Good afternoon, everybody. On Sunday October 13, the Green Bay Packers took on the Arizona Cardinals at the friendly confines of Lambeau Field. Entering this game, the Packers were 3-2 and hoping to stay consistent with their winning ways after their win against the Rams last week. In addition to that, the Packers are in the middle of a tough division race with each team in the NFC North over .500 (first time since 2002 that all 4 NFC North teams have at least 4 wins over the first 6 weeks). Thankfully, the Packers took care of business at home and improved to 4-2 on the season. Let’s get into detail on how this game went down.
The Packers started this game on the offensive side of the ball. On the first play after the kickoff, Jordan Love was able to draw the Cardinals defense offside. Rather than allow the play to continue, the officials blew the play dead and gave the Packers only the free 5 yards. They only moved the ball 11 more yards after that during the drive. The drive ended when Jordan Love threw a deep pass that fell incomplete due to Dontayvion Wicks not being able to get the ball (there should have been a PI called there). Thankfully, the Packers defense forced Arizona to go three and out on their first possession. During the punt return, Jayden Reed got his facemask pulled by a defender, giving the Packers the ball at the Arizona 44 yard line. From there, the Packers offense only needed 5 plays to get to the end zone. Josh Jacobs started the drive with a 14 yard run. After another free play was blown dead by the officials, Bo Melton gained 16 yards on an end-around that gave the Packers a first and goal at the 9 yard line. Two plays later, Love found Jayden Reed for a 5-yard touchdown pass. Reed didn’t want to risk doing a Lambeau Leap due to the rainy weather, which is understandable. The extra point by Brayden Narveson was good, giving Green Bay a 7-0 lead with 8:55 left in the first quarter. The Cardinals tried to move the ball down the field for a potential score, but their drive ended in a punt after two straight incomplete passes by Kyler Murray from the Green Bay 44 yard line. The ensuing punt resulted in a touchback, giving the Packers the ball at their own 20. From there, the Packers went on another scoring drive. The drive started with a 19-yard pass completion to Romeo Doubs, who made his return after being suspended last week. Two plays later, Emanuel Wilson caught a short pass and took it 19 yards to the Cardinals 42 yard line. Jordan Love completed a 9-yard pass to Dontayvion Wicks that converted a third and 3 from the Arizona 35 yard line. Later in the drive, the Packers had a run play by Josh Jacobs that was nullified by a hands to the face penalty on Elgton Jenkins. The Packers were still able to complete the drive with a touchdown when Jordan Love connected to Romeo Doubs on a third and 5 pass. After Romeo caught the pass, he was able to stay in bounds and dive to the end zone for the touchdown. Doubs was given a group hug by his teammates after he scored in a lovely gesture of support. The extra point by Narveson was good, increasing the lead to 14-0 with 14:55 left in the second quarter. The Packers defense forced the Cardinals to once again go three and out. On third and 5 from the 35 yard line, Rashan Gary was able to make Kyler Murray throw an errant pass that fell incomplete. After the punt, the Packers started their next drive at their own 10 yard line. On the second play of the drive, Jordan Love found tight end Ben Sims for a 28 yard pass play. Later in the possession, the Packers faced a fourth and 1 from the Arizona 36 yard line. Rather than try a field goal in the rainy conditions, they went for it. Jordan Love threw a pass over the middle that got to Christian Watson (who made a great catch in traffic) for a 14 yard gain. Three plays later, the drive stalled when a pass to Watson that could have been a touchdown went incomplete on a play that should have been defensive pass interference. The penalty wasn’t called, and the Packers settled for a field goal as a result. The kick was good from 36 yards away, increasing the lead to 17-0 with 6:32 left in the first half. The Packers defense forced the Cardinals to go three and out yet again. On third and 1 from the 31 yard line, Kyler Murray faked a handoff and tried to run for the first down. However, rookie safety Evan Williams read that play perfectly and tacked Murray for a two yard loss. The punt was disastrous at first after Jayden Reed lost the ball and got hurt on the return (thankfully, he came back later in the game). However, the Cardinals were called for a horse collar penalty and had to punt again. The second punt was returned by Keisean Nixon, who would have taken the punt all the way for a touchdown had he not been pushed out of bounds at the Arizona 44 yard line. The Packers offense got the touchdown in one play when Jordan Love threw it deep to Christian Watson, who caught the pass for the touchdown and did a Lambeau Leap to celebrate. The extra point was good, increasing the lead to 24-0 with 4:32 left in the half. After the kickoff went for a touchback, the Cardinals were able to finally put points on the board. Their 6 play drive ended with an 18 yard touchdown pass from Kyler Murray to Michael Wilson. The extra point was good, decreasing the lead to 24-7 with 1:56 left in the half. The Cardinals quickly had another chance to get points on the board when Jordan Love’s pass to Bo Melton went disastrous. Bo Melton slipped on the field, which allowed the pass to be picked off. Thankfully, the Packers defense kept the Cardinals from scoring a touchdown after the pick and forced them to settle for a field goal. The score at halftime was 24-10 in Green Bay’s favor.
The Cardinals started the second half by moving the ball down the field. They got to field goal range, but the Packers defense was able to keep them out of the end zone. The field goal by Chad Ryland was good, decreasing the lead to 24-13 with 9:03 left in the third quarter. The Packers responded by moving the ball down the field for another touchdown on their first possession of the third quarter. They were in danger of their drive coming up short when a third down pass at the Arizona 31 went for a loss of 2 yards, but the play was nullified by a defensive penalty that kept the drive alive. 3 plays later, the Packers faced a third and 4 from the 20 yard line. Jordan Love took the snap and had to back pedal a lot due to someone in his face. He had to throw the ball deep somewhere. Thankfully, Romeo Doubs had great ball instincts and caught the pass for the touchdown. The extra point was good, increasing the lead to 31-13 with 3:48 left in the third quarter. The Packers quickly got the ball back when Karl Brooks forced James Conner to fumble the ball after catching a screen pass. The fumble was recovered by Brooks at the Arizona 30. Even with this advantage, the Packers were not able to score a touchdown after the turnover. To make things worse, the field goal attempt by Narveson had a high snap issue and the kick being wide right from the left hash mark. Due to the miss, the score stayed at 31-13 with 2:04 left in the quarter. The Cardinals were moving the ball down the field to hopefully get another score when they had another turnover. On first and 10 from the Green Bay 39 yard line, Kyler Murray connected with Greg Dortch on a short pass. Dortch was then swarmed with defenders and got the ball punched out of his hands by Evan Williams. The fumble was recovered by Jaire Alexander at the Green Bay 23, ending that Cardinals drive. Thankfully, the Packers were able to put some more points on the board after the fumble recovery. It wasn’t a touchdown, but three points from Brayden Narveson was enough to make the score 34-13 with under 10 minutes left in the game. The Cardinals went on one more desperation drive to get some garbage time points, but it ended with a third lost fumble near the red zone. Kyler Murray got the snap and lost the ball as he was trying to hand off to one of his running backs. The fumble was recovered by Kenny Clark at the Green Bay 21. From there, the Packers offense was able to run out the rest of the clock and seal the win. They did get close to scoring more points, but they decided to be a good sport and kneeled the ball to end the game. With the 34-13 win, the Packers improve to 4-2 on the season.
(Here are the highlights of the game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube channel. Click on “Watch on YouTube”)
On offense, the Packers played a great game against the Cardinals even with the rainy weather. In the run game, the Packers carried a total of 38 times for 179 rushing yards. Josh Jacobs had 62 yards on 18 carries while Emanuel Wilson had 54 yards on 7 rushing attempts. Bo Melton had that end around that helped set up the touchdown pass that Jayden Reed caught in the first quarter. Chris Brooks had some good runs on the final drive of the game that sealed the win. In the passing game, Jordan Love played great as he threw for 258 yards and 4 touchdowns on Sunday. He became the first Packers quarterback since Brett Favre in 1995 to have back to back home games with at least 4 touchdown passes. Some of his throws on Sunday, including the fourth down pass to Christian Watson and the touchdown pass to Romeo Doubs in the third quarter were risky throws that thankfully were completed. I also give credit to Watson and Doubs for catching those passes. As for the interception that he threw, it was not entirely his fault. On that play, Bo Melton slipped on the wet grass during his route. That slip resulted in the pass being picked off. Other than that and a couple of drives that didn’t end up in points (plus two free plays that were blown dead by the officials), the Packers had a great day at Lambeau Field. The offensive line played fantastic as they kept Jordan Love upright for the whole game and helped the running game produce well. There was an injury scare with Josh Myers late, but he came back before the game ended. Two more injury scares were Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks. Wicks had to leave the game with a shoulder injury and Reed got hurt during a punt return. Reed thankfully came back, which was good for the offense. I’m hoping Wicks’ injury is not too serious. Before I move on to the defense, I want to give a shoutout to Romeo Doubs, who caught two touchdown passes from Jordan Love on Sunday. I just hope that he is doing ok mentally. On the first touchdown catch, he was hugged by all of his teammates after the catch. Hopefully there’s no more drama surrounding him and the offense can score at least 30 points in each game from now on.
On defense, the Packers played great against the Cardinals. They kept Kyler Murray in check and didn’t allow him to run for a lot of yards. Murray did complete 22 passes for 214 yards and a touchdown, but they were mainly short passes with a couple of medium passes in between. I had a feeling that he was afraid to throw it deep. A couple of factors played into this: Marvin Harrison Jr had to leave due to injury, the pass rush didn’t give him enough time, and he didn’t want to risk throwing to Xavier McKinney (who should be the front runner for defensive player of the year). McKinney didn’t get to continue his interception streak, but the Packers did force three turnovers due to forced fumbles. Evan Williams forced one of those fumbles in addition to reading that Kyler Murray RPO play earlier in the game. Williams has been everywhere on defense recently, and he has played well for the defense. Jaire Alexander’s return to action was great to see. The rest of the defensive backs played much better with Jaire back to lead them. The run game was kept in check as well, as they allowed only 89 yards on the ground. Kudos to everyone on defense for playing great and to Jeff Hafley for getting his players ready. In these past 4 weeks, the Packers defense have allowed the opposing team to score fewer than 7 points in the second half. This is great to see, and I hope that continues next week and beyond.
On Special Teams, the Packers played good at points. They didn’t allow a huge punt or kick return to the Cardinals, and they didn’t have any of their punts or field goal attempts blocked. There were no big kickoff returns by Green Bay, but there was a big punt return by Keisean Nixon that set up Christian Watson’s TD catch. That big return happened when the Cardinals were called for a horse collar tackle penalty on the previous punt attempt. I’m glad that the penalty happened because Jayden Reed lost the ball during the return that was nullified. Hopefully Reed is kept from any punts in the near future. Daniel Whelan only punted once on Sunday, but that punt pinned the Cardinals inside their own 10 yard line. My patience is wearing thin with Brayden Narveson. He made two of his field goals (and all four extra points), but there was a 44-yarder that he sailed wide to the right. None of the kicks were past 49 yards. I have a feeling that one of the reasons why the Packers went for it on the play that ended with Jordan Love threading the needle to Christian Watson was because they didn’t trust Narveson to kick a 50+ yard field goal. This Packers team is, in my opinion, good enough to win it all this year. I don’t want to see yet another opportunity lost due to kicking woes and other special teams blunders. Narveson needs to get it together quickly. I’m just glad that Special Teams didn’t screw things up on Sunday. Hopefully they’re great next week and beyond.
Overall, it was a great win for the Packers against the Cardinals at Lambeau Field. It was complementary football from start to finish on all sides of the ball. It was a mostly stress free game, which was nice. Next week looks to be a tough one, as the Packers take on the Houston Texans in what could be a Super Bowl preview. The Packers will be wearing their new all-white uniforms in that game and I am sure that they will encourage every Packers fan to wear white at Lambeau Field. I’m irritated that the game is not a prime time game, but it will be entertaining to watch regardless. For now, I am celebrating yet another Victory Monday. Have a great week, everyone. Go Pack Go!
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