FOXBORO, Mass. -- There were times last week, with his secondary missing three starters to injury and unable to work on some situational sets, when Green Bay defensive coordinator Ed Donatell must have wondered if he might be better served distributing name tags instead of game plans.

After all, the Packers prepared for their matchup with the New England Patriots down to one ambulatory starter in the secondary, right cornerback Tyrone Williams. So depleted was the Packers last line of defense that Green Bay was still adding players to the secondary on Saturday afternoon, and the coaches even tinkered with a few coverage schemes on Sunday morning.

Yet at no time in their 28-10 victory here did the Packers defensive backs appear to be just a busload of accidental tourists who happened into Gillette Stadium. On only a few occasions did Williams eyeball his teammates and think that maybe the secondary should have been wearing those "Hello, my name is ..." stick-ons you see at 20-year reunions. Rarely did the unit suffer communications glitches as guys like new corner Bryant Westbrook found a way to master the verbal hieroglyphics of coverage checks.

	“	Putting on that Packers helmet, is almost like pulling on the Yankees pinstripes, you know? There's a history to it. You feel special in trying to uphold the tradition. I'm guessing all the new guys felt a little of that out there today. ”
		— Packers S Matt Bowen

And by the conclusion of a dominant performance, one in which Patriots quarterback Tom Brady again looked like a signal-caller starting in only his second year, the Green Bay fill-ins were anonymous no more.

Donatell and his defensive staff had somehow found a way to transform makeshift into marvelous.

"Very gratifying because it truly was a 'team win' in every sense," Donatell said. "We needed everyone to play well and they did."

Brady completed just 24 of 44 passes for 183 yards, with no completions of more than 18 yards, and posted an anemic efficiency rating of 44.0. Stopped right in their tracks even after catches, the New England receivers averaged only 7.6 yards per grab. The lone New England touchdown, a four-yard snag by rookie wideout David Givens, came with just under six minutes to play and the outcome long since decided.

"I think, to a man, we just challenged ourselves, really," said strong safety Matt Bowen, one of five defenders not in the Green Bay starting lineup on opening day, but who started on Sunday afternoon. "You kind of say, 'Hey, we're pretty good players, too. We aren't just a bunch of refugees.' But you have to do more than say it. You have to play it. And we played it."

The six defenders who played from scrimmage in the Packers secondary combined for 31 tackles, three interceptions and four passes knocked down. Not bad for a group that included one guy who was out of football until the middle of the week and two who were on the Green Bay practice squad.

The Packers staff auditioned former first-round draft choice Westbrook, allowed to depart in free agency by Detroit this spring and then jettisoned by the Dallas Cowboys last month, on Wednesday and immediately signed him. Just before the Saturday 4 p.m. deadline, the team elevated safety Todd Franz and cornerback Erwin Swiney from the practice squad, and placed safety Bahwoh Jue (hamstring) on injured reserve.

Westbrook was the third cornerback on the field for the Packers, while Franz played in every "dime" situation.

Missing from the lineup were left cornerback Mike McKenzie, free safety Antuan Edwards and strong safety Darren Sharper. Take away the 85 starts that Williams has on his resume and the three other secondary players on the field for the first snap against the Patriots totaled just 13 starts. The group included rookie free safety Marques Anderson, a third-round choice who has read Chaucer and Sylvia Plath, but who read Brady even better on a third-quarter interception.

Certainly the Packers offense contributed mightily to an effort that pushed Green Bay to 5-1 and allowed coach Mike Sherman to match the legendary Vince Lombardi with a 26-12 mark through his first 38 contests.

	Brett Favre threw three touchdown passes against the Patriots.

Brett Favre threw three touchdown passes, giving him 301 for his brilliant career and moving the three-time most valuable player into third place all-time, behind only Dan Marino (420) and Fran Tarkenton (342). Tailback Ahman Green rushed for 136 yards, scored one touchdown on the ground, and another on a catch. Fullback William Henderson and tight end Bubba Franks had touchdown receptions and the Packers displayed a balanced attack throughout the game.

But even Favre, who was sacked just once and who continued to display uncanny pocket awareness three days after his 33rd birthday, took the time to laud the Packers' patchwork secondary for its performance. Truth be told, it was a pleasant surprise, given that Green Bay entered the game allowing an average of 27 points per outing.

"For a bunch of new faces," Favre said, "those guys did great. They played their (rear ends) off all day long. A lot of times there are games where you say that everyone did his job. Today that was true, starting right with their first possession of the game."

Indeed, that position ended with an interception by Westbrook, who played the "nickel" cornerback spot all day.

Taking advantage of the undermanned Green Bay secondary, Brady hit on his first four passes for 27 yards, and tailbacks Antowain Smith and Kevin Faulk added 10 yards on the ground. Facing a second-and-eight at the Green Bay 43-yard line, Brady got greedy, and tested Westbrook on a deep ball up the right sideline. Falling backwards, Westbrook stole the pass intended for David Patten, and the momentum quickly swung.

A message had been delivered, Westbrook suggested afterwards, and the tone had been established.

"You always want to make the first big play or the first big hit," Westbrook said. "And there's nothing like doing it in the first game with a new team."

The fifth player selected overall in the 1997 draft, Westbrook's career went into spiral in 2000, when he sustained a devastating Achilles injury. When he signed a one-year, $1 million contract with Dallas this spring, he thought he was getting a fresh start. But after surrendering the deciding touchdown pass to the expansion Houston Texans in the opener, he was released, and acknowledged Sunday he wallowed in self-pity for a few weeks. His third team might be a charm.

"Putting on that Packers helmet," Bowen said, "is almost like pulling on the Yankees pinstripes, you know? There's a history to it. You feel special in trying to uphold the tradition. I'm guessing all the new guys felt a little of that out there today."

Cognizant of the Packers' deficient body count, New England came out not only in its usual four-wide receiver formations, but also flashing an "empty" set early on. The five-wideout look forced Donatell to scramble even more, to adjust on the run and reconfigure some coverages, but the alterations did not faze his charges. Most times, when the Patriots went to the "empty" set, they came up empty.

While the Packers' defensive staff mixed and matched effectively, largely the secondary succeeded because it played man coverages so well, perhaps going to the "Cover 1" as much as 60 percent of the snaps.

"The only thing we were looking for was recovery," Donatell said. "I mean, I came in thinking, 'How do we put this thing back together well enough to win?' We did some things to help out certain participants. But mostly we had a lot of guys playing well. Playing really well."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.