The Packers got beaten for the first time in one calendar year Sunday afternoon at Arrowhead Stadium, as the mercurial Kansas City Chiefs snapped the NFL's second longest winning streak in history at nineteen, 19-14.

"We were beat today. The Kansas City Chiefs outplayed us. We were beaten," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said after the game, stating the obvious.

Precious little went right for Green Bay on Sunday, yet they still lost by just five points.

After losing five out of their last six games, the Chiefs fired coach Todd Haley and replaced him with defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel on Monday. Crennel went just 24-40 in four seasons as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns from 2005-2008, but needless to say; Sunday he made a statement that he wants to have the interim tag taken off of his title.

"They followed the game plan, they had energy, they had effort and they played their hearts out," Crennel said of his team after the game. "And that's the thing we talked to those guys about with a Green Bay Packers team coming in here, undefeated, everybody had marked it off as a win for the Packers, but those guys in the locker room, they're football players. They decided that they were not going to lay down, they were not going to give up, so they went out and played a tremendous game."

The last loss the Packers suffered was Dec. 19, 2010 at New England. There will be no more talk of perfection at Lambeau Field the rest of this football season. At 13-1, Green Bay will no longer be peppered with questions of an undefeated year.

The Good

There will be no more talk of perfection at Lambeau Field the rest of this football season. At 13-1, Green Bay will no longer be peppered with questions of an undefeated year.

Remember, the goal is not 16-0. The goal is winning the Super Bowl. That point cannot be overstated. While a perfect season would have been a nice feather in the Packers collective hat, the fact that only one team has finished their season unbeaten is a testament to just how difficult of a feat that is.

"What's disappointing to me is we didn't clinch home-field advantage. I viewed an undefeated season as gravy. Our goal was to get home-field advantage and win the Super Bowl," McCarthy said to reporters after the game, keeping in sight what his team is playing for.

The Packers can still clinch home-field advantage with one more win or one more San Francisco loss. The 49ers play the Steelers Monday night in San Francisco. Should that probably scenario happen, the next time the Packers would have to travel is for Super Bowl week in late January.

Getting back to why the ceasing of incessant questions and speculation about 16-0, most in the sports commentary will say that they don't believe in the late-season clunker re-focusing a team. Most will say that that a loss is never a good thing.

To quote former Brewers manager Ken Macha: Poppycock.

The Packers defense has been living on Aaron Rodgers bailing them out all season long. Packers fans have become used to Rodgers using his incredible arm and gifted wide receivers to win games, other aspects of the game be damned. Turns out, Rodgers, while still having a meteorically spectacular season, is human after all. So are the Packers receivers.

Perhaps the reality check of the importance of excelling in all aspects of the game for a full sixty minutes sunk in on the flight back home to Green Bay. After all, it's infinitely better to have this feeling of failure today than in four weeks, right? I know we can all agree on that. So, can a loss be a good thing? You betcha it can.

The Packers red zone defense may rate a "good" but that's only because they put themselves in that precarious position to have to come with goal line stand after goal line stand to begin with. To rate Green Bay's red zone defense is like asking Mrs. Lincoln how the play was. That's like paying 30 percent of your taxes. Do you think the IRS will thank you for the payment or ask for the other 70 percent?

Kyle Orton may be a serviceable NFL quarterback, but he's not the second coming of Joe Montana. The Green Bay defense allowed him to march up and down the field at will, but unlike their last meeting against him back on Oct. 2, Orton did not turn the ball over.

The bottom line is that the Packers have been living dangerously all year long. Hopefully the reality that they are not invincible is a lesson not lost.

One final good: punter Tim Masthay was outstanding, averaging 53.4 yards per punt. He was unquestionably the Packers MVP on Sunday. Let that sink in for a moment.

The Bad

Oh gosh, where to start. This is the part of this column that has been mostly barren aside from warnings about the defense all year long. However, the Packers just flat-out got smacked in the face by Kansas City in every aspect of the game on Sunday.

"We did not improve as a football team. It's been quite some time since I've addressed the football team this way. They got their game plan done and we did not," McCarthy said afterwards in agreement.

Orton began the game wearing pristine white pants. He finished the game, despite the muddy playing surface, with nary a smudge on those very same britches. The Packers failure to have any pass rush whatsoever allowed Orton to take his sweet time as his receivers got open.

Meanwhile, Rodgers was sacked four times, and once again, was under pressure most of the afternoon. Kansas City's Tamba Hali abused anyone who dared try to block him, registering three of the four sacks Rodgers suffered.

Green Bay's banged up offensive line suffered a pair of injuries and played a game of musical chairs to try to compensate. Right tackle Bryan Bulaga sprained his right knee early in the second half and had to be helped off, so rookie Derrick Sherrod came in. About one quarter of play later, Sherrod suffered a broken leg when he was cut under on a freak play that sometimes happens in the trenches. Suffice it to say, he is out for the rest of the year.

With both Bulaga and Sherrod out, T.J. Lang moved from left guard to right tackle and Evan Dietrich-Smith came in to take Lang's original spot.

Bulaga will have an MRI in Green Bay on Monday; this is the same knee he injured earlier in the season at Chicago.

With all of the mounting injuries on the offensive line, the name Mark Tauscher was brought up if you were following the game on Twitter. Tauscher's marketing agent tells me that the former Packer has been working out and would be open to speaking with Ted Thompson about a return.

Also "bad" was the decision to not challenge the possession of Leonard Pope's reception down to the Green Bay three yard line. Replays showed that Pope lost control of the ball prior to stepping out of bounds. The ball went out of bounds in the end zone, which would have resulted in a touchback.

McCarthy appeared ready to throw the flag before having a change of heart. "I thought we were right on it," he explained afterwards. "Actually, they had the replay here in Arrowhead, and I was of the opinion that the foot was out of bounds before the ball came out. We talked about it. There was a long break in between. I had plenty of time to make the decision, so... Based on the information I felt it was right not to challenge."

The eventual result was another Ryan Succop field goal, so even if McCarthy's challenge was successful, there was no guarantee the outcome of the game would have been any different.

The Ugly

The first half was pathetic. Putrid. The worst we have seen from the Packers literally in years. Nothing went well. In a word, ugly.

Kansas City converted 12 first downs passing as compared to Green Bay's two. Orton's passer rating was more than twice that of Rodgers; 96.8 to 46.0. Jermichael Finley dropped four passes after chirping a couple of weeks ago about not being in synch with Rodgers. Rodgers himself came out flat, missing receiver after receiver – irrespective of the drops.

Things improved in the second half, but not nearly enough to matter when the final gun sounded.

"They had a good game plan," Rodgers told reporters after the game. "We didn't throw well, didn't catch well."

Up next week: Christmas Night vs. (7-7) Chicago