commentary...

the losses last weekend by the Chicago Bears,San Francisco 49ers,and of course,the New York Giants really did help the Packers,in the NFL playoff seedings... even though the Packers are banged up,because of injury,and the fact that they gave up 210 yards,on 21 carries,to Minnesota Vikings' running back Adrian Peterson,they gave up zero points to the Vikings,in the second half,and made the Vikings' quarterback Christian Ponder try to beat them passing,because of having the football,for about 38 minutes,in the entire game,and the Packers having the lead in the game,the Packers actually allowed their defense to shut down the Vikings' running game,even though Adrian Peterson ran for 210 yards,which was not pretty for the Packers' defense to give up(they gave up 153 yards to Peterson,on only three of those carries),but the Packers' running game(152 yards,on 36 carries,as a group)basically neutralized Peterson,by keeping him on the bench,in the second half... the Bears losing in overtime,to the Seattle Seahawks,in a game that the Bears' defense looked like swiss cheese,in the fourth quarter,and in overtime actually helped the Packers in the NFC North division,by giving the Packers the momentum to try to win the division... the 49ers' offensive implosion,late in the second half,and their erratic field goal kicking in overtime,in losing to the St. Louis Rams,helped the Packers,in the overall playoff seedings... did the 49ers' coach Jim Harbaugh outthink himself,in starting the inexperienced Colin Kaepernick,at quarterback,and looking at the last three minutes plus,and overtime,it looks like that he has,period... the Giants' loss to the Washington Redskins basically gave the Packers a soothing feeling for the stomping they endured(losing 38-10,in their eleventh game in their season,to the Giants),and also did help the team,in the overall playoff seedings... the $64,000 question is:can the Packers take advantage of their good fortune,last weekend,and go deep into this year's playoffs...