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Green Bay — This game has been marked on Letroy Guion’s calendar for a very long time.

Months ago, before the nose tackle hit the free agent market, he said he was offered a contract by the Minnesota Vikings. Guion had played six seasons with the Vikings. He thought he had built up enough sweat equity to warrant a decent multi-year contract.

The Vikings made their offer. And Guion didn’t like it.

“That was kind of driving me tonight, to get out there. They tried to low-ball me,” said Guion, who was released on March 6 by the team. “It is what it is now. I’m with a great team, great organization, great players, great fans, everything is great about Green Bay and I’m just going to be great with Green Bay.”

And in Green Bay’s 42-10 defensive onslaught, Guion enjoyed one of the best games of his career. The nose tackle finished with four tackles, 1.5 sacks and three total quarterback hits. It hasn’t been a smooth first five games for the veteran in place of B.J. Raji — the run defense was smashed at Seattle and Chicago. But the 6-foot-4, 315-pounder showed Thursday that he can offer something past wide bodies up front haven’t, extra pop in the pass rush.

Even after Datone Jones left with an ankle injury, the pass rush kept on surging.

For Guion, this game absolutely carried something extra.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “There’s always a little extra when you’re facing your former team. You’re going to be juiced up. You’re going to be ready to go. You want to get out there and play your best.”

After crunching Christian Ponder on one sack, Guion clenched his fists and leaned his head back with a yelp for multiple gyrations.

There’s no name for the dance yet. He’s working on it.

“It seems like people like it,” Guion said. “Teammates were giving me props on it. I’ll give it a name soon and see where it goes from there.”

Feeling insulted by Minnesota’s offer, Guion went on to visit with New England and Green Bay in free agency and chose the Packers. After missing nearly all of training camp with a hamstring injury, he was thrown into Week 1 as the starter and struggled while playing too high. Steadily, working rust off, he said he's been feeling more comfortable in the defense.

Teammate Luther Robinson noticed a tangible difference in Guion through the week of practice up to Thursday.

Said the rookie, “He was keeping us up the whole week, actually. He came out with a lot of energy and we tried to play off his energy.”

And he played accordingly. Guion hopes he (and the defense as a whole) turned a corner Thursday night.

The Packers forced three turnovers on three straight possessions in the second quarter to turn a 14-0 game into an all-out rout. One major reason Green Bay decided to go with more athletic, limber defensive linemen was to create such big plays, turnovers.

“At the time, we were attacking them from every angle,” Guion said. “That’s what you want to do — disrupt the offense. The defense did a great job. We all worked together. We all played hard and came out with this big victory.

“The defense is starting to pick up. We’re starting to play hard-nosed defense in there and that’s what it’s all about — everybody playing as one, getting turnovers, disrupting the offense. That’s what we have to do looking forward here.”

Green Bay didn’t pay Guion a ton itself over the off-season. He signed at one year, $985,000 with the hopes of a multi-year deal next spring.

He just thought the Vikings would show a commitment, and they did not. Now, he gets to play them.

“It is what it is now,” Guion said. “I’m here. I’m not there anymore. I like being a Packer. It feels great to be a Packer.”