Seahawks, Packers Do Combat
The Green Bay Packers Host the Seattle Seahawks in Divisional
The Seahawks travel to frigid Green Bay to try to upend the National Football Conference's second seed. They've got their work cut out for them.
The first of four interesting and competitive divisional contests in the National Football League kicks off today at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time when the Seattle Seahawks brave the cold confines of Lambeau Field versus the Green Bay Packers.
It’s deliciously ironic that Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren helped construct the Packers dynamo in the 1990s. Now he aims to avenge a heartbreaking loss to Green Bay in the 2004 playoffs. But Green Bay has other ideas.
There’s no question Lambeau Field is not the place you want to play football in during the month of January. Just ask those grizzled veterans of the 1967 Dallas Cowboys. To complicate matters for Seattle, they play their home games under a dome.
Yet, mark my words, the Seahawks will give the Packers a run for their money. Don’t count on a blowout.
"It's a special place to everyone that loves football," Holmgren told reporters. "And we have our work cut out for us.”
That work includes shutting down Green Bay’s running game and feature back Ryan Grant, a distinct possibility in the wake of Seattle’s clamp down on Redskins running back Clinton Portis in last weekend’s playoff contest. Yet the Seahawks’ secondary could be victimized if Packer quarterback Brett Favre is on his game. Green Bay does desperately need wide receiver Donald Driver to find the end zone, something he hasn’t accomplished since Week Three.
Despite the constant pressure Seahawks’ defensive line put on Washington’s Todd Collins last Saturday, don’t expect a repeat performance on the part of Patrick Kerney and Julian Peterson, as they may have rougher going against a deep Packer offensive line.
On Green Bay’s part, Seattle QB Matt Hasselbeck could run amuck aerially by singling out the Packs’ young safeties, Atari Bigby and Nick Collins. They can’t allow Hasselbeck to get into a groove. Expect lots of blitzes, particularly to prevent a reportedly healthy Deion Branch from burning their secondary, and the four-spread wide receiving corps for the Seahawks could be deadly, although Seattle running back Shaun Alexander probably won’t prove to be a major factor in the contest.
Go with the Packers, and expect a score along the lines of, say, 27-20.
