this year. As of the end of the 2020 season, Green Bay had played 1386 regular-season games (second-most all-time) and accumulated 770 regular-season wins, ranking second in league history. The team’s .569 all-time win percentage is tied with Dallas for the league’s best.
Ravens fans can take comfort that this week’s game is in Baltimore, for the Packers have been traditionally tough at their Lambeau Field home, which was named City Stadium when it opened in 1957. It was renamed in 1965 in honor of the team’s first coach and co-founder, Earl “Curly” Lambeau. Its capacity is currently the league’s fifth-largest (81,441, including standing room), thanks to numerous additions, such as multiple seating decks and skyboxes. Including this season, the Packers have posted a winning home record in 15 consecutive campaigns. The Ravens lost three straight there before finally winning, 23-0, in 2017 during the most recent meeting of the two teams.
This is the 65th consecutive year of football at the hallowed shrine, the oldest in the NFL. The Packers have sold out 364 consecutive home games at Lambeau Field, which covers every game since 1960, but it is Denver that holds the record over two different stadiums. In fact, only two Major League Baseball venues are older–Boston’s Fenway Park (opened in 1912) and Chicago’s Wrigley Field (1914).
Perhaps the most noteworthy meeting for Ravens fans took place in 2005 in an otherwise dismal season for Baltimore. Kyle Boller threw three touchdown passes in a late-season Monday-night clash as the Ravens blew out visiting Green Bay and quarterback Brett Favre, 48-3.
Green Bay is one of nine league teams with a lifetime winning regular-season record against the Ravens. The other clubs with winning regular-season records against Baltimore are Carolina, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, New England, and Tennessee.
The Packers can win the NFC North Division with a win at Baltimore or a Minnesota loss against Chicago. The Packers are one of only three teams in the NFL to have double-digit wins at this point in the season; Arizona and Tampa Bay are the others, but the Packers have a head-to-head tiebreaker over the Cardinals in the battle for the NFC’s top seed; Green Bay is now on top of the conference after Arizona’s Monday-night home loss because the Packers have beaten the Cardinals head-to-head.
Green Bay lost its opener to New Orleans in Jacksonville, then ripped off seven straight wins before going 3-2 in its last five games. The team’s other two losses were both on the road, by six points to Kansas City and three to Minnesota. Green Bay’s wins have come by an average margin of ten points. The Packers have a rather forgiving stretch run to their schedule; after playing at Baltimore, they go back home to face Cleveland and Minnesota before ending the regular season at Detroit.
The Packers play a rather Baltimore-style possession game; the team’s 32:39 per-game average is second-best in the league to that of the Ravens (33:39). But the Packers, with a standout quarterback in Aaron Rodgers, can afford to pass the ball more, having done so 477 times (including 26 sacks allowed). Green Bay has run the ball 338 times. Packer opponents have called 307 runs and 486 passes (including 30 Packer sacks allowed).
The Packers often get off to slow starts; they have been outscored in the first quarter, 64-34, but the team’s best quarter is the third, where it holds an 88-28 edge. All told, the team’s plus-56 point differential, while adequate, is the lowest of any of the NFL’s eight first-place teams.
As far as the turnover ratio is concerned, this game will feature one of the widest disparities between any two teams around the league this year. Green Bay’s plus-12 ratio is the NFL’s third-best; it is one of only four teams that can boast of a figure at plus-10 or better (New England, Indianapolis, and Arizona are the others). Meanwhile, Baltimore’s is the league’s fourth-worst at minus-9. Green Bay’s ten giveaways are tied with Seattle for the league’s fewest, and the 14 interceptions by its secondary are spread out among nine different players; cornerback Rasul Douglas has run back two of his three pickoffs for touchdowns, including one that traversed 55 yards a week ago at home against Chicago.
This year, the Packers have played mostly-clean football, having been penalized only 57 times, the league’s second-fewest to Cincinnati’s 52. Green Bay has committed seven false starts, and 11 holds, but it has been especially prone to defensive fouls, with nine pass interference calls and five for defensive holding. Despite the team’s potent passing game, Green Bay has been called for offensive pass interference only once. Individually, cornerback Rasul Douglas, center Lucas Patrick and guard Royce Newman lead the team with four flags each.
Through Week 14, the Packers were ranked 13th in total offense (20th rushing, ninth passing, 14th scoring at 25.2 points per game). Green Bay’s offense ranks just 23rd in red-zone efficiency and is tied for 11th in third-down conversion rate. The Packers’ 21.5 first-down per-game average ranks tenth in the league.
Defensively, Green Bay currently stands sixth overall (ninth vs. rush, ninth vs. pass, seventh scoring, allowing 20.9 points per game). The Packers and Denver are the only two teams ranking in the top ten defensively in all of the above categories. Surprisingly, Green Bay’s red-zone defense is the league’s fourth-worst, and its rate in allowing third-down conversions is eighth-worst. The team is tied for ninth in the league, allowing 19.6 first downs per game.
Forty-two-year-old Michigan native Matt LaFleur is the third-year head coach of the Packers, the 15th full-timer to hold the job in franchise history. His brother, Mike, is the offensive coordinator of the New York Jets. LaFleur racked up 26 wins in his first two seasons in the Green Bay job, second-most in league history for a coach in his first pair of campaigns with a team, surpassed only by San Francisco’s George Seifert (28). His current record with the Packers is 38-11 (including playoffs), but no Packer head coach has had a losing record since Lindy Infante went 24-40 from 1988-91. LaFleur, whose first head-coaching game against Baltimore takes place this Sunday, took Green Bay from six wins to 13 in his first year – the biggest one-year turnaround in franchise history – and has made the NFC Championship game in both of his seasons there. Before coming to Green Bay, he was the offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams in 2017 and the Tennessee Titans in 2018. LaFleur has also been on coaching staffs in Houston, Washington, and Atlanta. Three of LaFleur’s teams have led the NFL in scoring over a single season, including last year’s Packers.
Selected with the 24th pick in the 2005 draft, former University of California quarterback Aaron Rodgers, bred in the same system that produced Baltimore first-round passer Kyle Boller, is a nine-time Pro Bowl selection and three-time All-Pro. Rodgers has had nine seasons where he has played 16 games and two more with 15. He has 439 career touchdown passes against just 93 interceptions, playing to a career rating of over 104. Rodgers has completed 67.3 percent of his passes this year with 27 touchdowns, four interceptions, 24 sacks, and a league-best 108.8 passer rating. Rodgers is coming off a four-touchdown, no-interception game at home against Chicago last week. In three career games against Baltimore (two wins), Rodgers has completed 58.6 percent of his throws with four touchdowns, four interceptions, seven sacks, and a passer rating of 77.9. He also has three rushing scores. Due to an injury that kept him out of the 2017 home meeting with the Ravens at Lambeau Field, he hadn’t faced Baltimore since 2013 at M&T Bank Stadium, when a key late third-down pass got a first down and sealed a 19-17 Packers win. With Utah State grad and 2020 first-round pick Jordan Love (26th overall) on the COVID list, Rodgers had been backed up by second-year Virginia product Kurt Benkert, who got to take the kneel-down snaps in Sunday’s home win over Chicago. Love has one career start, which took place when Rodgers was on the COVID list himself, but now that Love is ready to be activated, he will replace Benkert as the No. 2 signal-caller, and the team will release practice-squad quarterback Danny Elling.
Running back Aaron Jones is in his fifth year from Texas-El Paso; he was selected with a 2017 fifth-round compensatory pick (182nd overall). Since 2019, he has had 25 rushing touchdowns, the third-most in the league. Jones has averaged 5.1 yards-per-carry in his career, the sixth-most for any back with 600 or more career carries. Slowed by injuries this year, he has 599 yards and a 4.3-yard average with four of the team’s nine rushing touchdowns. Jones also has 40 receptions (the team’s second-most) and five scores. Picking up the slack has been AJ Dillon, in his second season from Boston College, from where he was a 2020 second-round pick (62nd overall). This year, Dillon leads the team with 614 yards and two touchdowns with a 4.3-yard average, and he has 27 catches and two more scores through the air.
This year, the Packers’ 28 receiving touchdowns have been hauled in by eight different targets, but the most productive by far has been Davante Adams, who has 90 grabs, a 13.4-yard average, and seven scores. In his eighth year from Fresno State, Adams set a team record last year with 115 catches, tying Sterling Sharpe’s single-season touchdown record (18). Adams has made four straight Pro Bowls and was a first-team All-Pro in 2020. Eleven-year veteran Randall Cobb has five touchdowns, but he is on injured reserve. Last week against Chicago, Adams had ten catches for 121 yards and two scores, his NFL-record-tying seventh career game with at least ten grabs, over 100 yards, and two touchdowns.
It is a deep receiving corps, with Allen Lazard contributing 25 catches and four touchdowns and Marquez Valdes-Scantling adding two more among his 20 receptions. Tight end Robert Tonyan is out injured, so that position corps is currently being led by 16-year NFL veteran Marcedes Lewis, who made his name in the league with the Jacksonville Jaguars and who scored a career-high three times against Baltimore four years ago when the Ravens and Jags met in London. Lewis is one of only four tight ends in league history to play in over 215 regular-season games, along with Antonio Gates, Tony Gonzalez, and Jason Witten.
The mostly-young Packers offensive line, one ravaged by injuries, hasn’t had the services of Pro Bowl left tackle David Bakhtiari (knee), who hasn’t played since last December. The current line contains a very familiar name to Ravens fans, left guard Jon Runyan, who happens to be the son of the former Tennessee Titans left tackle who played with a great deal of physicality and intensity against Baltimore. The younger Runyan was a 2020 sixth-round draft pick from Michigan and was the only Green Bay rookie to play in all 16 games. At the other guard spot is rookie Royce Newman, a 2021 fourth-rounder (142nd overall) from Mississippi who is the only preferred Packer offensive lineman to have endured the season so far.
The tackles are second-year Virginia Tech product Yosh Nijman and Billy Turner, in his eighth season from the dynastic North Dakota State FCS program. Turner had to leave last week’s game against Chicago (knee). The center is Lucas Patrick, now in his fifth season from Duke, but with Josh Myers and Elgton Jenkins out with injuries, that spot is also relatively thin.
The Green Bay 3-4 defensive line consists of ends Dean Lowry and Kingsley Keke, with nose tackle Kenny Clark in the middle. Clark is in his sixth year from UCLA, where he was a third-team All-America pick; he became the 27th overall pick in 2016. Clark has four sacks, 12 quarterback hits, and six tackles for loss. Lowry is a six-year Northwestern product who missed just one game over his first five seasons; he has three sacks and seven quarterback hits. As for Keke, he is in his third season from Texas A&M, from where he was a 2019 fifth-round pick (150th overall); he has 2.5 sacks and four hits on the quarterback.
Chauncey Rivers, Za’Darius Smith, and Whitney Mercilus are all solid NFL veteran linebackers, but they are currently on injured reserve. Smith was a 2015 fourth-round pick (122nd overall) by Baltimore. The Packer linebackers are currently paced by Preston Smith, a seventh-year player from Mississippi State who is the league’s only linebacker to have 25 sacks, five interceptions, and four forced fumbles from 2015-2020. He has a team-high seven sacks (five in his last four games), six tackles for losses, and 13 quarterback hits. On the other edge is Rashan Gary, who has a team-high 21 quarterback hits and 6.5 sacks in his third season from Michigan.
The Packers’ main inside linebacker is six-year NFL veteran De’Vondre Campbell, a Minnesota product who was originally a 2016 fourth-round pick (115th overall) by Atlanta. He spent four years with the Falcons and one with the Arizona Cardinals before signing with the Packers as an unrestricted free agent. He is the team’s leading stopper with 114 tackles – his second career 100-tackle season. He has also contributed a sack, four tackles for loss, five quarterback hits, two interceptions, two forced fumbles, a fumble recovery, and four pass breakups. Campbell had a season-high 16 tackles last week against Chicago. He is partnered by UCLA second-year man Krys Barnes, a 2020 undrafted player who has 58 tackles, the team’s third-most, and a fumble recovery.
Rasul Douglas and Eric Stokes are the starting corners, but Chandon Sullivan also sees a great deal of playing time. Douglas, in his fifth year from West Virginia, has 38 tackles, three interceptions (two for touchdowns in consecutive weeks, the first in the league to do that in three years) and ten passes defensed, while Stokes – a rookie from Georgia who was the highest Bulldog corner drafted (29th overall) since Champ Bailey – has 40 stops, one pickoff, and 12 breakups, the most among NFL rookies. As for Sullivan, he also has a pair of interceptions. The Packers’ safety tandem can probably count this Sunday’s game as a Homecoming contest, in that it consists of Calvert Hall College High graduate Adrian Amos and University of Maryland alum Darnell Savage, the team’s first-round pick in 2019 (21st overall) with a selection acquired from Seattle. Savage (44 tackles, fourth on the team, interception, four pass breakups) became the first rookie Packer to start at safety in nearly a decade. Amos (71 tackles, second on the team, two interceptions, seven pass breakups) is in his seventh year from Penn State; he played for Chicago for four years before moving to the archrival Packers. Against the Ravens in 2017, on the same M&T Bank Stadium field in which he played in three Turkey Bowls for Calvert Hall, he intercepted a Joe Flacco pass and ran it back 90 yards for a score in the east end zone. It was his first career pickoff, coming in a game that saw the Bears win in overtime.
The Packers’ kick and punt coverage teams are below average, allowing over 13 yards on punt runbacks and yielding nearly 26 on kickoff returns, including a 97-yard touchdown to Chicago last week. The punt returner is rookie Amari Rodgers from Clemson, where he ranks sixth all-time in receptions. He is the son of Baltimore wideout coach Tee Martin, a national-championship quarterback at Tennessee in 1998. Handling kick returns used to be Kylin Hill, but he is on injured reserve, so Rodgers has taken over those duties as well, with five return attempts to his name so far, as well as a meager 12-yard average.
One of the longest-tenured placekickers in the league is Green Bay’s Mason Crosby, now in his 15th season out of Colorado, taken in the sixth round (193rd overall) of the 2007 draft. He has never missed a game in his career, and he is the franchise’s all-time leading scorer; he is 20th on the NFL’s all-time point list. However, he has missed nine field goals and one conversion this season despite leading the team with 94 points. Crosby has missed four field goals in the 30-39-yard range and four more in between 40 and 49 yards.
The team’s punter and placekick holder is former Buffalo Bills standout Corey Bojorquez, who came to Green Bay this year from the Los Angeles Rams in a trade. Last year, he led the league with a 50.8 gross average, also the Bills’ franchise record. In 2019, he placed 34 punts inside the coffin corner, another Buffalo team mark. He has 16 coffin-corner kicks this season in 42 attempts with only two touchbacks, forcing ten fair catches, grossing 47.3 yards per punt, and netting 40.6.
Prediction
Through the years, these two cities had stalwart franchises that played each other in meaningful games. This year’s game is no different, but the big question is whether this contest will feature the Rodgers-Jackson duel that fans had anticipated. Jackson may not play because of an ankle sprain. Even if he does, I don’t see how Baltimore will be able to beat one of the league’s consistently-elite teams. You can argue Baltimore is also in that echelon. But the way things have gone this year for the injury-battered Ravens, a third straight loss is more likely. I think it will be close on Sunday, but with no cigar in Charm City.
Green Bay 27, Baltimore 23
