GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Forget all this talk about Mike Daniels as a budding superstar on the Green Bay Packers' defense.

He’s there already.

He was there even before Sunday’s regular-season opener against the Seattle Seahawks, a game he single-handedly turned in the Packers’ favor early in the third quarter. But Sunday’s performance should convince anyone who wasn’t quite sure.

In what was a surprisingly impressive showing by the Packers' defense -- which was last seen getting run out of the Georgia Dome in the NFC Championship Game -- it was Daniels who dominated in the 17-9 opening-day victory at Lambeau Field.

"Mike was dominant from what I saw," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. "The film will tell the whole story, but it seemed to me he was in the backfield all day."

In a span of three plays on the Seahawks' opening drive of the third quarter, Daniels had a shared sack with Nick Perry and then a solo sack and forced fumble on quarterback Russell Wilson that linebacker Kyler Fackrell recovered at Seattle's 6-yard line.

To that point, the difference in the game was McCarthy's timeout usage. McCarthy called his last two of the first half -- one with 48 seconds left in the half after a first-down run and another with 43 seconds left after a second-down run -- and then Seattle hit two big plays that led to a last-second field goal for the only points of the first half. What McCarthy should have considered was that without a third timeout (they previously burned one on defense after the first play of the game from scrimmage), he wouldn’t have been able to get the ball back before halftime anyway.

But there was Daniels, leading what was a dominant performance by a Packers defense that was easily the biggest question mark on this team after what happened last season.

In what should be the start of a strong bid for his first Pro Bowl, Daniels’ stat line was among the best of his career: seven tackles (including five solo stops), 1.5 sacks, four quarterback hits and a tackle for loss on a run play.

Daniels cracked the ESPN top 100 for the first time, at No. 98. If he keeps this up, he should make a huge jump in the next ranking.

"A lot of our pressures were coverage pressures," Daniels said. "I’ll go ahead and say those sacks, you can attribute it to how well they were covering those guys on the back end. I said this in the offseason, the way our defensive backs are working, they definitely took all the criticism they got – they took it personal. The way they played today, you could see they were making sure nobody could talk about them like that again."

The revamped back end of the Packers’ defense wasn’t overly stressed by Wilson and the Seahawks, but it surely will be next Sunday back in Atlanta. A front seven led by Daniels should make it easier on the secondary. This was quite the change last year's NFC Championship Game loss in January, when the Falcons blew them out of the Georgia Dome, 44-21.

On Sunday, Wilson threw for only 158 yards, and the Seahawks had less than half as many first downs (12) as the Packers (26).

And it all started with Daniels.

"Mike Daniels is an animal," Packers linebacker Jake Ryan said. "He’s fun to play behind. There’s always an open path to the ball, and you know Mike, he’s just a great player. Mike definitely played his ass off. He definitely performed."