MINNEAPOLIS — Aaron Rodgers has the Green Bay Packers on a roll, even without three of his best receivers.

With help from a powerful running game, Rodgers picked apart what was left of Minnesota’s defense on Sunday night.

Ignoring the injuries around him, Rodgers threw two first-half touchdown passes to Jordy Nelson and guided the Packers to a 44-31 victory over the Vikings on 24-for-29 passing for 285 yards.

Christian Ponder’s encore went poorly for the Vikings (1-6), who sent out a different starting quarterback for the third straight week. Adrian Peterson gained a quiet 60 yards on 13 carries, Greg Jennings had just one catch against his old team and the Vikings offense counted only three plays in the third quarter as the Packers (5-2) pulled away in their final game at the Metrodome, now known as Mall of America Field.

Ponder didn’t turn the ball over, but he was out of sorts in the pocket all night and unable to make much happen at all if his intended target was covered. He finished 14 for 21 for 145 yards against a defense missing three starting linebackers to injury and added a late touchdown run.

The Vikings beat the Packers 37-34 last December to make the playoffs. But they needed 199 yards rushing from Peterson and the best game of Ponder’s career to do it, because Rodgers has rarely found resistance from the defense in purple. In his last eight games against the Vikings, he has 22 touchdowns and only three interceptions while completing roughly three-quarters of his passes. The Packers have won seven of those games.

Micah Hyde had a punt return for a touchdown for the Packers, who never punted and held the ball for more than two-thirds of the game to counteract Cordarrelle Patterson’s opening 109-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. The Packers have won 15 of their last 16 games against NFC North teams.

This went down as an outlier in the series – 16 of the last 21 regular-season games between the rivals were decided by a touchdown or less.

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