DETROIT – Well, the Packers know what they're playing for now.
Thursday night's 34-31 loss to the Lions at Ford Field has simplified the playoff picture for Green Bay.
The NFC North is basically out of reach, with 12-1 Detroit up three games on the 9-4 Packers with four games to play. So a wild-card berth is now the aim.
The good news is the Packers are in great shape to earn one. With several NFC wild-card contenders, like the Rams, Cardinals, Falcons and Buccaneers (the latter two are tied for the NFC South lead currently) sitting at six losses, 11 wins would almost assure the Packers of a playoff spot.
Because as soon as any of those six-loss teams pick up a seventh loss, the Packers would guarantee themselves to finish ahead of them with 11 wins.
Not that Green Bay doesn't want to win them all, but two wins over the last four games is a reasonable target. Nothing can be taken for granted, however.
"We have to continue to take it one week at a time like we talk about," quarterback Jordan Love said. "We're trying to finish on the right side and win out … handle business, take it one game at a time and see what happens postseason time."
With any path to the Super Bowl for the Packers likely going through Detroit, a third shot at the Lions is what they realistically have to hope for. But again, nobody's getting ahead of themselves.
"That's a long way away," Head Coach Matt LaFleur said. "If we don't look at what we have right in front of us, we're doing a disservice.
"We have to keep your eyes down and just continue to grind and work to get better and stay together."
The Packers certainly showed they can play with the Lions, considered the consensus best team in the NFC right now.
There was no shame in losing to them at the wire, as frustrating as it was. The Packers took advantage of a banged-up Lions defense to score 24 points on five possessions in the second half to give themselves a chance.
But Green Bay's defense, which was losing players to injuries as the game wore on, couldn't get the key stop in the fourth quarter it needed.
The Packers were forced to keep up, and after a quick rally early in the second half to wipe out a 10-point deficit, they did just that.
"They're a really good offense, but I think we're a really good offense too," Love said. "It was a slow start, we couldn't get going and got down early. We turned it around started to get some of those explosive plays, and I think we're right there with them as an explosive offense.
"It shows how dialed in you have to be all game. The second half I liked the way we responded but it just wasn't good enough."
The Packers are in rebound mode now, as they were a month ago when they lost to the Lions the first time, and they answered with three straight wins.
Fortunately they have a few extra days to regroup from this recent stretch of three games in 12 days. That should prove valuable, especially considering how long the injury list got in Detroit, to push for a strong finish.
"Anytime you're winning a couple games and you lose, it's going to disrupt that momentum," Love said. "It's tough. It's a little bit of adversity but we've handled adversity. We've been here. Had a tough loss early on, a couple, so it's not anything that we haven't seen before. We'll stick together and we'll handle it like any other week.
"We just gotta get back to the drawing board and get back to work."
Rest, recover, respond and resume the playoff push. It was a tough loss, but not a discouraging one by any means.
"All these games from here on out, like I told our team, they're going to come down to situations like this," LaFleur said. "I think we're a really good football team. We're going to get everybody's best shot just like we're going to give everybody our best shot.
"It's just a few plays here and there that really separate these types of games."
