Last week at this time, Packer fans were gleefully celebrating their team and the hopes they had for the playoffs. We just weren't trying to determine if we were going to win the NFC North crown or not, we were debating home-field advantage throughout. We were putting Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers on pedestals that were as high as B.J. Raji's plate at Chipotle, and even Dom Capers was escaping the wrath of the #firecapers hashtag.

The win over the Falcons last Monday night counts as a win, thank goodness. And even though that win kept us ahead of the Lions in the division and helped out our conference tiebreakers, it was hard to come out of this 43-37 victory without being a little bit disconcerted. It was almost like we have seen this scenario before.

And that feeling is likely because we have seen this scenario before.

The Packers have had a weakness since they won the Super Bowl in 2010, and that has been giving up huge days to offensive players in December and Janaury.  Not just great games. Not just monster games. In some cases, career games. Record-breaking games. Just as we did with Julio Jones on Monday Night Football.

The Packers seemed shellshocked, unable to do anything besides bench one cornerback for another as Jones rolled over the defense for 259 yards, taking what was a blowout at halftime and turning it into a dangerously dramatic comeback for the Falcons. In fact, the Packers have to feel fortunate that Jones had to leave the game in the fourth quarter with an injury. Imagine what kind of numbers he might have ended up with had he staying in the game to the very end.

It felt a bit like the kid who was getting beat up by a bully, whose only defense was to curl up in the fetal position and hope that the bully just got tired of beating him up and went away. The Packers didn't stop Jones. Jones stopped Jones.

It reminded me of the final game of the 2011 season, on January 1, 2012, when Matthew Stafford passed for 520 yards and Calvin Johnson racked up 244 yards in what was another narrow 45-41 victory for the Packers. Oh, certainly, this was also Matt Flynn's cause celebre game, a rest-your-starters game by the Packers, who had already won home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. 

But the déjà vu between that game and last Monday night's game is still striking. Why don't you stop him? What are you doing that's allowing him to catch pass after pass? Can't you double team him? Triple team him?

Despite winning that game, the Packers went on to squander their home field advantage by losing to the New York Giants at home a few weeks later. Since then, the Packers have made a habit of giving up career games to offensive players in December and January ... the very time that you shouldn't be giving up anything so helplessly.

In the final game of the 2012 season, the Packers gave up 199 rushing yards to Adrian Peterson in a 37-34 loss. Remember, this meant the Packers had to play the Vikings the following week in the playoffs. And while they met their goal of limited Peterson to under 100 yards in that game (he had 99), they took that win and met the San Francisco 49ers the following week.

That game, on Janaury 12, 2013, became known as Colin Kaepernick's "coming out party," as he ran for 181 yards. 181 yards ... by a quarterback. That's a career day, and the Packers had no answer for it. It was another early exit from the playoffs, losing 45-31.

The rematch came in last year's playoffs, and (like Peterson) limited Kaepernick to under 100 yards rushing (he had 98 yards, more than Eddie Lacy). But 98 yards rushing by a quarterback? That's still a career day for just about anyone else in the NFL, and the Packers fell once again to the 49ers and exited the playoffs early.

For all the rationalization we can provide for last Monday night ("A win is a win"), the reality is that the Packers' defense is prone to giving up massive games to opposing offensive players in December and January. Whether they are do-or-die matchups or relatively meaningless games doesn't matter. If a players starts racking up yards on you, the only logical conclusion to make is that the defense should have an appropriate adjustment or countermeasure.

Not just hope they get injured and have to leave the game.

The question is what are the Packers, and more specifically, defensive coordinator Dom Capers, going to do about it? This has been an ongoing problem this entire decade, and while we have symbolic, on-the-surface changes ("We're moving to a hybrid scheme!", "We're a Mike Daniels Nasty Defense this year!"), the results have been the same: a defense good enough to get you to the playoffs, but not good enough to win in the playoffs.

For all those people who were trying to compare Aaron Rodgers to the Legends of the Game, I have news for you: Rodgers isn't going to be mentioned in the same breath as Montana and Bradshaw if he never gets back to an NFC Championship game. And it is too bad, because I don't think Rodgers has had this complete of an offense around him, and as his own skills decline, we'll look back on these seasons as the times we should have won it all.

Stopping one player shouldn't be a problem for a Super Bowl caliber defense. Heck, it shouldn't be a problem for even a middle-of-the-road NFL defense. But having no answer for Julio Jones should be a warning shot across the bow for Dom Capers and this defense. I've stuck up for Capers in the past, but if we have yet another early exit because we gave up another career day to an offensive player, it's time to make a change.

If for no other reason, I'm really tired of déjà vu.

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C.D. Angeli is a longtime Packer fan and feature writer for Cheesehead TV. You can hear him weekly on Cheesehead Radio and is the good cop over at PackersTalk.com. Follow him on Twitter at @TundraVision.