Good afternoon, everyone. On Sunday afternoon, the Green Bay Packers took on the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. This game was the ninth playoff matchup between these two teams, which is the most in NFL history. Each team won four games during this playoff rivalry. Entering this game, the Packers were playing with house money. They were in a transition year with a new starting quarterback and had some struggles during the middle of the season. Led by head coach Matt LaFleur, this team became the youngest in NFL history to make the playoffs. I was hoping for the Packers to be competitive in this game no matter what the outcome was in the end. On Sunday, the Packers dominated the game from start to finish and got their 5th playoff win over the Cowboys. Here is how the game went down.
The Packers won the toss and elected to receive the opening kickoff. After that kickoff went for a touchback, the Packers started their first drive at their own 25 yard line. The first two plays were not great at all, but an illegal contact penalty negated a sack of Jordan Love and the Packers got a fresh set of downs. Two plays after the penalty, Love was calm and threw a pass to Romeo Doubs, who caught the pass for a 22 yard gain to the Green Bay 49. A 7-yard pass to Bo Melton was followed with 4 straight runs by Aaron Jones, who was able to get Green Bay to the red zone. On second and 5 from the Dallas 19 yard line, Love found Luke Musgrave for a short pass that gained 8 yards and a first down. 3 plays later, the Packers got a free 3 yards when DeMarcus Lawrence was called for a neutral zone infraction. After the penalty, Aaron Jones ran it in from 3 yards out to complete a drive that lasted nearly 8 minutes. The extra point by Anders Carlson was good, giving the Packers a 7-0 lead with 7:08 left in the first quarter. The Packers defense was able to force the Cowboys to punt on their first drive. After allowing Dak Prescott to run for 18 yards on third and 3 from the Dallas 31, the defense kept the Cowboys offense in check on the next three plays. That third play was lucky because CeeDee Lamb had his man beat and flat out dropped the pass from Prescott. The punt was fair caught by Jayden Reed at the Green Bay 9 yard line, but the Packers got an extra 15 yards thanks to a fair catch interference call on Dallas (Reed did flop on that play, but he was successful in drawing the penalty). From their own 24 yard line, the Packers started their second drive of the game with 3:55 left in the first quarter. They faced a third and 9 from their own 25 and converted it with a pass from Jordan Love to Romeo Doubs that went for 26 yards to the Dallas 49. Three plays later, the drive stalled after an incomplete pass to Jayden Reed. It wouldn’t have mattered because Elgton Jenkins was called for offensive holding on the play. The punt by Daniel Whelon was fair caught at the Dallas 8 yard line. 3 plays after the punt, Jaire Alexander picked off a Dak Prescott pass. At first, it looked like he went all the way for a touchdown. After a brief look by the officials, it was determined that he was down by contact at the Dallas 19 yard line. Even though it wasn’t a pick six, the Packers made sure to capitalize on the pick by turning it into a touchdown on offense. Jordan Love threw a pass to Aaron Jones that got them to the 6 yard line for first and goal. After an offensive holding penalty on Tucker Kraft, Love threw a 15 yard pass to Romeo Doubs that set up second and goal from the one yard line. Aaron Jones scored the touchdown after fighting for extra yards to make it a double digit lead for Green Bay. The extra point was good, giving the Packers a 14-0 lead with 14:15 left in the second quarter. After the kickoff resulted in a return that got only to the 14 yard line, the Cowboys started their next drive. They were able to get to Green Bay territory, but they had to punt away after Dak Prescott ran to his right and got sacked by Keisean Nixon after failing to find anyone open. The ensuing punt was fair caught by Jayden Reed at the Green Bay 7. From there, the Packers went on their third scoring drive of the game. After converting a third and one with a 10-yard pass to Tucker Kraft, Jordan Love found Romeo Doubs for another big gain through the air. Doubs took the pass all the way to the Dallas 35 yard line. 3 plays later, Love found Luke Musgrave for a 6-yard pass play on third and 4 to continue the drive. After a second down run play gained nothing, Love successfully caught the Dallas defense with too many men on the field. There should have been a free play on that, but the officials somehow gave Mike McCarthy a chance to call timeout. As a response to that, Love threw a pass off his back foot with guys in his face and Dontayvion Wicks caught it for the 20-yard touchdown. The bummer after the touchdown was that the extra point kick by Carlson hit the crossbar and was no good. Still, the Packers were up 20-0 with 3:23 left in the half. After the kickoff went for a touchback, the Cowboys tried to get their first points of the game. However, things went disastrous (and hilarious) when, on second and 2 from the Green Bay 40, Dak Prescott threw an interception to Darnell Savage, who took it all the way for a 64-yard touchdown. The extra point was good this time, giving Green Bay a 27-0 lead with 1:50 left in the half. I wish that was the halftime score, but the Cowboys were able to get a touchdown before halftime. On the first play of their drive (after a long kick return), Quay Walker was called for a horse collar penalty even though he didn’t grab that area. Later in the drive, De’Vondre Campbell nearly intercepted a pass in the end zone that should have been a pick. In the end, the Cowboys got the touchdown with a one-yard pass to Jake Ferguson as time ran out. The extra point was good, making the halftime score 27-7 in Green Bay’s favor.
The Cowboys started on offense in the second half. During their first third quarter drive, they were able to get into field goal range. They were helped during the drive when Kenny Clark grabbed Dak Prescott‘s face mask when he was sacking him. The face mask penalty was called and the Cowboys got a free first down. After that, they were able to get into scoring range. Thankfully, the defense forced them to settle for a field goal after Preston Smith broke up a third down pass at the line of scrimmage. The field goal by Brandon Aubrey was good from 34 yards out, cutting the lead to 27-10 with 9:23 left in the third quarter. The Packers responded with going down the field for a touchdown on their first possession of the second half. After the kickoff resulted in a touchback, Aaron Jones gained 12 yards on two rushing attempts to start the drive. Jordan Love then found a wide open Romeo Doubs on a deep pass. Doubs took the pass to the Dallas 17 yard line. Aaron Jones ran the remaining 17 yards in 2 plays, culminating with his third touchdown of the day from 9 yards out. The extra point was good, increasing the lead to 34-10 with 6:38 left in the third quarter. During the Cowboys’ next drive, Jaire Alexander and Isaiah McDuffie got banged up a bit, with Jaire reinjuring his left ankle. Jaire and McDuffie were able to walk on their own power after he got up. The biggest play of the drive was a 42-yard pass from Dak Prescott to Michael Gallop that got Dallas into scoring position. In the end of the drive, Dallas was able to score a touchdown thanks to Tony Pollard from one yard out. They got the two point conversion pass to Jake Ferguson, but it was called back due to an illegal man downfield penalty. As a result, they decided to kick the extra point. The kick was no good as the ball hit the crossbar, leaving the score at 34-16 with 3:03 left in the third quarter. After the kickoff went for another touchback, the Packers started their next drive at the 25 yard line. After two runs by Aaron Jones covered a total of 37 yards, Jordan Love faked a handoff and found a wide open Luke Musgrave, who caught the pass and didn’t stumble as he went for the touchdown. The extra point was good, giving the Packers a commanding 41-16 lead with 1:27 left in the third quarter. The Cowboys tried desperately to score on their next drive, going for it on fourth and 5 from their own 41 yard line. However, the pass went incomplete on fourth down, resulting in the Packers taking over as the fourth quarter began. After Aaron Jones ran for 19 yards on the first play, Emanuel Wilson got the call for the next few run plays as the Packers were trying to run as much clock as they can. Even though a run play fell short of a first down on third and 3 from the Dallas 4, the Packers went for it on fourth down. On the fourth down play, Jordan Love ran to his right and threw a tight throw to Romeo Doubs, who caught the pass for a touchdown from 3 yards out. After the PAT kick was good, the score was 48-16 with 10:28 left in the game. For the rest of the game, it was literal garbage time as Dallas made the score more respectable with 2 touchdowns (which were followed by two point conversions). After the second touchdown, Jordan Love was brought back after sitting out a drive in favor of Sean Clifford. Love lost his perfect passer rating when Tucker Kraft dropped an easy pass on third and 7 from the Dallas 41 yard line. The Cowboys’ comeback effort came up short in the end after Preston Smith sacked Dak Prescott and Dak threw incomplete on the next play. After a kneel-down by Love, the game was over with the final score being 48-32 in Green Bay’s favor. With the win, the Packers become the first 7th seed to beat a number 2 seed on Super Wild Card Weekend and move on to the Divisional Round.
On offense, the Packers played fantastic from start to finish (outside of that garbage time stretch in the fourth quarter). There was literally nothing that the Dallas defense could do to stop Green Bay from putting plenty of points on the scoreboard. If you take away the dropped pass near the end of the game, Jordan Love had a perfect passer rating of 158.3 while completing 16 of 20 passes for 272 yards and three touchdowns. As is, Love’s passer rating was 157.2 on Sunday afternoon against the Cowboys defense. Love was able to produce those great stats thanks to a great Aaron Jones, who ran 21 times for 118 yards and 3 touchdowns, and an offensive line that didn’t give up a single sack (other than the one that was nullified due to a penalty). Romeo Doubs led the receiving corps with 6 catches for 151 yards and one touchdown. Doubs helped contribute to a couple of the touchdowns with his big gains, including one that went for over 40 yards in the second half. Luke Musgrave caught 3 passes for 52 yards, including a 38-yard touchdown in which he was wide open and stayed on his feet (which Matt LaFleur mentioned in the locker room after the game to the delight of everyone). Dontayvion Wicks only caught two passes, but one of them was the touchdown in which Love was pressured and threw off his back foot. Everything went fantastic for Green Bay on offense, thanks to the play calling and the execution of the game plan. Some of the plays that were wide open (including some big plays) were thanks to some players acting as decoys, including Christian Watson, who came back from a month-long absence due to a hamstring issue. All involved should be applauded for putting up over 40 points on the Cowboys and making the Cowboys fans leave the stadium as the fourth quarter began (even earlier than that). I have full confidence that Jordan Love will lead the offense to greatness in the future. May the great play continue in the next round.
Like on offense, the Packers played great on defense before the garbage time stretch. Things were not perfect in terms of keeping the Cowboys from converting some third downs, but they kept them from scoring points for almost all of the first half. They sacked Dak Prescott 4 times and forced him to throw two interceptions. Both of them would have been pick sixes had Jaire Alexander not been down by contact. Jaire’s interception did set up Aaron Jones’ second touchdown run of the day, so there’s that. I absolutely went bonkers when Darnell Savage took the second interception all the way for a touchdown to make it 27-0 Green Bay. A big missed opportunity was De’Vondre Campbell dropping a pick that would have preserved the shutout lead at halftime. Even when the Cowboys started scoring some points, the Packers were able to stop them at crucial points to allow the offense to break the game wide open in the third quarter and the start of the fourth. Once it was 48-16, the Packers defense allowed Dak Prescott go off on the defense’s B-Team. Unfortunately, late in the game, Kingsley Enegbare left the game with a knee injury, which was revealed to be a torn ACL. That injury stinks so bad because he was a great rotational player on the defensive front. I’m hoping that he gets better during the offseason and doesn’t miss too much of next season. Outside of the last 10 minutes, the Packers defense played fantastic against a Cowboys offense that was very good throughout the season. Green Bay’s defense forced the Cowboys fans to boo their own team, which is always funny to hear. Thank goodness that they kept the Cowboys from completing their comeback in the final minute. The defense will have another tough test against the 49ers on Saturday night. Hopefully they’re up to the challenge.
On Special Teams, the Packers played almost perfectly. Anders Carlson was 6 for 7 on his extra points (the miss being a doink), Daniel Whelon punted three balls inside the Cowboys’ 10 yard line, and no penalties were suffered by the Packers on Special Teams. Jayden Reed did flop while drawing the fair catch interference penalty, but it worked. They did give up a long kick return before halftime, but they were great on kickoff return coverage otherwise. No long returns happened for Green Bay on Sunday, so that was a bummer. Other than those couple of mistakes, the Packers came to play on Special Teams. It was especially needed when the Cowboys attempted two onside kicks in the fourth quarter, which Green Bay recovered. No mistakes are allowed on Saturday night. Otherwise, the 49ers will take advantage of those blunders.
Overall, the Packers dominated this game from start to finish on all sides of the football. The final score doesn’t indicate that as the Cowboys scored in garbage time. It’s always fantastic to see the Packers win against the Cowboys, whether in person (I was at Lambeau Field for McCarthy’s return to Lambeau) or on television. For the Packers, it was their fifth playoff win against the Cowboys. Also, they are still unbeaten at a place sometimes called “Jerry World” (referring to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who will not win another Super Bowl as owner of Dallas). It’s on to the next round for the Packers. The opponent on Saturday night is a familiar one: the San Francisco 49ers. Since the 49ers are the top seed, the game will take place at Levi’s Stadium. I would love to see the Packers upset the 49ers on Saturday night. Regardless of the outcome, the future is bright for Green Bay with Jordan Love under center. For now, I am celebrating a Playoff Victory Monday. Go Pack Go!
(Here are the highlights of the win, provided by the NFL’s YouTube page. Click on “Watch on YouTube” if you want to.)
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