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Over the past couple of weeks, the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line has finally started to find a little bit of cohesion. The first half of the season was spent with the team shuffling players in and out of the lineup, seemingly with different starting fives in each game. Now the team has four of its preferred starters healthy, with a breakout player in Justin McCray contributing in a big way for the one player who is missing.
That group had an excellent day overall against the Bears on Sunday, but overall the line has actually been terrific in the run game all season long. The Packers rank third in the NFL in adjusted line yards in the run game (by Football Outsiders), and are second in the league in fewest run stuffs allowed.
Pass blocking has been a different story on the season, for perhaps the same reason as the run-blocking has been so good: the team is starting guards at the tackle spots. The team’s adjusted sack rate is 25th in the league, certainly not good, but has shown signs of improvement since David Bakhtiari returned.
On the flip side, the Packers’ defensive line ranks eighth in adjusted line yards in the run game, and is a top-ten unit in both power success against and run stuffs. A key component of that success has been second-year nose tackle Kenny Clark, who is doing a terrific job while playing 3⁄4 of the team’s snaps.
In today’s curds, we look at both lines and much more.
What You Might've Missed: Quieting impact players | Packers.com
The Packers' offensive line did an excellent job against Akiem Hicks and Leonard Floyd, and a lot of the credit must go to Jahri Evans and Justin McCray.
Clay Matthews says Green Bay Packers have gotten 'good laugh' out of Martellus Bennett situation | ESPN
Matthews said the locker room is moving on, but the players clearly don't seem to miss Bennett and are focused on the players who are still on the team.
Why Packers re-signed practice squad LB two days after releasing him | Packers Wire
It's a quirk of the NFL's practice squad rules -- Derrick Mathews is a third-year practice squad player, and NFL teams are not allowed to have such players on that list on gameday if they have fewer than 53 players on the active roster.
Packers nose tackle Kenny Clark blossoms after back injury | Packersnews.com
In his first training camp a year ago, Clark’s back injury forced him to focus on his core strength. Then he altered his diet in the offseason to adjust his weight. Now he is a quiet star for the Packers, as our Peter Bukowski discussed earlier this week.
Injuries: Aaron Rodgers takes snaps from trainer | NFL.com
In a roundup of injury news across the league, we have a discussion of Rodgers’ activities at practice yesterday — specifically the fact that he worked with one of the team’s athletic trainers to take some snaps.
Ezekiel Elliott drops his appeal, will serve full 6-game suspension - SBNation.com
Did you see this coming? It seems that everyone was prepared for a continued, lengthy battle about Elliott's status, but now he'll miss the next five games, a critical stretch for a team on the playoff bubble.