Green Bay off to fast start

by Pete Fritz ProFootballFanatics.com columnist

The Detroit Lions came into Sunday's game against the Green Bay Packers with a new owner (Matt Millen), new head coach (Marty Mornhinweg), new offense (West Coast) and a new attitude. Unfortunately for them, the Packers brought their "A" game to Lambeau.

Before some fans could even settle into their seats, Green Bay was up 21-0. Two long runs by Ahman "Batman" Green (31 and 83 yards, respectively) with a 23 yard strike from Favre to Schroeder sandwiched between put the Packers in control. Add that to superb play by the defense and Detroit never had a chance in this game. The defense recorded seven sacks by the defensive line, and was led by last year's NFL interceptions leader, Darren Sharper, who had two picks in the game.

A negative that came out of this game was the lack on concentration after a strong start. Dropped passes continued to plague the Green Bay offense. Ahman Green, Bubba Franks, and Antonio Freeman all seemed to have a nasty case of "butterfingers". While they all had receptions in the game, and Favre ended up having a 78.6 completion percentage, a number of the passes dropped should have been caught. Ahman also put the ball on the ground three times, although he only lost one of those fumbles. First game jitters? The rainy weather? No matter what the reason, this is one part of the offense that Mike Sherman and his staff have to work on in order to make a run at the Super Bowl.

Although there were some negatives, a number of things shined through as positives. As mentioned before, the defense played great in the first game of the season. They allowed only 56 rushing yards, 188 passing yards and six points. While some may say that this is because Charlie Batch and the rest of the Lion's are trying to adjust to the West Coast offense, it is still impressive to hold any NFL team to an average of only four yards per offensive play. The defensive line, which had been a question mark, played exceptionally well.

Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila led the way with three sacks in the game, Jim Flanigan and Vonnie Holliday also chipped in with two sacks a piece. A vast improvement from last year's defensive line performance. Also, the "slimmed down" Gilbert Brown also showed that he indeed belongs back in the NFL after a year off by taking on double teams to free up teammates.

As for the inevitable assessment of the replacement referees. Overall, they did an exceptional job. No real glaring mistakes, although there were a few extremely late flags, but again it's just week one and the refs are probably still adjusting to the speed of NFL play. The only real mistake by the refs cost the Packers a defensive touchdown. Bernardo Harris dove on a Batch fumble, didn't get touched, got up, and rumbled into the end zone. The refs ruled him down at the point of the recovery. Nobody's perfect!

All in all, if the Packers can continue to run the ball and play defense the way they did in this game, the other areas of the team should fall into place and they should have a respectable season. I'm not going to say they are going to the Super Bowl after one game, but, the possibility of the playoffs seems a little more realistic. GO PACK!

Article courtesy of ProFootballFanatics.com.