GREEN BAY — Josh Jacobs bit his tongue. Jordan Love did, too. 

The Green Bay Packers running back and quarterback, two of the team’s seven co-captains for the season, knew what their team’s 27-13 victory over the Detroit Lions — the two-time defending NFC North champions, the team that had come into Lambeau Field for three years running and taken it to the home squad — meant Sunday evening.

No, it didn’t give them a fast-pass to Super Bowl LX or even a significant leg up in the conference playoff race. With 16 more games to go, neither of them was about to make some bold proclamation about what their team was going to do this season.

But the gleams in each of their eyes were unmistakable. Because what they’d been a part of — a dominating victory over a rival that clearly had their number last year — was more than just a nice little opening-day win.

It was immediate confirmation of what they believed their team was capable of being this season, and justification for the confidence they’d brought into Sunday’s matchup.

“Definitely,” said Love, who competed 16 of 22 passes — to 10 different receivers — for 188 yards and two touchdowns (128.6 rating) on the day. “It’s a team that, they’ve got us, the last couple games we’ve played against them. So it was a big test coming in here Week 1, a really good team.

“And we know what type of team we have, but this definitely confirms it and gives you some more confidence to keep building on. But obviously, it’s still Week 1. We’ve got a long season ahead, and we’ve got to just keep building and elevating every week.

“But we know we have a great team, [and] to go out there and have a dominant performance, it does kind of confirm those things we have.”

The key word being team. This wasn’t like some of the dominant victories of the bygone Aaron Rodgers era, when the offense did all the heavy lifting and the defense coattailed along.

Although the Lions finished with an underwhelming 246 total yards of offense, even that number was inflated by 60 yards they gained on their garbage-time touchdown. The defensive finished with four sacks on Goff (including one by new star edge rusher Micah Parsons), nine tackles for loss and one takeaway (an Evan Williams interception) while limiting Lions running backs Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery to 44 yards on 20 carries.

So even as the Lions bottled up Jacobs in the first half (six carries, 8 yards) and the offense hit a second-half lull, the defense never gave the Lions much reason for hope.

“We really never got in a rhythm,” confessed Lions head coach Dan Campbell, whose offense ranked No. 1 in scoring (33.2 points per game) and No. 2 in total offense (409.5 yards per game) last season but lost coordinator Ben Johnson, who is now the Chicago Bears head coach. “We did for a couple of drives, man, where we got it down there, and then we didn’t finish.

“I thought we’d be cleaner than we were.”

The Packers defense had a lot to do with that, which is why Jacobs was trying to temper his enthusiasm.

“I don’t want to say it too early. It’s a long season, and there’s still a lot of work we need to put in,” said Jacobs, who broke through in the second half and finished with 66 yards on 19 carries, including a 3-yard touchdown. “But I love the way our defense looked today. They looked really good today. They looked elite today against a really good team. That’s just a good feeling as an offensive player.”

The complementary football allowed the Packers to build a 17-3 lead that started with Love capping an 83-yard opening drive with a 15-yard touchdown pass to tight end Tucker Kraft, followed by a 34-yard Brandon McManus field goal to make it 10-0 before the end of the first quarter.

“For me, I wanted to beat the Lions at home. I had yet to do that in my career here,” Kraft said. “I don’t know whatever generations of Packers came before me, who they despised the most [in the division], but you can tell when you get these two teams on the field, there’s fire under our asses and we’re ready to play some ball.”

And when the Lions finally got on the board with a field goal, it took Love & Co. all of two plays to extend their lead, with a 48-yard downfield strike to Romeo Doubs setting up a 17-yard laser to Jayden Reed for a touchdown.

Love was especially on point on third downs, converting the Packers’ first four situations with a 16-yarder to Dontayvion Wicks on third-and-10, an 11-yarder to rookie Matthew Golden on third-and-6, the touchdown to Kraft on third-and-9, and a 26-yard strike to Reed on third-and-7

“That’s why those guys get paid, right? Those money downs,” head coach Matt LaFleur said of Love. “He definitely delivered in those clutch, critical situations.”

The defense took over from there, flustering Goff (31 of 39, 225 yards, one TD, one INT, 88.6 rating) and preventing the Lions from the explosive plays that had been so prevalent in their offense a year ago.

“Not even close to good enough, right? Not even remotely close in that category,” Goff said. “Not even close to good enough.”

And while the Packers were far from perfect, they were more than good enough.

“For me, for everybody, that was the goal, that was our mindset coming in: ‘We’ve got to start fast,’” Love said. “Obviously, everything starts with me being able to go out there and be as accurate as possible and make great decisions on the ball.

“I’m definitely happy about the way we were able to get rolling early and make some big-time plays.”

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