Not all losses are equal. Losing in the playoffs hurts more than in the regular season.  Losing to a conference rival hurts more than losing an out of conference contest. Losing to the Oakland Raiders hurts more than….well pretty much everything. Watching the best player to have ever worn your team’s colors lead your biggest rival to a 36-28 victory on your home field is a special kind of hurt. Packers fans are dealing with that kind of hurt today and I fear it has made some of the state some pretty weird things.  I actually wanted to say ’silly’ or even ’stupid’, but I’m trying to be kind to Packer Nation today.

There is a lot of blame that can be spread around Packers HQ. The offensive line play continues to be slightly above dreadful. The running game, unless facing the Browns, has been non-existent. The defense has failed to live up to its billing. The one place where criticism is undeserved is at quarterback, but looking around some of the team blogs there seems to be some fire trained on Rodgers as well. It is completely misguided.

Rodgers currently ranks sixth in passing yards, fifth in touchdown passes and has only thrown two interceptions all season. Rodgers has been able to do this even with a running back group that ranks 24th in the NFL in yardage and an offensive line that has given up a league leading 31 sacks (second place has given up 28).

The Packers lost this weekend because the Vikings have the better ground game, offensive line, defense and special teams. The better team won this weekend, but the best quarterback wasn’t Brett Favre.