The Giants started off the game with a 67 yard touchdown pass to a backup tight end, and that's pretty much how it went for the Green Bay Packers defense all game long. They weren't helped by the absence of a pass rush (only 1 sack). While Eli Manning barely completed over 50% of his passes, he did most of his damage on deep passes to Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz. The Giants ran the ball only 20 times, and averaged 5.0 ypc, but they seemed content to do most of their damage through the air. The only silver lining on a bad day for the defense was Clay Matthews, who had a sack and an interception which he returned for a touchdown.
It wasn't the best game of the season for Aaron Rodgers, but 28 of 46 for 369 yards, 4 touchdowns and only 1 interception is still a career game for some quarterbacks. He didn't complete as many passes as usual because there were a lot of dropped passes, and the Giants were very physical (arguably committing a lot of penalties) against the Packer receivers. Dropped passes were such a problem for the offense, that while Finley and Jennings both had some big catches (and 1 touchdown catch apiece), I'm going to give the nod in the APC poll to Jordy Nelson and Donald Driver, who each caught all four passes thrown their way. Driver had a huge game in his own right (2 touchdown receptions). And so did Nelson with 94 yards receiving, including a huge pass to set up the game winning field goal.
I was very surprised, that with an 8 point lead, the Packers defense actually allowed the game tying touchdown drive (and two-point conversion). Despite their defensive struggles, they have toughened up late in games to prevent game tying scores. But they did leave Rodgers with just under a minute remaining. Three of his last four completions were big ones to Finley, then Nelson, then Jennings, and they set up a short field goal with only 3 seconds remaining.
More on this game at Big Blue View.