Good evening, everyone. On Thursday night, the Green Bay Packers took on the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. The Packers were looking for their 7th straight win of the season. In their way was a Cardinals team that entered the game unbeaten at 7-0. It’s safe to say that it was a crazy finish. Let’s get into full detail on what exactly happened.
The Packers started this game on the offensive side of the ball. The drive did not start well because of a holding penalty on Equanimeous St. Brown on the first play. The drive ended 3 plays later after an incomplete pass by Aaron Rodgers intended for Aaron Jones. The Cardinals were pinned inside their own 13 after a magnificent punt by Corey Bojorquez. The Packers defense responded with a quick stop of their own after a facemask penalty was called on Rashan Gary (What was he supposed to do on that sack that didn’t count?). On third and 4 from the Arizona 34, Kyler Murray was pressured to throw incomplete to nobody. The punt was returned by Amari Rodgers, who fumbled the ball in the process. Thankfully, the fumble was recovered by Oren Burks at the Green Bay 22. After another three and out by the Packers offense, Arizona took over possession at their own 37. During this drive for the Cardinals, Kyler Murray was pressured by Preston Smith to throw up a prayer of a pass. Eric Stokes made a rookie mistake by not knowing where the ball was, letting DeAndre Hopkins to catch the ball. Hopkins would have scored a touchdown on the play had he not grabbed Eric Stokes’ facemask. The Cardinals ended up scoring a touchdown anyway on a direct snap run by Chase Edmonds from 11 yards away. The extra point kick by Matt Prater was good, giving Arizona a 7-0 lead with 6:17 left in the first quarter. From their own 25, the Packers offense went on a methodical 14-play drive that took up more than 8 minutes off the game clock. Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon got the majority of the touches during the drive, both on the ground and through the air. Also during the possession, there was an infuriating thing that happened. On third and 4 from the Arizona 39 yard line, Aaron Rodgers was able to get linebacker Markus Golden offside. The problem was that the refs blew the play dead much to the dismay of Rodgers (and many Packers fans as well). The penalty gave the Packers a free first down at least. Later on in the drive, the Packers faced a fourth and 1 from the Arizona 11. AJ Dillon was able to get enough for the first down. 3 plays later, Aaron Jones ran it in for a 1-yard touchdown while fighting through a defender in the process. The extra point kick by Mason Crosby was good, tying the game at 7-7 with 12:54 left in the second quarter. The Packers defense forced the Cardinals to go three and out after a sack of Kyler Murray by De’Vondre Campbell on third and 11. There was a nice 17-yard punt return by Amari Rodgers, but it was called back due to an illegal block penalty that was called on Malik Taylor. The next drive for Green Bay ended after only 7 plays after Aaron Jones was tackled for a loss of 2 yards on third and 5 from the Arizona 49. The ensuing punt was originally ruled as downed by Ty Summers at the Arizona 3. Matt LaFleur challenged the ruling, which was then changed to a fumble recovery by Ty Summers after the replay showed the ball hitting the glove/fingers of the returner. I thought that the Packers were going to score an easy touchdown after the fumble. It turns out that they didn’t score at all (besides a field goal). All three plays at the three yard line were incomplete passes, including a one-handed touchdown catch by Marcedes Lewis that was unfortunately ruled out of bounds. The 21-yard field goal by Mason Crosby gave the Packers a 10-7 lead with 6:24 left in the second quarter. After the Packers defense forced the Cardinals to punt on their next drive, the offense took over at their own 16 with 4:30 left in the first half. They did use up the rest of the clock, but they did not use their time wisely. A main example of this occurred after the third to last play. That play was a run by Aaron Jones that went for a loss of 2 with 57 seconds. After the play, the offense went no huddle. The problem was that the snap was not until only 12 seconds were left on the clock. All that wasted time just for an incomplete pass. The last play of the first half was a Hail Mary attempt by Aaron Rodgers that fell incomplete.
The Packers defense got off to a fantastic start in the second half. On the third play of the Cardinals’ first possession of the third quarter, Henry Black picked off Kyler Murray at the Arizona 14. 5 plays later, Aaron Rodgers found Randall Cobb, who made a great contested catch in the right corner of the end zone for a touchdown. After Rodgers threw the ball, Jordan Phillips hit him late and drove him to the ground, committing a roughing the passer penalty in the process. The 15 yards were enforced on the ensuing kickoff, which was returned to the Arizona 19 (after the extra point, of course). The Cardinals then went on a 12-play drive that took over 5 minutes off the clock. It was a mix of run and pass plays for Arizona. The drive ended with a two-yard touchdown run by James Conner, which was set up by a 20-yard catch and run by Zach Ertz on the previous play. The extra point kick by Matt Prater was good, decreasing Green Bay’s lead to 3 points with 6:22 left in the third quarter. On the ensuing kickoff, two terrible injuries happened (one for each team). Kylin Hill inexplicably ran with the ball on the kickoff instead of kneeling for a touchback. He only got to the 9 yard line before he got hit hard in the knee by Jonathan Ward. Both were carted off the field after that play. Ward suffered a concussion, while Kylin Hill was lost for the rest of the season with a torn ACL. After the two players were carted off, the game continued with Green Bay starting at their own 9. From there, the Packers offense went all the way down the field for their third touchdown of the night. During the drive, another terrible injury occurred for Green Bay. On second and 6 from the Green Bay 46, Aaron Rodgers found TE Robert Tonyan for a 33-yard pass play. Tonyan was running well until he fell down and grabbed the back of his leg at the Arizona 21. He was able to walk to the sidelines, but it was later revealed to be a torn ACL for him. 5 plays after the injury, the Packers scored on a 6-yard touchdown pass from Rodgers to Cobb. Rodgers faked a screen pass then went to Cobb down the middle of the end zone. After the extra point by Mason Crosby was made, the lead was increased to 10 points. On the first play of the ensuing drive for Arizona, Rasul Douglas was called for pass interference even though the pass was way overthrown. After that weird penalty, the Cardinals were able to go down the field in a little over 4 minutes of game time. The drive ended with a 9-yard touchdown run by James Conner that (with the extra point) cut the lead back to 3 points with 10:45 left in the fourth quarter. The Packers offense was on their way for another score during the ensuing drive. Aaron Rodgers was able to hit a few receivers for passes, including Aaron Jones, Josiah Deguara, and Jawann Winfree. There was a missed opportunity for Winfree during this drive. On second and 6 from the Arizona 40, Winfree caught a pass from Rodgers. There was space for him to run, but he was stripped of the ball by Marco Wilson. The ball went out of bounds past the first down marker, but they ruled it third and 2 from the 36 because of a rule in which an offensive player can’t push the ball during a fumble without recovering it. The Packers then wasted 2 timeouts because they couldn’t get the snap off in time and they wanted to avoid a delay of game penalty (which I still hate). Later in the drive, when they got near the goal line, the Packers had plenty of chances to score a touchdown. Aaron Jones had a touchdown run, but the officials looked at the play and ruled that he was short of the goal line (even though the replay didn’t clearly show this from the angle). After another play where Jones was short of the goal line, the Packers suffered a delay of game penalty because they couldn’t get the snap off in time. After that penalty, Rodgers tried to get in the end zone himself, but he was tackled short of the goal line. On fourth and goal from the 1, Rodgers’ pass to Randall Cobb was deflected by LB Devon Kennard. Rodgers clearly had Deguara wide open there, but he didn’t see him. As the Cardinals were making their way down the field from their own one yard line with a little over 3 minutes left, I was getting nervous. They were able to get a couple of chunk plays to get to Green Bay territory. Arizona was able to get all the way to the Green Bay 5 on this drive. On second and goal from the 5, the Packers fans were getting loud. AJ Green was not able to hear the play change by Kyler Murray. He did not know the ball was going to him. Kyler Murray was blitzed and he had to get the ball out quick. Because Green did not turn around, Rasul Douglas (who was on Arizona’s practice squad) came up with the game-sealing interception in the end zone. Douglas then waved bye to the Cardinals and to State Farm Stadium before being mobbed by his teammates and the fans in the front seats. One kneel-down by Aaron Rodgers later, the Packers were victorious by a score of 24-21.
With the thrilling victory, the Packers are now 7-1 on the season. For head coach Matt LaFleur, he is now 33-7 in his first 40 games as a head coach. Other than the wasted timeouts by the offense (which could also be Aaron Rodgers’ fault) and the two failed goal line attempts, I thought that LaFleur called a great game regarding the fact that the Packers’ top receivers (Davante Adams, Allen Lazard, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling) were not playing on Thursday night due to COVID or injury. Aaron Rodgers did the best he could with who he had catching passes. Yes, he had Randall Cobb (who caught both of the TD passes thrown by Rodgers) and the running back duo of Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon (who combined for a total of 137 rushing yards while getting plenty of after-contact yardage). It was clear at points that Rodgers looked off on Thursday night. It didn’t help matters that a couple of his passes were deflected at the line of scrimmage by the Cardinals defense. I feel awful about the ACL injuries suffered by both Robert Tonyan and Kylin Hill. Tonyan was a key contributor to the Packers offense and Kylin Hill was starting to get touches on offense rather than on just kick returns (more on that later). It will be tough for the offense to replace both players, but I am sure that they will find a way. I pray that both of them fully heal soon. The offensive line once again did a great job given the circumstances that they were in entering the game (Josh Myers still out and David Bakhtiari still not playing). Hopefully Adams, Lazard, and MVS come back in the upcoming game to help the offense find their groove against Kansas City.
Other than allowing three red zone touchdown runs, I was impressed by the way the defense played on Thursday night. With Joe Barry out due to COVID, the defensive play calling was led by Jerry Gray and Kirk Olivadotti. The two of them made sure that the defense was ready against a high-powered Cardinals offense that led the NFL in point per game. There were definitely times when the pass rush was able to get after Kyler Murray and force him to bad throws. Murray was sacked twice: once each by De’Vondre Campbell (who finished with 7 total tackles) and Dean Lowry. Those two players, plus Kenny Clark, Rashan Gary, and Preston Smith kept the pressure going for most of the game. There were also times when the defense allowed some easy catches and plenty of yards after the catch. When it mattered the most, the Packers defense was able to get the stops, especially on the interception by Rasul Douglas. The fact that the defense played this good without Jaire Alexander, Za’Darius Smith, Kevin King (though it could be argued that it’s better without him), and their DC makes me feel hopeful that they will be a force to be reckoned with later on. Here’s to the defense keeping things on track against Kansas City.
On Special Teams, there were plenty of good things that happened. Mason Crosby made each kick, Corey Bojorquez punted well (both with no blocks), and the Packers were able to force a turnover after a muffed punt. Sadly, Kylin Hill suffered that knee injury on a kickoff return that shouldn’t have happened. All he needed to do to avoid injury was to kneel for a touchback in the end zone. Once again, I pray that he (along with Robert Tonyan) get better soon from their injuries. There was also an illegal block penalty that nullified a nice punt return by Amari Rodgers. Stuff like that can’t happen in crucial situations. As the weather gets colder, the Special Teams unit needs to up their game. I have hope that Maurice Drayton will get them ready for whatever comes next.
Overall, it was another crazy win for the Packers. Matt LaFleur should be in the talks for coach of the year after his team pulled off that win without a few key players. The only thing that the Packers need to do is to keep winning games. Next up for Green Bay is a trip to Arrowhead Stadium to face the Kansas City Chiefs. I will talk about this game later. Have a good night, everyone. Go Pack Go!
(Here are the highlights of the game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube page.)
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