The Packers had plenty of things to be pleased about in their dominant 26-0 shutout over the division-rival Lions in Week Six. But two ugly numbers in the postgame stats line stuck in their craw: five more sacks allowed, which upped their league-leading total to 25, and a whopping 13 penalties for 130 yards. They can probably get away with those kinds of glitches against a Lions team that was missing QB Matthew Stafford and ace WR Calvin Johnson and three of its four starting defensive linemen. Same goes for their Week Seven opponent, a lowly Browns team with a number of issues.

But if the Packers are indeed going to be a serious playoff threat, they have to get much better play out of their offensive line that might be forced to continue operating with or without a gimpy OLT Chad Clifton, who Sunday reaggravated the right ankle that forced him to miss the previous two games. Packers head coach Mike McCarthy said as much in his Monday press briefing. “I’m not happy about it,” McCarthy bristled. “The pre-snap penalties are totally unacceptable. We’ve had a couple of guys who have made mistakes due to a lack of experience. It’s not that we are undisciplined. We’re just not as clean as we need to be. We’ll just continue to work through (the problems).”

The PFW spin

After looking particularly sharp on successive TD drives to start the game, the Packers began to sputter Sunday, failing to score TDs in four subsequent opportunities inside the red zone. They did get three field goals in those situations but had a fumble following a sack on the Lions' 3-yard line on the other one. Protection problems and poor decisions were key factors in those failures. Interestingly, Clifton, who might not have been fully ready to return to action from his initial ankle injury, was called for four penalties for 20 yards before leaving the game. OLG Daryn Colledge and ORG Josh Sitton also were hit with ill-timed flags.

Although league insiders inform us that it would be an extreme long shot, the possibility of the Packers making a play for former University of Wisconsin star and former Browns first-round OLT Joe Thomas before the Tuesday trade deadline would seem to make all the sense in the world. But it’s much more likely that the team will do what McCarthy indicated they would do in his press briefing: Just keep grinding.

It remains to be seen just how badly Clifton reinjured his ankle Sunday, but in any event, fourth-round rookie T.J. Lang is expected to see a lot more action moving forward at left tackle, the position he played his last 2½ years at Central Michigan. After Colledge failed miserably as the injured Clifton’s replacement in the games against the Rams in Week Three and the Vikings in Week Four, the team decided Lang would get the call as a starter should Clifton go down again. After Lang replaced Clifton Sunday, the team did not allow another sack. Word is Packers coaches have very much liked what they’ve seen up to now from Lang, whose short arms were considered a drawback. But while his physical stature might be a bit suspect, daily team observers tell us Lang’s work ethic has been most impressive, as well as the fact that he never gets frazzled and seems to be very confident in his abilities.