The Packers sure had a funny way of exacting vengeance last night.
Randall Cobb might want to work on his pregame predictions, because his Green Bay teammates were so pumped up by the wide receiver’s vow of revenge on the Giants they went out and got pummeled virtually from the opening kickoff in a 38-10 rout at MetLife Stadium.
Cobb told NBC before the game — and stood behind afterward — that the Packers planned “vengeance” for their crushing playoff loss to Big Blue at Lambeau Field in January, but the result was just another nightmare for Aaron Rodgers & Co.
And the mauling was so relentless — and so out of character for a red-hot Packers team that came in riding a five-game winning streak — it bordered on the surreal.
“They just kicked our [butt] all the way around,” Green Bay guard Josh Sitton said in a ghostly quiet postgame locker room. “It sucks, and it’s embarrassing.”
The role of Rodgers — sporting a mustache for “Movember,” a monthlong campaign for men’s health awareness — looked like it was being played by an imposter. The league’s reigning MVP completed just 14 of his 25 passes for 219 yards and one touchdown while being sacked five times by a rejuvenated Giants pass rush before coach Mike McCarthy gave garbage time to backup Graham Harrell with five minutes left.
Rodgers, who has now been sacked an NFL-high 37 times, also threw an ugly interception and lost a fumble on a second-quarter strip sack by Osi Umenyiora.
“I’ve never been on this side of this kind of loss before,” Rodgers said. “Hopefully, we’ll remember this feeling and not have this kind of embarrassment ever again. We’re better than this, and we’ll regroup.”
To be fair, the Packers’ offensive line is depleted and they were playing without eight starters, including one of their top offensive weapons (wide receiver Greg Jennings) and their best defensive player (linebacker Clay Matthews). Even that does not fully explain such a total beatdown.
“It was two great teams going against each other, and one of them didn’t show up,” tight end Jermichael Finley said.
That Green Bay’s three previous losses this season had been by 13 points combined should tell you how thoroughly unexpected this epic flop was for Mike McCarthy’s club.
The Packers had not scored fewer than 12 points in a game Rodgers finished since the 2010 regular-season finale and had done that just twice since Rodgers took over the starting job from Brett Favre five years ago — until last night.
Not only that, but Green Bay came in having scored 206 points in its previous seven games, a 29.4-point average that ranked among the top five in the NFL. And the Packers were 6-1 in their previous seven Sunday night games.
The Packers at least made it look like this would be a shootout early as Rodgers hit Jordy Nelson for a 61-yard bomb down the right sideline over a badly fooled Corey Webster on Green Bay’s fourth play from scrimmage to tie the game at 7-7.
But the Packers turned into road kill after Rodgers was intercepted by Webster later in the first quarter and went into halftime down 31-10 — their largest deficit of the season.