Pre Pre-season poll. How many wins.

[Mothman]

I think Ponders turnovers really blew the game open and just made it that much easier to go down the field and pile it on a desperate Vikings D, who really wasnt able to get off the field, what with Ponder soiling himself, but you do raise some good points.

Thanks. I mean no offense but I just don't think that theory of the game matches up well with the actual events. The defense had no reason to be tired at all. They got off the field quickly most of the night, either by forcing 3-and-outs or by giving up quick scores. They forced GB to go 3-and-out on their first possession of the game. On the next two, they gave up 4 play TD drives of 61 and 81 yards, respectively. They weren't on the field long for those either and ALL of that happened before Ponder turned the ball over. If anything, I think it was the defense that put the offense in a bad position. On the road, with an early 14 point deficit, the Vikings offense had to face a noisy crowd and a fired up Packers defense that was able to pin their ears back and attack. Neither Ponder or the Vikings OL handled that well at all in the first half. That led to the turnovers and one of those did lead to a 20 yard TD drive for the Packers so, as you said, the Vikes defense was put in a bad position on that one. However, the next scoring drive they gave up was after halftime and the Vikings had the ball to start the 3rd quarter so the defense should have been well rested at that point too.

In other words, I think you're giving them more credit than they deserve in this case, which is kind of you since you're a Packer fan! That night, they either played well and forced GB to go 3-and-out or they let the Packers march right into the end zone and there wasn't much of anything between those two extremes when Rodgers was in the game. If he was impressed with their defensive capabilities in that game, it might just be because they actually stopped him at times. After all, in the last game he'd played against the Vikings prior to that (in October 2013), the Packers scored on every meaningful possession. They weren't stopped!

[PurpleMustReign]

Here's why I view it as I do: the offense was down by 14 points on the road before they knew what hit them. That was on the defense. The offense did struggle to move the ball in that game but as far as I'm concerned, that was a poor defensive performance from the Vikings. They forced five 3-and-outs when Rodgers was playing so you're remembering correctly that they had some good series. Unfortunately, they allowed 5 TDs in the in the other 5 possessions Rodgers played. To me, even though getting the opposing offense to go 3-and-out on 50% of the possessions including their star quarterback is nice, that achievement is completely undermined when the other 50% of those possessions resulted in TDs (some of them quite easy). I have a hard time seeing a defensive performance like that, in which the defense allowed 35 points in 3 quarters, as anything other than poor. I definitely don't think the Vikes defense went "stride for stride" with GB's offense that night in any truly competitive sense. The Vikes were blown out 42-10 and that had as much to do with their defensive performance as anything else.

Sorry if that response sounds a little strong but that game was the low point of the 2014 season for me and it really bugs me when the offense gets blamed for defensive inadequacy.

It is possible that I blocked out as much of that game as possible and dind't remember how bad it was. I know there were some really bad defensive series for sure. When I think of that game, the two images I have are Peppers running into the endzone and Ponder sucking badly.
With that said, hopefully this is the year we finally figure Rodgers out.