Game day has finally arrived, and the NFC North remains ripe for the taking

The Packers had a longer-than-normal wait between last week's blowout loss and Monday's tilt with the Lions. Meanwhile, the rest of the NFC North had a rough Week 2.

Good morning!

With the Green Bay Packers not taking the field until later today, The Leap turned its attention to the rest of the NFC North. The Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears have already played in Week 2, and those games raised more questions than answers. We'll tackle those subjects today and address the Packers and Detroit Lions following tonight's game.

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At 0-2, is the Vikings' season already over?

Jason B. Hirschhorn: Largely because of factors beyond the Minnesota Vikings' control, their season still has some life remaining. At present, their division has a single win between the four teams — the Chicago Bears narrowly avoided a come-from-ahead defeat to the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday — and will finish Week 2 with no more than two victories. That puts the Vikings in striking distance of whichever team holds the NFC North lead come Tuesday morning.

However, those circumstances only mean so much considering the Vikings' performance through two weeks. While the offense has put together four combined quarters of solid play, the defense looks more lost than at any time under head coach Mike Zimmer's watch. Minnesota might find its footing sometime during the middle of the year as it did in 2020, but that probably won't come in time for a playoff run given the current 0-2 hole. As things currently stand, the Vikings seem closer to an in-season coach firing than a playoff berth.

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Peter Bukowski: Yep. This Vikings squad didn’t look like a playoff team before the year and even a valiant effort against the Cardinals (arguably the fourth-best team in the NFC West) doesn’t change that. Also, they lost.

The defense still can’t get timely stops because the pass rush isn’t deep or diverse enough. Offensively, Kirk Cousins and Co. showed much more fight than we saw in Week 1, but they couldn’t match Kyler Murray and the Cardinals, particularly in crunch time.

Mike Zimmer will look much better as the future DC for the Packers.

Should the Saints struggling in Week 2 affect how the Packers should feel about Week 1?

JBH: No, but that says more about the randomness of September than anything else. Every season brings surprisingly early results. Some, like the Houston Texans' Week 1 shellacking at the hands of the Kansas City Chiefs in 2020, didn't seem shocking at all by the time Bill O'Brien lost his job. Others, like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 38-3 loss to the New Orleans Saints the same week, barely registered as a footnote when Tom Brady and company raised the Lombardi Trophy at the end of the season.

The Saints looked like a great team last week and will probably perform like one again. They have a talented roster with a brilliant head coach and a talented but wildly inconsistent quarterback. On the right day, that team will destroy good competition. It will also manage just 128 yards from scrimmage as Week 2's defeat to the Carolina Panthers attests.

For the Packers, neither outcome carries much weight yet. The Saints will need to play at least another month before anyone can render a proper judgment. The same goes for the Packers, who might well resemble Super Bowl front-runners again depending on tonight's game.

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PB: Not one iota. Sure, the Saints looking listless about the Panthers will lead some to conclude the Packers just aren’t very good. Don’t listen to those people.

Green Bay came out flat against an unscouted offense and played poorly. Offensively, they got no run game going and never got a chance to get into the flow of the game because the defense couldn’t get off the field. Those two play an integral relationship with one another, but also the Packers found some success blitzing Jameis in ways the Panthers also managed, but the game was too out of hand the Green Bay offense couldn’t come up with any counters for the Packers.

There’s a case that the loss for the Saints makes this Green Bay team looks worse, but if the Packers take care of the Lions, there won’t be much at all to take away from Week 1, and that game will only look weirder as the season progresses.

What we're hearing/seeing

JBH: In Week 2 of the 2020 season, an injury to a veteran starting quarterback opened the door for a highly drafted signal-caller to take the reins earlier than originally anticipated. That rookie, Justin Herbert, transformed the Los Angeles Chargers' short- and long-term potential and likely altered the NFL landscape in the process.

A similar story has unfolded in Chicago where Justin Fields looks likely to get his first NFL start following a knee injury to starter Andy Dalton. Since training camp, it became clear Dalton had a tenuous grip on the job and would yield it at some point early in the season. Still, Bears head coach Matt Nagy insisted on playing the 11-year vet despite Fields giving the team the better chance to win.

Fields did not play especially well after taking over for Dalton on Sunday, finishing a ghastly 6-of-13 for 60 yards and an interception. However, with a week taking all the reps with the No. 1 offense and working with a game plan designed with him in mind, Fields should look considerably better in next week's matchup with the Cleveland Browns.

This might well prove the turning point for the Bears. Before Fields, they have never drafted a quarterback with his pedigree in the Super Bowl era: a premier high-school recruit with a top-10 finish in the Heisman Trophy voting and an appearance in the National Championship Game. Fields' physical talent towers over that of every Chicago signal-caller during that span as well. If any prospect can break from the franchise's dreadful track record with quarterbacks, it's Fields.

The Packers play the Bears in four weeks. At that point, Fields should have some real NFL experience under his belt and the coaching staff will presumably open the playbook accordingly. Even if Green Bay has the better roster, Chicago might finally have a talent under center capable of overcoming the deficiency.

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PB: People around the league have not given up on the Packers defense.

“That defense is gonna finish the year top-10,” said one league source. After dissecting the defense, I think there’s more hope than one might expect after Week 1, particularly after the Saints looked more than human in Week 2 against a less-than-stellar Panthers defense.

Some miscommunication in the secondary can be ironed out and the Packers front did a solid job against Jameis Winston with Kenny Clark and Rashan Gary created a decent amount of pressure in Week 1.

Beating pressure is not something teams can rely on week in and week out, but created it consistently is something a defense can hang its hat on moving forward. Even without Za’Darius Smith, the Packers have a chance, with their three best guys, to disrupt opposing passers enough to give the defense a chance assuming the offense doesn’t leave them out to dry.

Parting shots

JBH: Tonight's tilt doesn't quite qualify as a must-win game for Green Bay, but it comes awfully close. Just as the Vikings' winless record through two weeks has put them on life support, the Packers would find themselves in dire straits should they fall to the Lions on Monday Night Football. Not only would a loss put them in the perilous "0-2mbstone" category, but both defeats would also have come within the conference.

And the upcoming schedule does few favors for the Packers, who travel west to take on the San Francisco 49ers on a short week before returning home for a tilt with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Including tonight's matchup with Detroit, Green Bay can win each and all of those games, but it can also realistically lose all of them. And it takes little imagination to see an 0-2 start snowballing into something bigger.

But the Packers enter Week 2 as a double-digit favorite for a reason. The Lions could take all their best swings and, by itself, that wouldn't prove enough to overcome the superior home team. Barring an injury or Green Bay beating itself, the team should even out its record tonight.

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PB: Double-digit favorites rule. In Week 1, only the Browns and Bucs boasted betting numbers over a pure touchdown. Both won outright, though Cleveland struggled to put the Texans away until after Tyrod Taylor got hurt. The Packers bring an 11-point (or more) advantage on the markets into Monday Night Football where Aaron Rodgers has never lost at home.

Maybe you think the points are too generous. I think that may be true. But if Green Bay has any chance of being a Super Bowl contender, they win Monday night and do so in convincing fashion.

But there are no pictures on the scorecard. Just beat the Lions and enjoy first place in the NFC North.