The Green Bay Packers somehow managed to avoid their first 0-2 start in two decades on Sunday, rallying from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to eke out a miraculous 20-17 overtime victory over the New York Jets in a game where everything that could have gone wrong, seemed to. 

Well, at least until the extra period, when the Packers won it on rookie kicker Trey Smack’s 26-yard field goal with 5 minutes, 23 seconds left in OT.

The win snapped the Packers’ six-game losing streak that included five straight losses (counting the team’s season-ending playoff loss to the Chicago Bears) to end last year and last Sunday’s season-opening loss to the Minnesota Vikings.

Following their season-opening fourth-quarter collapse in their 39-22 loss to the Vikings, the Packers overcame injuries and penalties to leave MetLife Stadium at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J. at 1-1, avoiding back-to-back losses to start the year that would have matched the 2006 team’s 0-2 start under then first-year head coach Mike McCarthy.

Here are three things that stood out from the Packers’ desperately needed W:

1️⃣ M*A*S*H. St. Elsewhere. ER. The Pitt. Those popular medical-based television dramas have got nothing on the Packers’ current injury situation.

With a pair of starters suffering serious injuries on back-to-back plays on the Packers’ opening offensive series and having to be carted off the field — wide receiver Jayden Reed sustained a neck injury and right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele suffered a right knee injury in the span of the Packers’ first three plays — the day couldn’t have started much worse from an injury perspective.

And then, it somehow got worse.

Before the half was over, the Packers had also lost left guard Aaron Banks to a toe injury (after he’d missed last Sunday’s opener at Minnesota because of tendinitis in his troublesome left knee) and an already thin defensive tackle group lost first-year interior lineman Anthony Campbell to an ankle injury.

During the second half, the Packers lost offensive lineman Donovan Jennings, who took over for the injury Banks, to a hand injury and wide receiver Bo Melton to a stinger.

With Jennings’ departure, rookie fifth-round pick Jager Burton took over at left guard — making the Packers’ fourth-quarter offensive line: Jordan Morgan at left tackle, Burton at left guard, Sean Rhyan at center, Jacob Monk at right guard and Anthony Belton at right tackle.

Reed suffered a broken collarbone in Week 2 last season and underwent surgeries to repair his collarbone and the Jones fracture he’d suffered in his foot during training camp. He wound up missing 10 games before returning to action.

Bako-Bewele suffered a season-ending partially torn patellar tendon in his right knee last December and was limited throughout training camp but was able to start last Sunday’s opener at Minnesota. His injury Sunday was to the same knee, and his leg was placed in an air cast before he was carted off.

Late in the third quarter, quarterback Jordan Love fumbled when his right (throwing) hand was hit as he was scrambling and cameras caught him shaking out his hand before head athletic trainer Nate Weir was seen working on Love’s right hand/wrist while the Packers defense was on the field (giving up the go-ahead touchdown). The injury didn’t knock Love out of the game but it did appear to affect him on the third down incompletion intended for Christian Watson on the ensuing series.

Watson then left the game with 1:11 to go when he took a hard hit to the midsection on an incomplete pass across the middle but returned after missing only one snap.

2️⃣ The Packers might’ve had a legitimate gripe about the three third-down penalties called on their defense during the Vikings’ go-ahead touchdown drive last week. On Sunday, they had no one to blame but themselves for the flag-fest the game became.

At one point in the first quarter on Sunday, the Packers had as many penalties (six, four of which had been accepted) as they had net offensive yards. And much like their injury woes, things only got worse thereafter.

A week after committing 12 penalties for 98 yards in their loss to the Vikings, the Packers racked up an astonishing 14 penalties for 133 yards, including some truly boneheaded, avoidable flags.

That performance gave the Packers more penalties in the first two weeks of the season (26) than they’d ever had in the first two games of any season in the 85 years that full penalty data has been available, according to ESPN. The Packers’ previous record was 22, set in 1947.

Three other Packers penalties were either declined or nullified.

One of those penalties that did not count also cost the Packers a touchdown with 8:41 left in the game: A 7-yard Love scramble for a touchdown was wiped out by a holding penalty on Belton. The Jets also committed a penalty — an unnecessary roughness flag on linebacker Jamien Sherwood for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Love as he crossed the goal line — and two plays later, Love hit Watson for a 3-yard touchdown to cut the lead to 17-14.

3️⃣ Lukas Van Ness started the week in the NFL’s concussion protocol. He finished it with a flourish.

Missing extended time last season with a foot injury, Van Ness had just two sacks and four quarterback hits. Through two games, he’s already surpassed those totals — and delivered an enormous fourth-and-1 stuff of running back Braelon Allen with 1:15 left in the game that led to overtime.

Needing their 2023 first-round draft pick to step up with star Micah Parsons out for at least the first four games as he works his way back from last year’s season-ending torn ACL, Van Ness has done just that — and did so on Sunday after notifying the team’s medical staff on Monday that he’d been experiencing concussion-related symptoms in the wake of last week’s loss to the Vikings.

Not only did he have four tackles, a sack, a tackle for loss and a quarterback hit against the Vikings last week, he had nine tackles, 1.5 sacks, three tackles for loss and four quarterback hits on Sunday.

Van Ness did get flagged for roughing the passer late in the third quarter to help fuel the Jets’ go-ahead touchdown drive, but his stuff of Allen more than atoned for it.

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