That’s all for today.

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Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press file photo

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers leads running backs John Kuhn (30) and Ryan Grant (25) onto Soldier Field last weekend in their victory at Chicago.

Running low on time today, i’ll be back tomorrow hopefully with some more news.

GREEN BAY, Wis. — A Super Bowl hangover and the NFL lockout weren’t about to slow down Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. The New Orleans Saints couldn’t keep up.

Rodgers came out on top in a memorable opening-night duel with Drew Brees, and the Packers made a goal-line stand on the final play of the game to beat the Saints 42-34 Thursday night.

Packers rookie Randall Cobb caught a touchdown from Rodgers and ran a kickoff back 108 yards for a score in the third quarter — tying a league record for the longest kickoff return in history.

Rodgers threw for 312 yards and three touchdowns.

“It’s a good night for us,” Rodgers said. “I felt good about the way that I was throwing the ball. Missed a couple I probably could have hit.”

Brees passed for 419 yards and three touchdowns, including one to Jimmy Graham that closed out the scoring with 2:15 left.

But Brees put more emphasis on a statistic other than passing yardage.

“The biggest stat for us that’s disappointing is our red-zone efficiency. We were one of five,” Brees said. “That’s not going to win you a lot of games, especially on the road in this type of environment against this team.”

After a Green Bay punt, Brees marched the Saints to the Packers’ 9-yard line and spiked the ball with three seconds left. Green Bay’s A.J. Hawk was called for pass interference and the ball was placed at the 1.

Led by Clay Matthews and safety Morgan Burnett, the Packers’ defense swarmed Saints rookie running back Mark Ingram short of the goal line and the game was over.

“You’ve got to get a yard,” Ingram said. “It’s goal line to win the game, got to get a yard.”

Of the final-play drama, Matthews said, “It’s not what you envision. Obviously, you’d love to have a blowout. But I think it represents everything that we preach, which is finishing games. And it comes down to the very last play — we win, or they have an opportunity to tie it up. I think it’s fantastic to overcome that adversity, get the stop that we needed and get off the field with the victory.”

It was a big night for the Packers’ Donald Driver, who tied James Lofton’s franchise mark for career yards receiving with 9,656.

Rodgers wanted to get him the record at home.

“We tried to get him the ball again, we just didn’t have an opportunity,” Rodgers said.

Cobb’s big return gave the Packers a 35-20 lead, but the game wasn’t over. Darren Sproles answered with a long kickoff return of his own, and Brees drove the Saints for a 29-yard touchdown to Devery Henderson.

The Saints forced a punt and moved to the Packers’ 7-yard line, but failed on a fourth-down conversion attempt and gave the ball back to the Packers.

Green Bay drove again, and Rodgers handed the ball to John Kuhn on third-and-goal for a 1-yard touchdown and a 42-27 lead early in the fourth quarter.

If Thursday’s game was a referendum on the importance of player-led team workouts during the lockout, the results are in: The workouts Brees organized over the summer weren’t enough to help the Saints take down the champions, and the Packers’ decision not to get together as a team didn’t seem to hurt them.

“That stuff does not have a major impact on the game,” Rodgers said.

For the NFL, Thursday’s opener was a chance to stamp out lingering memories of a tumultuous offseason filled with tense and ugly — but ultimately successful — labor negotiations.

That’s all the news for today.

GREEN BAY, Wis. — A Super Bowl hangover and the NFL lockout weren’t about to slow down Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. The New Orleans Saints couldn’t keep up.

Rodgers came out on top in a memorable opening-night duel with Drew Brees, and the Packers made a goal-line stand on the final play of the game to beat the Saints 42-34 Thursday night.

Packers rookie Randall Cobb caught a touchdown from Rodgers and ran a kickoff back 108 yards for a score in the third quarter — tying a league record for the longest kickoff return in history.

Rodgers threw for 312 yards and three touchdowns.

“It’s a good night for us,” Rodgers said. “I felt good about the way that I was throwing the ball. Missed a couple I probably could have hit.”

Brees passed for 419 yards and three touchdowns, including one to Jimmy Graham that closed out the scoring with 2:15 left.

But Brees put more emphasis on a statistic other than passing yardage.

“The biggest stat for us that’s disappointing is our red-zone efficiency. We were one of five,” Brees said. “That’s not going to win you a lot of games, especially on the road in this type of environment against this team.”

After a Green Bay punt, Brees marched the Saints to the Packers’ 9-yard line and spiked the ball with three seconds left. Green Bay’s A.J. Hawk was called for pass interference and the ball was placed at the 1.

Led by Clay Matthews and safety Morgan Burnett, the Packers’ defense swarmed Saints rookie running back Mark Ingram short of the goal line and the game was over.

“You’ve got to get a yard,” Ingram said. “It’s goal line to win the game, got to get a yard.”

Of the final-play drama, Matthews said, “It’s not what you envision. Obviously, you’d love to have a blowout. But I think it represents everything that we preach, which is finishing games. And it comes down to the very last play — we win, or they have an opportunity to tie it up. I think it’s fantastic to overcome that adversity, get the stop that we needed and get off the field with the victory.”

It was a big night for the Packers’ Donald Driver, who tied James Lofton’s franchise mark for career yards receiving with 9,656.

Rodgers wanted to get him the record at home.

“We tried to get him the ball again, we just didn’t have an opportunity,” Rodgers said.

Cobb’s big return gave the Packers a 35-20 lead, but the game wasn’t over. Darren Sproles answered with a long kickoff return of his own, and Brees drove the Saints for a 29-yard touchdown to Devery Henderson.

The Saints forced a punt and moved to the Packers’ 7-yard line, but failed on a fourth-down conversion attempt and gave the ball back to the Packers.

Green Bay drove again, and Rodgers handed the ball to John Kuhn on third-and-goal for a 1-yard touchdown and a 42-27 lead early in the fourth quarter.

If Thursday’s game was a referendum on the importance of player-led team workouts during the lockout, the results are in: The workouts Brees organized over the summer weren’t enough to help the Saints take down the champions, and the Packers’ decision not to get together as a team didn’t seem to hurt them.

“That stuff does not have a major impact on the game,” Rodgers said.

For the NFL, Thursday’s opener was a chance to stamp out lingering memories of a tumultuous offseason filled with tense and ugly — but ultimately successful — labor negotiations.

That’s all for today guys, i’ll be back to blog you tomorrow.

Game 1

Packers 27, Eagles 20

PHILADELPHIA — Aaron Rodgers threw a pair of touchdown passes, Mason Crosby kicked a team-record 56-yard field goal and Green Bay won despite a vintage performance by Philadelphia’s Michael Vick.

In their first game since trading Donovan McNabb to Washington, the Eagles started with Kevin Kolb and finished with Vick. Kolb left with a concussion at halftime, so Vick played meaningful snaps for an extended period for the first time in nearly four years.

Vick, a three-time Pro Bowl quarterback during six seasons in Atlanta, invigorated an offense that was awful in the first half. He finished with 175 yards passing and ran for 103, but could not overcome a 20-3 deficit.

___

Game 2

Packers 34, Bills 7

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Clay Matthews had three sacks to lead a Green Bay’s dominant defense and Aaron Rodgers threw for two TDs and scrambled for another for the Packers.

Rodgers threw for 255 yards, with touchdowns to Donald Driver and James Jones. He also ran 9 yards for a score.

Linebacker Brandon Chillar and rookie safety Morgan Burnett intercepted Trent Edwards and the Packers (2-0) held the Bills (0-2) to 186 yards of total offense.

Edwards was 11 of 18 for 102 yards.

___

Game 3

Bears 20, Packers 17

CHICAGO — Jay Cutler threw for 221 yards, Brian Urlacher forced a key fumble and Chicago took advantage of a team-record-tying 17 penalties by the Packers to beat Green Bay 20-17.

© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

That’s all the news for today.

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Dom Capers inherited a defensive mess two years ago, taking over a Green Bay Packers unit that gave up big plays in bunches and couldn’t hold late leads.

Now they’re one of the best in the league.

In the space of two seasons, the former Carolina and Houston head coach has imposed his version of the 3-4 defense on a team used to playing a 4-3. Although there were a handful of complaints from players early on, the Packers played well in the transition last season — and they’re dominating this season, despite losing several significant players to injury.

Going into tonight’s playoff game at Atlanta, defensive lineman Ryan Pickett says Capers has wiped away any memories of the Packers’ past defensive shortcomings. Green Bay was No. 2 in points allowed this season, trailing only Pittsburgh.

‘We’re a totally different defense,” Pickett said. ‘Going into last week, nobody even thought about ’08, whatever year it was. We didn’t even think about it. We’re a completely different defense. It’s hard to score points on us, and that’s just our brand of football.”

The decision to bring in Capers has paid off for Mike McCarthy, an offensive-minded head coach who enjoys hands-on work with quarterbacks.

‘He’s been doing it so long, very detailed, knows exactly what he’s looking for, and I think that’s really the true mark of an excellent coach,” McCarthy said. ‘You have the vision, and (stay) true to that vision and make sure you do not get off the path to accomplish what you want. I just think the success we’ve had in the two years is a big credit to Dom.”

Capers is enjoying the journey.

‘It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. ‘This year’s been especially rewarding because of the number of new guys we’ve had step in, have done it the right way, applied themselves, and gone out and had success.”

The Packers have 15 players on injured reserve, including three defensive starters. Several other key defensive players have missed time because of injuries.

Capers still has plenty of talent; cornerback Charles Woodson was The Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year last season, and outside linebacker Clay Matthews is considered a favorite to win the award this season.

Tramon Williams is one of the league’s best young cornerbacks, Nick Collins is a Pro Bowl safety and Cullen Jenkins has made big plays as a 3-4 defensive end, a position that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle.

But injuries have allowed backups to flourish under Capers:

–Linebacker Desmond Bishop became a starter in the wake of a season-ending wrist injury to starter Nick Barnett. Bishop has played so well that the team recently extended his contract.

–Safety Charlie Peprah has stepped into a starting role after a season-ending injury to rookie safety Morgan Burnett and has played solidly all season.

–Undrafted free agent rookie Frank Zombo became a starter when outside linebacker Brad Jones was lost for the season. When Zombo got hurt, Capers plugged in midseason free agent signing Erik Walden, who was NFC defensive player of the week after their regular season finale.

‘Our scheme’s changed a lot based off of who we’ve been putting out there,” Capers said. ‘It’s changed from one week to the next. And that’s been a big challenge for us, in terms of, ‘What are we going to do this week if we’re missing this and this and this guy?’”

Bishop says Capers’ experience and mastery of the details of his defense are his strongest assets as a coach.

‘Sometimes, I sit back and watch him watch how things are supposed to work, and if something’s not right, he’ll definitely get it fixed,” Bishop said. ‘The way he sees the way it’s supposed to go, it’s at a total different speed than anybody else. Just his knowledge of how it’s supposed to work is his biggest strength. I, one day, can hopefully see it how he sees it, and that would raise my game like 10-fold.”

Given how well the Packers’ defense has performed, there has been speculation that Capers would attract interest from teams with head coaching vacancies. While the league-wide trend is toward hiring younger coaches and Capers is 60, his resume is impressive.

But with the Denver Broncos’ decision to hire John Fox on Thursday, it seems more likely that Capers will stay in Green Bay. Capers didn’t want to talk about the specifics of his current contract with the Packers, saying only that he has ‘more time left” on it.

‘I enjoy what I’m doing, I love the challenge, I love our players,” Capers said recently. ‘You get to be close with these guys. I like our staff, I enjoy working for Mike. So I’ll do this as long as I have my health and enjoy what I’m doing. And somebody will have me around.”

Capers said Thursday that he’s focused only on the Falcons.

‘I’ve been so focused in on this game,” Capers said. ‘I just feel like you never know when these opportunities will present themselves or when they’ll come around again. So I really don’t pay any attention to all that stuff. My focus is on finding a way to go to Atlanta and win that football game.”

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GREEN BAY — Dom Capers inherited a defensive mess two years ago, taking over a Green Bay Packers unit that gave up big plays in bunches and couldn’t hold late leads.

Now they’re one of the best in the league.

In the space of two seasons, the former Carolina and Houston head coach has imposed his version of the 3-4 defense on a team used to playing a 4-3.

Although there were a handful of complaints from players early on, the Packers played well in the transition last season — and they’re dominating this season, despite losing several significant players to injury.

Going into tonight’s playoff game at Atlanta, defensive lineman Ryan Pickett says Capers has wiped away any memories of the Packers’ past defensive shortcomings. Green Bay was No. 2 in points allowed this season, trailing only Pittsburgh.

“We’re a totally different defense,” Pickett said. “Going into last week, nobody even thought about ’08, whatever year it was. We didn’t even think about it. We’re a completely different defense. It’s hard to score points on us, and that’s just our brand of football.”

The decision to bring in Capers has paid off for Mike McCarthy, an offensive-minded head coach who enjoys hands-on work with quarterbacks.

“He’s been doing it so long, very detailed, knows exactly what he’s looking for, and I think that’s really the true mark of an excellent coach,” McCarthy said. “You have the vision, and (stay) true to that vision and make sure you do not get off the path to accomplish what you want. I just think the success we’ve had in the two years is a big credit to Dom.”

Capers is enjoying the journey.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “This year’s been especially rewarding because of the number of new guys we’ve had step in, have done it the right way, applied themselves, and gone out and had success.”

The Packers have 15 players on injured reserve, including three defensive starters. Several other key defensive players have missed time because of injuries.

Capers still has plenty of talent; cornerback Charles Woodson was The Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year last season, and outside linebacker Clay Matthews is considered a favorite to win the award this season.

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Running low on time today, i’ll be back tomorrow hopefully with some more news.

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That’s all the news for today.

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