As I was looking through Football Outsiders’ numbers today to get ready for Sunday’s game between the Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots Color Rush Kingsley Keke Jersey , a few things caught my eye. Most significant is the fact that the two teams are separated by just one spot in the DVOA rankings for the season to this point.That difference got me looking deeper to see what differences are present and whether they can explain why the Packers sit at .500 after seven games while the Patriots are 6-2. In short, New England has been a better team overall this year, but the Pats certainly aren’t better by enough that one would expect them to finish 250 points higher in winning percentage over a full season than the Packers.Here’s what I found for the two teams.Packers’ offense vs. Patriots’ defenseGreen Bay’s offense ranks sixth in the NFL in DVOA at +13.4%, while the Patriots’ defense is 16th at -0.6%. There should be room to move the ball through the air despite the Packers’ 13th-place passing offense, as the Patriots rank 19th in that area.Expect Davante Adams in particular to have another big game this week. The Patriots rank 26th against opposing #1 receivers. They are also near the bottom in covering running backs, sitting 25th, which suggests a good day for Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams in the passing game as well. Green Bay would do well to call the occasional screen pass or try to get Jones on some wheel routes out of the backfield.However, the Pats are very good against other receivers, ranking 11th against #2s Cheap Kingsley Keke Jersey , 4th against all “other” wide receivers, and 7th against tight ends. Look for the Packers to attack Jason McCourty and Jonathan Jones on the left side of the Pats’ defense in particular as well, as New England ranks 28th on passes to the left (the offense’s right) but in the top five on passes in the middle and to the right.In the run game, the Patriots rank 9th, while the Packers’ rushing attack ranks fourth on this per-attempt metric. Running behind right tackle Bryan Bulaga may be a mistake, as the Pats rank first in the league on runs off right tackle (where left defensive end Trey Flowers usually lines up). They’re below-average everywhere else, however. That’s probably fine for the Packers, though, who rarely ever run that direction (only 5.3% of attempts this year have been charted as right tackle runs).Patriots’ offense vs. Packers’ defenseThe Patriots’ offense is almost a reverse of the Packers’ Kingsley Keke Jersey Womens , as New England ranks fourth in passing offense and 14th in rushing. Meanwhile, Green Bay ranks 17th and 24th, respectively on defense.Like the Pats, the Packers are iffy against #1s, with a 25th-place ranking. However, they’re also 20th against #2 wideouts while coming in just above league-average against all other players in coverage. Of course, keeping tabs on running back James White is a challenge for anyone; as a result, the Packers will almost certainly see more than the 5.4 attempts per game that their opponents average to running backs, which is the lowest mark in the NFL.In the run game Kingsley Keke Green Bay Packers Jersey , look for New England to run between the tackles a great deal, as their line ranks second in DVOA when doing so. It may be a surprise to see that the Packers’ front sits 30th against runs up the middle, given the talent on the defensive line.OVERALLIn summation, the Packers are 11th in total DVOA, one spot behind the tenth-place Patriots. That’s great on its face, and it suggests that the teams are pretty closely matched. However, the numbers also indicate that there are tiers in place, with teams ranked 6-10 being a step ahead of those from 11-14, which are in turn lumped pretty closely together). The difference between the Patriots and the 6th-place Seahawks is closer (2.3%) than the difference between them and the Packers (3.6%) Kingsley Keke Jersey 2019 , while Green Bay is closer to 14th-place Miami (2.4%) than to New England.(Also notable is that half of the difference between the two teams is a result of the Packers’ inferior performance on special teams this season.)Those tiers could help explain why one team is 6-2 and the other is 3-3-1, especially since there does not appear to be a large difference in the teams’ schedule strengths, though the Packers have played a slightly tougher schedule. Still, Football Outsiders’ projections for the remainder of the season show the Packers going .567 the rest of the way and the Pats being a .613 team (based on future opponents). Projecting those winning percentages over a full 16-game schedule would result in just one win of separation between the two. All told, this game very well could and should be a close contest. During a press conference introducing head coach Matt LaFleur, Packers CEO Mark Murphy said that he spoke to a collection of nine players about what they wanted in a new head coach and said the group “wanted someone who would hold the players accountable” while eliminating complacency that had set in over the years.We don’t know if left tackle David Bakhtiari was part of that group, but he is signing off on the accountability end of things. During an appearance with Jason Wilde and Mark Tauscher on ESPN Wisconsin, Bakhtiari said there “needs to be that fear for guys across the board” that their jobs are on the line and that it hasn’t felt that way with the Packers recently.“The one thing that always rubbed me the wrong way, and I guess it can kind of parallel with complacency Kingsley Keke Jersey Mens , is accountability,” Bakhtiari said. “The one thing that would really grind my gears was guys being late for the plane and no one holding those guys accountable or even fining them for being late. [It should have been], ‘Hey, we’re leaving at 1:30. You’re not there, the door is closed.’ That’s how it needs to be.”Bakhtiari has spoken to LaFleur and said he appreciated the new coach’s “freshness” during their conversation. How that freshness plays with the roster at large will be the major storyline of the Packers offseason.