Penetrating Green Bay Packers Make Push to Playoffs

On paper, coming into the regular season, one would say the best aspect this Green Bay Packers team was slated to be good at defensively was getting after the passer. Against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the team flashed the ability to finish, netting seven sacks on the day

When starting nose tackle B.J. Raji went down with torn biceps in the preseason, the Packers had to lean on Letroy Guion and Mike Pennel as their big men on the defensive line. Guion, who signed a one-year deal as a free agent, wasn't a splash player, but relative to Pennel, an undrafted rookie, he was the bigger name and the favorite to replace Raji.

At inside linebacker, Green Bay came out with the same usual suspects in the starting lineup, Brad Jones and A.J. Hawk. Thought of as a position of weakness coming into the 2014 offseason, general manager Ted Thompson let the position largely go unaddressed. Fourth-round selection Carl Bradford is an inside linebacker now, but he was drafted and practiced in the preseason as an outside linebacker, until it was evident that unit was very deep.

That's where the strength of the front seven comes in: the outside linebackers.

With Clay Matthews and Julius Peppers starting a majority of the games on the edge, the Packers put out a tandem of former NFC Defensive Player of the Year award winners at the same position. To say the least, not many teams are able to execute that plan, especially at a premier position like pass-rusher.

Even their backups and rotational players were noted as quality performers. Mike Neal, who re-signed in free agency prior to the 2014 season, has put together a nice career since converting from a 4-3 defensive tackle in college. Nick Perry, the third or fourth outside linebacker depending on the game, was a 2013 starter and a former first-round pick. Even reserve player Jayrone Elliott was a preseason standout.

With those edge-rushers put together with Green Bay's starting 3-4 defensive ends, Mike Daniels and Datone Jones, two noted interior pass-rushers, one can see why the personnel matched perfectly with defensive coordinator Dom Capers' mindset. Throwing a bunch of backfield players at the man who in part developed the fire blitz just looked like a whole lot of potential sacks from an outside glance.

Due to one thing or another, though, coming into the game, the Packers had been average at best at producing sacks. Deep at outside linebacker and weak at inside linebacker, Matthews spent a few weeks kicked inside as a starter, but has been back outside the past two weeks. Jones, a second-year first-round selection, missed about a month due to injury, weakening his and Daniels' impact on the defensive line.

Heading into Raymond James Stadium, Green Bay merely had 32 sacks, good for 20th in the league. When they left, though, they had 39, which would have put the squad at sixth in the league coming into the week. 

So, what happened?

In part, you could chalk it up to people being back in the spots they were projected to play in. Jones returning to the starting lineup and Matthews returning to his natural position haven't hurt.

Jones had his first sack since September, netting a half-sack, making this weekend only his fifth with a recorded sack in his nearly two full years as a professional. According to Pro Football Focus, he's the 12th-best pass-rushing 3-4 defensive end, but he's been limited by rotation and injury throughout the season. In the first four weeks of the year, he was in on 32 or more snaps three times, but he has only done so once in the subsequent 10 games charted by the site, including missing four games completely.

In 2014, Matthews hadn't had back-to-back games with multiple sacks until he converted back to an outside linebacker. I'm not sure that's a coincidence. With 2.5 sacks in the box score and four quarterback hits, he was the defender who stole the show on Sunday morning, totaling his best raw result pass-rushing since September of 2012.

Peppers—while slowly declining with 11-, 11.5-, seven- and now five-sack seasons in recent years—registered his first two-sack game of the season against the Buccaneers. Combining with Neal, who has had consistent results of 4.5-, five- and 4.5-sack seasons since he netted only one in his first two years, the Packers showed the world just what a healthy, deep pass rush could do to a team.

In total, Matthews, Peppers, Neal, Daniels, Jones and safety Morgan Burnett got in on tackling the quarterback in the backfield. When including quarterback hits, inside linebackers Jones and Sam Barrington are added to the list.

To juxtapose what the Packers and Buccaneers were playing with, only Michael Johnson, who nearly sent Aaron Rodgers out of the game, had a sack against Green Bay, while defensive lineman Akeem Spence was the only other Buc to register a quarterback hit.

Entering the match, Tampa Bay ranked 18th in sacks with 33 on the year, one better than Green Bay's total. While not a shocking result due to the Buccaneers allowing the seventh-most sacks in the league, with 42 taken prior to the match, no one believed the Packers would dominate in pass defense to this extent, as Greg Auman of the Tampa Bay Times noted after the game.

"

Packers, who had seven sacks vs. Bucs today, had totaled seven sacks in previous four games. Had gotten more than 4 just once this season.

— Greg Auman (@gregauman) December 21, 2014"

According to ESPN Wisconsin's Jason Wilde via to Tom Fanning, a member of Green Bay's front office, the team gave up the fewest yards in a game since late in 2006. In almost every way possible, the Packers just took it to the Buccaneers defensively.

With the playoffs just two weeks away, this is the statement game Green Bay needed. Even if it was against a 2-12 team, flashing the ability to absolutely obliterate an offensive line in both the air and the ground game is exactly what you'd want in a match against an inferior team.

Now that everyone's in their correct positions on the field, now that everyone who's going to be healthy is healthy, it's time to play ball.

Unless noted otherwise, all game scores and information come courtesy of ESPN.com.