By Dean Michaels

The Packers are 11-0 and quarterback Aaron Rodgers has played no small role in that success. The seventh-year man out of California continues to get the job done for the defending Super Bowl championship and is in his fourth season of the post-Brett Favre era

Aaron Rodgers is starting to hear the question he'd like to avoid answering.

Can the Green Bay Packers go 16-0?

It was a question Rodgers heard a lot after the Packer quarterback led the Green Bay Packers to a 27-15 victory over the Detroit Lions at Ford Field.

The win put the Packers at 11-0 with five games remaining including the next date Dec. 4 at the New York Giants. They are very close to clinching the NFL North Division title.

“In a rivalry game like this, it's going to be a hard-fought game, but I'm proud of our guys, the way we played and played between the whistles,” Rodgers said. “It was a tough game for us physically and I'm glad we got the win.”

The Packers struggled in the first half despite leading 7-0. They were able to produce 20 points in the second half.

“Probably third-down conversions,” was the key difference, Rodgers said. “And we went more, under center in the second half and had some success, at least just kind of keeping those drives going, putting us in third and manageable situations and we converted those a little bit better in the second half.”

After leading the Packers to a Super Bowl title last year, Rodgers is trying to follow with a unique encore. His career passing rating of 98.4 puts him No.1 in NFL history among quarterbacks with at least 1,500 pass attempts.

Rodgers was 22-of-32 for 307 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions against Detroit. For the season, he's 260-of-361 for 3,475 yards, 33 touchdowns and four interceptions.

The Packers lost at Ford Field last December to the Lions.

“This shows us what kind of a team we have,” Rodgers said. “We're getting better every week. A lot of people picked against us this week. Our defense is playing better and got three turnovers and we didn't have one.'”

The seventh-year man out of California, and the tiny town of Chico, continues to get the job done for the defending Super Bowl championship and is in his fourth season of the post-Brett Favre era.

The Packers are home Dec. 11 with Oakland, Dec. 25 with Chicago and Jan. 1 with the Lions and are on the road Dec. 18 at Kansas City.

“I think we're a long ways from (16-0),” Rodgers said. “There's still some games left. This was a big step for us in our immediate goal to win the division. We're four up on the Lions and three up on the Bears. If we're fortunate to still be undefeated after 14 to 15 games, maybe we'll talk (about 16-0).”

Ironically, the Packers won the Super Bowl last season as a wild card team and never had the home field. They're close to securing home field for the playoffs right now.

“We haven't had a home game in the playoffs since 2007,” Rodgers said. “Winning the division is our first goal. If we do that, we'll have a home game in Green Bay where inclement weather isn't liked by the road team. We're a little better team in dealing with it because we have to live with it. We'd love to have a home game.”

Rodgers praised the Packers organization for being able to deal with injuries.

“We've put together a team that is deep and talented. You saw that last year too,” Rodgers said.

Since Green Bay won the final six games of last season on the way to the Super Bowl title, the overall winning streak is now 17 games.

NFL 2011 - Aaron Rodgers Avoids Undefeated 16-0 Talk