As you all know, early season games are tough. You just don’t know what you’re going to get. This is amplified in the 2020 NFL season. with the cancellation of preseason games. (Something I spoke about on Quick TO:SS.) The Green Bay Packers headed to Minnesota to face the Vikings and both teams provided a mystery: would the impress or regress?

In the early going, the game progressed as I thought it would. The defenses were a tad bit ahead of the offenses. Somehow, the Vikings were able to get the lead on Green Bay, 7-3. The Packers went on a long, sustained drive, only to gamble on 4th and goal at the 1. Aaron Rodgers tried to hit Davante Adams on a quick slant, but didn’t convert.

On the ensuing drive, the Vikings were working out of their own end zone. Then, on a perfectly called, beautifully executed cornerback blitz by Jaire Alexander, the Packers crush Vikings QB Kirk Cousins, to get the safety. After the Packers’ field goal scoring drive that made it an 8-7 game, the avalanche happened. This, folks, is where it stopped following the traditional early script.

The Packers went on five touchdown scoring drives the rest of the game. The bomb from Rodgers to Marquez Valdes-Scantling before the half, felt like the knock-out blow to me. The Vikings would never sniff the lead (or the tie) the remainder of the game.

Green Bay lost key players on offense and defense, but still went and dominated what was supposed to be the vaunted Vikings defense. (It’s Week 1, I know.) A 43-34 Packers victory that wasn’t as close as the score suggests. So that begs the question: why are people still disrespecting Green Bay?

The Packers aren’t perfect, but they’re 15-4 in their last 19 games. That’s to be respected. Again, it’s Week 1 and the Packers will undoubtedly have challenges to overcome. I’m also believing Green Bay is perfectly fine with flying under the radar. But the results of the work they’ve done, has them up there with some of the elite teams in NFL. But let me pump the brakes, because this is more of a Week 10 conversation.

This sort of domination was surprising, but the win was not. If this is the sort of consistent effort the Packers are going to put forth in this 2020 season, it’s going to make for some interesting times for the Green and Gold.