By Adam Roberts – 10/26/2020
Some people leading up to the Packers’ road trip to Houston this week looked back to last season’s two games immediately following the bye for hope of a repeat. If you recall, Green Bay came out of the Week 11 bye with an embarrassing 37-8 defeat in San Francisco, then traveled to the Meadowlands and got a nice rebound win over the Giants 31-13.
This year, the script played out the same way, just a slightly different time window and with different opponents; Green Bay came out of their Week Five bye and lost embarrassingly 38-10 to Tampa Bay, then responded yesterday with a 35-20 win at a bad Houston team, and in honesty it was really a 35-13 win if you don’t count the garbage time TD.
The star of the game was also someone who needed a big rebound game. Wide receiver Davante Adams didn’t have an awful game against the Bucs, catching six Rodgers passes for 61 yards, but it was far from the performance required of a WR1 to push a team to victory. This week was the total opposite; 13 catches for 196 yards and two scores. He also was the recipient of a throwback Rodgers moment on an absolute dime of a toss over Adams’ shoulder.
Apparently, that first quarter grab was even more difficult than we realized. “When you get in some of these domes, [the] ball’s in the light line for awhile” Adams said on his beaut of a snag. “Could not see the ball until it basically touched my hands…you know that’s just credit to Aaron for throwing [a] ball that I can catch without seeing.” Adams also noted that the Houston secondary was not instructed by defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver to double him up throughout the game, and that helped open up his game even more.
Green Bay is back home this week to host the 1-5 Minnesota Vikings, who had a bye this weekend.
INJURY REPORT
Green Bay was without both left tackle David Bakhtiari and starting running back Aaron Jones this week, but you would’ve hardly noticed watching the game. Rodgers was only hit once and not sacked at all, while Jamaal Williams handled things fine running the ball for 77 yards and a score on a day that the Rodgers-Adams connection was handling things just fine. Tight end Robert Tonyan did play yesterday, as did linebacker Preston Smith and defensive lineman Montravius Adams.