GREEN BAY – Following three games in a span of 12 days, the Packers certainly had earned a weekend off.
The thought is it has done the entire team some good, especially coming in early December after a tough, down-to-the-wire road loss.
"It's a blessing in disguise, playing as many games as we did all in a row," tight end Tucker Kraft said of the extra rest and recovery time after the team returned to the practice field Monday. "Yeah, it was great. Body feels good. We were running around today."
At 9-4, the Packers have fallen out of the NFC North race but are in strong position to earn a wild-card playoff berth with a month to go in the regular season.
That's where the timing of this last break during the long grind could be beneficial.
"Just in order to get ready for the final stretch," Head Coach Matt LaFleur said. "But we're looking no further than what we have in front of us."
That would be another road trip for another primetime contest, this one at Seattle, the NFC West leader at 8-5 following an important road division win at Arizona on Sunday.
The Seahawks have run hot and cold all year and are currently hot, winning four straight after dropping five of six games previously. Improvement in their defense and running game is fueling the current run.
For Green Bay, the run defense has been solid of late, and the offense looks close to hitting its highest gear, but momentary lapses proved costly in last Thursday's 34-31 loss at Detroit.
LaFleur continues to push for his players to focus on "doing the little things the right way" in order to foster a more consistent performance. On the one hand, the Packers don't seem that far off from getting there. On the other, there are 13 games in the books with no more grace period.
"You've got to be dialed in," LaFleur said. "There was a handful of plays in that game, they go a different way and you have a different outcome, but they didn't. You just don't know when those plays are going to come up.
"So you've got to be better, and it's got to be every phase."
If the Packers can get their 10th win this week, it would give them a season sweep of the NFC West and could all but mathematically clinch a playoff spot. Two more wins out of the last four contests – against Seattle, New Orleans, Minnesota and Chicago – almost certainly would do it.
So they're in a good place, but there remains so much in front of them.
"We've still got to take care of business, right?" LaFleur said. "Every one of these games, like I told our team, it's not going to be easy. It's toward the end of the season, so people are going to be clawing and fighting for every game, and it starts this week in Seattle, against a team that is fighting to control their own destiny within their division.
"If we look any further than that, then you get your ass kicked in this league. From here on out, it's gut-check time."
