After 12 games, the popular view of the Green Bay Packers is that they're lucky to be 8-4. The reality is that they've gotten exactly what they've deserved. In the NFL, the scoreboard determines in unequivocal terms which team was better on any given Sunday, Monday or Thursday.
The final score is the only arbiter. What happens before that is mere fodder for the Twitterverse.
It's true that the Packers' 27-23 victory over the Lions on Thursday was a classic case of winning ugly. So what? And reasonable people can debate whether Aaron Rodgers' facemask was brushed by a thumb, twisted by two fingers or yanked by the ghost of Christmas past.