Oct. 29, 2014 By Zuhayr Tahir

For just the third time in NFL history, another football game went 60 minutes without a single punt, and if you don’t remember, the second time was a few weeks ago when the Green Bay Packers played against the Chicago Bears.

Watching Sunday night’s 44-23 blowout to the New Orleans Saints was definitely painful to watch and gave me another reason to think that the schedule makers have it out for Green Bay.

In just the first eight weeks, this Packer team has had some of the most difficult road games a team could ever experience in a single season.

It started out on opening day when they had to play a prime time game at the Seattle Seahawks. Then, after a home game against the New York Jets, they traveled to the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears, both divisional games, in consecutive weeks.

The also had to travel to Miami to play in incredible heat, and finally, came to the Superdome to play in a place where the Saints had won their last 11 prime time matchups.

After considering this, 5-3 doesn’t look that bad, but needless to say, the loss to New Orleans has to be disappointing.

Never have I seen a game where the momentum shifted like it did in the third quarter on Sunday.

Tied 16-16 with the Packers driving, quarterback Aaron Rodgers scrambled for a first down and seemed to hurt his hamstring on the play.

A few plays later, the Saints intercepted a tipped ball and never looked back. They were soon up 37-16 and it was over.

Rodgers continued to play in the game until it was out of reach, so the apparent injury wasn’t bad enough to keep him out, but the upcoming bye week couldn’t have come at a better time as this team tries to get healthy.

Getting back to the game, the number of missed opportunities has to leave Packer fans unsatisfied. The offense seemed to be able to move the ball at will, until they got into the red zone.

In their first three red zone trips, the Packers settled for two field goals and threw an interception, which is something you can’t do if you want to beat an offense as high powered as the Saints.

The defense fell flat on its face by forcing no punts and only making one big play the entire game, which was a stop on fourth down.

They played okay in the first half, but the Saints offense made it look easy in the second half as the defense gave up four consecutive touchdowns.

The “fire (defensive coordinator) Dom Capers” chants have already begun, but I’m not going to overreact so soon and to this one loss.

The defense has played well over the past month and that can’t be ignored. They ran into a New Orleans team that had their backs against the wall and were desperate for a victory.

It is never easy to play a prime time road game, and remember that this only counts as one loss.

The Packers have a bye week coming up, and I’m hoping that they will be healthy heading out of it. They host the Bears in an important divisional game in two weeks in another Sunday night prime time matchup.