U-G-L-Y. Green Bay, you have yourself a first-round bye.

The Packers needed every second of the clock to eke out a win over the Detroit Lions and move to 13-3.

The Lions were down several starters, including Matthew Stafford and second-string quarterback Jeff Driskel. Star cornerback Darius Slay played hurt. Kenny Golladay, the team’s best pass-catcher, left in the first half with a concussion, and the team’s next best options – Marvin Jones, Marvin Hall, and T.J. Hockenson – are all on injured reserve.

The Lions played the quintessential “nothing left to lose” game and almost took down this year’s division champion.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Matt LaFleur and Aaron Rodgers eventually figured out how to attack the Lions and fought their way to a 23-20 victory, enough to guarantee a first-round bye and a second-round home game.

The Packers are 13-3, a mark very few earnestly thought was possible. It’s wasn’t always pretty, but the Packers stayed true to their season-long identity: they find ways to win. Offense, defense, special teams. It doesn’t matter. They struggle forward.

Onto the takeaways:

Missed connections

Aaron Rodgers struggled mightily Sunday. He completed less than 50 percent of his passes. He wound up with over 300 yards passing, but save for a few drives in the second half, the “ugly” of today’s win can be attributed to Rodgers.

Drive after drive, LaFleur and Rodgers would dial up a shot downfield. A few went to Davante Adams. Another went to Allen Lazard. Jake Kumerow. Marquez Valdes-Scantling. It didn’t matter. Despite having more than enough reason to deep-six the deep throw, the Packers persisted. And it almost cost them the game.

Rodgers was simply off today, and it’s perhaps his most-troubling pattern this year that could spell doom in January. The Packers have been unable to create big plays with consistency, and much of that has to do with a lack of cohesion between Rodgers and his receivers on deep balls.

It wasn’t just the poor downfield throws. Rodgers missed several short perimeter throws to Aaron Jones. The yards were there for Jones, but the throws sailed well over his head.

Rodgers didn’t receive any support early – as Jimmy Graham, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Robert Tonyan, and Allen Lazard (among others) either dropped catchable passes or struggled to stay in bounds on sideline throws – but more often than not the fault rests with Rodgers’ poor calibration on throws traveling over 15 yards downfield.

It’s often when Rodgers’ mechanics, i.e. throwing off his back foot or from an unstable throwing platform altogether, that we see his passes losing their trademark accuracy. At his most-recent peak in 2016, Rodgers could get away with it. Right now he’s not.

Offense kinda, sorta turns a corner in the second half

Against one of the worst-ranked pass defenses in football, it took the Packers almost three full quarters to score their first touchdown.

When they did find some momentum, it came in the form of a quick-rhythm offense. With about five minutes left in the third quarter, the Packers used 12 plays to move the ball 95 yards for the touchdown, their longest touchdown drive of the season.

“We kind of wanted to get ourselves out of the shadow of our own end zone,” LaFleur said about the drive after the game.

Whatever the reason, the change in the philosophical approach worked. The Packers stayed out of third downs until the final play of the drive, which of course ended with a 20-yard touchdown pass to Davante Adams.

It’s sometimes hard to pinpoint just how to “fix” this offense when it stalls, but more often than not, the Packers are at their best when Rodgers is working quickly within the pocket, and he’s letting his receivers do the heavy lifting after the catch.

Blake Martinez comes up big

Blake Martinez played poorly to start the game; the middle-of-the-field run defense wasn’t up to the standard that had been established in the last few weeks.

When the offense needed a bailout in the second half, however, it was Martinez who made two important, back-to-back plays.

Down 20-13 with 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Mike Pettine dialed up a pressure to try and force David Blough off his spot. At the snap, Za’Darius Smith beat his man and forced Blough to scramble left. Martinez blitzed and popped Lions running back Bo Scarbrough off his base. Combined with Smith’s pressure from the left flank, a scrambling Blough had nowhere to go when Martinez collapsed the remaining space in the pocket.

On the very next play, Blough was again pressured, but Martinez got plenty of depth on his drop and took advantage by intercepting the football.

With their backs up against the wall and an unpredictable offense, the defensive stand was exactly the momentum shift this team needed at the moment.

Some more Za’Darius Smith appreciation

While Za’Darius Smith didn’t record a sack, he still had two quarterback hits, which would have been three had he not been called for the roughing penalty early in the first half.

Mike Pettine’s decision to utilize Smith as a rover has taken this defense to another level. Without having a sense of pre-snap predictability as to where No. 55 will play, guards and centers sometimes look completely overwhelmed trying to keep up. ‘Z’ is too strong and fast, and he plays with violent hands.

More notably, he’s perhaps the only player on this roster who shows up and produces each and every week regardless of the opponent or the game plan. The Packers looked emotionless out there Sunday; a similar situation played out in the loss to the Chargers a couple months ago.

In each game, however, Smith was indefatigable. The Packers paid big bucks for their prized free agent. Somehow he’s making the contract look like a bargain.

Your stars are the players who perform regardless of circumstance or context. He’s a star.