By Mike Jones, Ted Nguyen and Jourdan Rodrigue

Each Sunday, three of The Athletic’s NFL writers react to the biggest news, plays and performances from the day’s games.

There were upsets galore on the ninth Sunday of the NFL season. The Panthers were double-digit underdogs at Lambeau Field, where they knocked off the Packers. The Vikings were big underdogs in Detroit, where they toppled the Lions. The Steelers upended the first-place Colts, and the Bears and the Bengals upset any reasonable expectation of how an NFL fourth quarter should transpire, scoring a combined 28 points in the final five minutes.

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NFL writers Mike Jones, Ted Nguyen and Jourdan Rodrigue share their thoughts on a Week 9 in which road teams ruled, and the unexpected reigned.

The Packers can look like Super Bowl contenders one week and just awful the next week, as in Sunday’s 16-13 home loss to the Panthers. Which is closer to the truth?

Nguyen: The Packers are the most frustrating team in the league. They have Super Bowl-contender talent but continually play to the level of their opponent, and it seems to be a different issue that crops up in almost every game. The Packers had one of the better run defenses in the league, but against the Panthers, they gave up 163 yards on the ground. They’ve also been a pretty good red zone team (ranking seventh in TD percentage through eight weeks), but they were atrocious in the red zone on Sunday, scoring one touchdown in five trips. They can still put it together, but the only thing consistent about the Packers through nine weeks has been inconsistency.

Jones: As the old saying goes, “You’re only as good as your last performance.” Green Bay is the classic play-to-the-level-of-your-competition squad.