Thoughts on Week 6 (2026): Green Bay Packers vs. Dallas Cowboys
It’s always a good day for America (and around the world) when the Dallas Cowboys lose. Entering Sunday night’s game at Lambeau Field against Dallas, the Green Bay Packers were looking to extend their winning streak and continue their winning ways against the Cowboys (minus that tie last year). The final score on Sunday night did not indicate it, but the Packers dominated the Cowboys from start to finish. Let’s go over this game, shall we?
The Packers defense was able to force the Cowboys to punt on their first drive. On third and 4 from the Green Bay 47, Dan Prescott’s pass to Javonte Williams went nowhere thanks to Evan Willams and Brenton Cox Jr. The ensuing punt was fair caught at the 10 yard line by Coleman Owen (who was brought in due to Skyy Moore’s ankle injury). After a run by MarShawn Lloyd went for a two yard loss, Jordan Love found Savion Williams on back to back passes to move the chains. Three plays later, Jordan Love found Christian Watson for a 27 yard pass play that got the Packers into Dallas territory (Watson wasn’t touched at all, so he could have scored on that play). On second and 10 from the Dallas 47, Matthew Golden caught a pass that went for 37 yards to the Dallas 9. However, the Packers were forced to start first and 10 at the 24 due to a horrible “taunting” penalty called on Golden, who was just flexing his muscles and celebrating the catch. After two penalties, an incomplete pass, and a sack by Quinnen Williams, the Packers faced a third and 13 at the Dallas 27. Pierre Strong Jr caught a pass and got the first down. 3 plays later, Golden caught a touchdown from 9 yards out and celebrated with a Lambeau Leap. The extra point kick by Trey Smack was good, giving Green Bay a 7-0 lead with less than 5 minutes left in the first quarter. The Packers defense forced Dallas to go three and out on their next possession. The ensuing punt was returned by Coleman Owen to the Green Bay 41. 2 plays later, Jordan Love threw a pick that was initially ruled a pick six. Thankfully, the TD was nullified due to Dee Winters being ruled down by contact (also, Sean Rhyan and MarShawn Lloyd escaped an injury scare). The Packers defense responded by picking off Dak Prescott. On the play before, Zaire Franklin laid a hit on Prescott that briefly gave him a pause for his rib area. Evan Williams intercepted the pass intended for CeeDee Lamb and returned it to the Green Bay 20. From there, the Packers went on another time consuming drive. During the drive, the Packers faced a first and 20 after a holding penalty was called on Anthony Belton. 2 plays after that penalty, Watson caught a pass that went 28 yards to the Dallas 43. On the next play, Matthew Golden dropped a perfect pass from Jordan Love that would have been a touchdown. 2 plays later, Jordan love used his legs to get a first down on third and 5 from the Dallas 38. Eventually, they got into a goal to go situation. Unfortunately, the Packers were not able to get a touchdown and had to settle for a field goal. The kick was good from 25 yards out, extending the lead to 10-0 with less than 6 minutes left in the second quarter. The Cowboys were able to get into scoring range on their next possession, but the drive ended when Dak threw his second pick of the night. Brandon Cisse got the pick and basically ran sideways and out of bounds. After the pick, the Packers took over at their own 23 with 1:50 left in the first half. During the drive, Jordan Love tried to find Bo Melton for a deep pass on third and 8 from the Green Bay 36. The pass went incomplete, but Joey Porter Jr (who was traded to the Cowboys from the Steelers, who his father played for) was called for pass interference. 2 plays later, Golden dropped another touchdown that he should have caught. On the next play, he redeemed himself somewhat by catching a 21 yard pass that set up first and goal at the 2 yard line. Love tried a goal line fade and failed, but a pass interference penalty on DaRon Bland (who claimed that he was getting a pick six, but failed) gave the Packers another first and goal from one yard closer to the end zone. Jordan Love did a QB sneak and got in the end zone for a touchdown. The extra point was good, extending the lead to 17-0 right before halftime. The Cowboys did not have any timeouts left, yet they did a pointless play before halftime that, thankfully, nobody got hurt during.
The Packers did nothing on their first drive of the second and half and went three and out. The Cowboys started at the Green Bay 46 after the punt return. They were able to convert a fourth and 2 when Dak Prescott found CeeDee Lamb for a 17 yard pass completion. A few plays later, Javonte Williams finished the drive with a 1 yard TD run that, with the extra point, cut the lead to 17-7 with a little over 9 minutes left in the third quarter. J Michael Sturdivant returned the ensuing kickoff to the Green Bay 32. From there, the Packers were able to get into scoring range. During the drive, they faced a fourth and 3 from the Dallas 44. Tucker Kraft caught a pass that went for 14 yards to the 30 yard line. 2 plays later, Christian Watson dropped what would have been his 7th TD of the season. After an incomplete pass on third down, the Packers had to settle for another field goal. The kick was good from 44 yards out, extending the lead to 20-7 with about 5 minutes left in the third quarter. After two straight three and outs (one by each team), the Cowboys took over at their own 31 with 1:11 left in the third quarter. On third and 6 from the Dallas 35, it looked like the Packers got a stop after the pass went incomplete. However, there were offsetting penalties on the play. Tyler Guyton was called for offensive holding and Dani Dennis-Sutton was called for a nonsensical taunting penalty. Even though the taunting penalty happened after the snap, the offsetting penalties rule gave the Cowboys another shot at third and 6. George Pickens caught a 7 yard pass to move the chains. Thankfully, the Packers defense forced the Cowboys to turn the ball over on downs. Javon Bullard broke up a pass on fourth and 2 from midfield, though he should have taken that pass home for a pick six. On second and 12 from the Green Bay 49, Jordan Love found Matthew Golden for a pass that went 21 yards to the Dallas 30. 3 plays later, Golden caught a pass that went 12 yards to the Dallas 13. After that, the drive stalled and the Packers had to settle for a third field goal. The kick was good from 29 yards out, extending the lead to 23-7 with a little over 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter. Despite suffering some penalties, including a roughing the pssser penalty called on Lukas Van Ness when he barely pushed Dak Prescott, the Packers defense held the Cowboys to no points on their next drive. Prescott was pressured on fourth and 11 from the Green Bay 14 and he had to throw it out of the end zone. The Packers had a chance to milk the rest of the clock since the Cowboys had no timeouts left, but Pierre Strong dropped an easy pass on third and 6 from the Green Bay 29. The Cowboys scored a touchdown in garbage time (partly thanks to another awful roughing the passer penalty), but they failed to get the two point conversion and did not recover the onside kick. The Packers were able to hold on to the 23-13 win. With the win, the Packers are now 4-2 on the season.
(Here are the highlights of this game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube page. Click on “Watch on YouTube” if you’re curious.)
On offense, the Packers were not at their best. Jordan Love played well on Sunday night, but he had a couple of iffy moments and was extremely lucky that the pick he threw in the first half was not a pick six. There was another moment where it looked like he threw another pick, but the ruling was ultimately an incomplete pass. The offensive line wasn’t the best on Sunday night as Love was sacked 3 times and took some additional hits from the Cowboys defenders. What also did not help was that the receivers had the case of the drops on Sunday night. There were too many dropped passes, including three dropped TD passes (2 by Matthew Golden, 1 by Christian Watson). Despite his two dropped TDs and a dumb taunting penalty that should not have been called, Matthew Golden still had over 100 yards receiving on the night. The Packers had a great opportunity to have a decent night in the rushing game against the Cowboys’ run defense, but that did not happen as they only had 57 yards on the ground, with some of those yards courtesy of Jordan Love. Josh Jacobs is expected to be back after being taken off the Commissioner’s Exempt list (not the biggest fan of him coming back due to his domestic incident back in May), but who knows how he’ll play behind an offensive line that isn’t the best at run blocking. While there were some missed opportunities on offense, I’m just glad that they put up enough points to ultimately win the game. Hopefully things gets cleaned up for next week and beyond.
On defense, the Packers dominated the night against Dallas. Entering this game, it was thought that the Packers were going to have to be ready for a high scoring offense. Thankfully, that was not the case as they held the Cowboys in check throughout this game, minus 2 TD drives (one in garbage time). Dak threw two picks, one each to Evan Williams and Brandon Cisse (who should be fine after leaving late with a stinger injury). Javon Bullard should have had a pick six when he broke up a pass on a fourth down during the second half. Carrington Valentin had an interception taken away from him due to Lukas Van Ness being called for the most stupid roughing the passer call I’ve ever seen. LVN just slightly pushed him, yet he got called for the penalty. Karl Brooks and Evan Williams were also called for roughing the passer in the fourth quarter. The one on Karl Brooks is the only one I consider a proper call due to the rule of not landing on the QB. The ones on LVN and Evan Williams were just nonsense. I just want these calls to be consistently called when Jordan Love gets roughed up at times on the other side of the ball. Despite these penalties (plus the “taunting” call on Dani Dennis-Sutton), the Packers were able to take care of business at home and frustrate Dak all night long (Dak went to the tunnel without shaking hands after the game). I just wish that Dak was sacked more than just once. Hopefully the defenders do a much better job at sacking the QB next week and beyond (Micah Parsons coming back soon should help things there). Still, I give kudos to Jonathan Gannon’s unit for playing fantastic all night.
On Special Teams, the Packers played a much cleaner game than last week. For one thing, Trey Smack made all of his kicks after missing 3 of them last week against the Bears. Daniel Whelan punted well, averaging 50.3 yards on his 3 attempts. Thankfully, no kicks or punts were blocked. No kick or punt returns by either team went for a touchdown, but I’m glad the Packers did not surrender any game altering plays or fumbled the ball on kickoffs or punts. The onside kick went out of bounds, so the Packers did not have to worry about that. Even with some shenanigans happening on Sunday night offensively and defensively, I’m glad that the Packers ST unit played well enough and avoided major mistakes.
Overall, I’m glad that the Packers took care of business at home against the Cowboys, despite some missed scoring opportunities and some nonsense by the officials. The final score sometimes never tells the full story, which was the case on Sunday night. If it was not for dropped passes on offense, the Packers would have put up over 40 points on Dallas. Still, a win is a win, especially against a hated rival. Any time Jerry Jones is not happy is a happy time for everyone else. Next up for the Packers is an NFC North showdown against the Detroit Lions at Ford Field. Hopefully they get themselves ready for that game. In the meantime, I’m celebrating a third straight Victory Monday. Have a great week, everyone. Go Pack Go!
Comments