Armour: Packers save season with Hail Mary against Lions

DETROIT — The Super Bowl tops them all, of course. That fourth-down pass to Randall Cobb that put the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs after the 2013 season was pretty special, too.

Now add to the list this, the 61-yard Hail Mary that not only won Thursday's game for the Packers but might very well have saved their season, too.

“It’s the greatest feeling,” Aaron Rodgers said, still grinning after the Packers' improbable rally from 20 points down to stun the Detroit Lions 27-23. “… You live for days like this, to be able to have a chance at the end and then have something miraculous happen.”

Miraculous doesn’t begin to describe it. For the entire first half, the Packers were inept, with so many things going wrong that coach Mike McCarthy could have been forgiven for checking the bench for locusts and frogs.

Before the first quarter was out, they were down 17 points to the Lions. Yes, the Lions, the team that started the year 1-7 and has had two winning seasons over the last 14 years. Already down two starters on the offensive line, T.J. Lang and Bryan Bulaga, they lost another when Corey Linsley re-injured his ankle.

The drops and inconsistencies that have plagued them during a rocky five-week stretch, they were on fully display, too.

But the beauty of sports is how quickly things can change. One series, one play, one throw and a script can get rewritten.

“This counts as one win,” McCarthy said. “But it feels like more.”

The Packers went into training camp a trendy pick for the Super Bowl. Jordy Nelson’s season-ending knee injury was a serious blow, but so long as they had Rodgers they had enough weapons to still make it work.

It did for the first two months. Green Bay won its first six games and, with the Seattle Seahawks, Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles struggling, the Packers were the team to beat.

And then the wheels came off. There was a loss to the Denver Broncos that was even uglier than the score indicated. Next, there was the loss at the Carolina Panthers that could be costly come January. And the slump was capped by a stunning upset at Lambeau Field by Detroit, which hadn’t won in Green Bay since 1991.

A victory over the Minnesota Vikings was supposed to get the Packers back in a rhythm. Four days later on Thanksgiving, they lost at home to the Chicago Bears, spoiling Brett Favre and Bart Starr’s emotional return to Lambeau.

Already a game behind Minnesota in the NFC North, a loss at Detroit would put them in playoff bubble territory, with nothing to indicate they’d be digging themselves out of the hole anytime soon.

“We knew we just kind of needed to make one play,” Rodgers said. “In those situations where you’re really struggling on offense, there’s sometimes just one play that kind of galvanizes the team and gets you going in the right direction.”

Rodgers said that play was tight end Richard Rodgers’ 26-yard catch on third-and-10 midway through the quarter to extend what would be Green Bay’s first scoring drive. But everyone knows it was that other long pass to Richard Rodgers.

Getting the ball back with only 23 seconds left, there was time for three plays. The first two fell incomplete.

The third looked like something one of the Rodgers had resurrected from the Cal playbook, with Aaron Rodgers connecting with James Jones, who lateraled to Richard Rodgers, who lateraled back to Aaron Rodgers.

But then the Packers seemed to run out of plays and out of hope - until Lions defensive end Devin Taylor reached out and pulled Rodgers down by his facemask.

Games can’t end on penalties, so the Packers were gifted one last chance. With the ball at his own 39, Rodgers knew he needed to give his receivers time to get to the end zone. He scrambled to buy time, moved outside to his right and let then let fly.

In the end zone scrum, Richard Rodgers – a basketball player in high school – outjumped everyone to snag the ball out of the air.

“I bet the statistic was over 99% we weren’t going to win that game,” Aaron Rodgers said, grinning again. “Just takes a little miracle like that.”

Rodgers sprinted toward the end zone with his hands in the air while the Packers bench streamed onto the field. It’s the kind of celebration you don’t normally see in the regular season but, given that’s likely as far as the Packers season would have gone without this win, it was understandable.

“It’s a division win,” McCarthy said. “It’s an important win.”

It doesn’t fix the many problems the Packers have, of course. They are still wildly inconsistent offensively, as evidenced by the two halves Thursday. The receivers aren’t getting open and they may as well be allergic to downfield.

The running game is either feast or famine, and Eddie Lacy appears to be back in the doghouse again. The offensive line looks more like a MASH unit.

But they have hope. Even better than that, they once again have a chance.

Follow Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.

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