Good evening, everyone. On Sunday October 20, the Green Bay Packers debuted their new Winter Warning uniforms at Lambeau Field against the Houston Texans. Entering this game, the Packers were looking to continue their winning streak and stay in the NFC North division race. It wasn’t going to be easy against a Texans team that entered this game with a 5-1 record. In what turned out to be a heart-racing game, the Packers got the win in the final seconds. Let’s get into detail on how this game went down at Lambeau Field.
The Packers started this game on the offensive side of the ball. Keisean Nixon had a great kick return to the Green Bay 43, but a holding penalty nullified the return. As a result, the drive started at the 20 yard line. On the first play, Jordan Love found Romeo Doubs for a 23-yard pass play. Two runs by Josh Jacobs followed that pass completion, setting up a third and 3 at midfield. On third down, Love forced a throw to Dontayvion Wicks even though Wicks was covered by two defenders. The pass was intercepted by Neville Hewitt, who returned the pick to the Green Bay 11 yard line. Thankfully, the Packers defense kept the Texans offense from scoring a touchdown after the pick. The field goal from 23 yards out by Ka’imi Fairbairn was good, giving Houston a 3-0 lead with 11:48 left in the first quarter. After the field goal, there was a lot of tension between both teams. The 15-yard penalty that was called on Green Bay resulted in the Packers starting from their own 25 even after the ensuing kickoff went out of bounds. Green Bay wasn’t able to do anything on their next possession and went three and out after a short pass to Josh Jacobs was two yards short of a first down on third and 7 from the Green Bay 28. The punt by Daniel Whelan was fair caught at the Houston 20 yard line. From there, the Texans had better luck moving the ball down the field. They got to field goal range, but CJ Stroud was sacked for a loss of 8 yards by a blitzing Xavier McKinney that came out of nowhere. That sack forced the Texans to punt the ball back to Green Bay. From their own 8, the Packers started their next drive in the hopes of getting their first points of the game. What followed was a methodical 13-play drive that took up nearly 7 minutes of game time. A mix of run and pass plays that were effective (minus the end around) helped the Packers during this drive. What also helped was when Neville Hewitt was called for unnecessary roughness when he threw Jayden Reed down to the ground on second and 14 from the Houston 41 yard line. 3 plays after that penalty, Jordan Love threw a laser of a pass that went through the hands of a defender and into the hands of Tucker Kraft for a 14-yard touchdown. Everyone on the offense joined Tucker Kraft in the end zone for a group photo celebration, which was awesome to see. The extra point kick by Brandon McManus (who was brought in a few days ago to replace Brayden Narveson) was good, giving the Packers a 7-3 lead with 13:16 left in the second quarter. The Packers defense shut down the Texans on their next possession and forced a punt. During that three and out, Quay Walker got hit on the head by someone’s knee and suffered a concussion. Hopefully he recovers soon from that. The punt was disastrous for the Packers. Keisean Nixon made the bad decision to not get the ball. The ball bounced and grazed Corey Ballentine just enough to make it a live ball. The fumble was recovered by Houston at the Green Bay 11 yard line. Two plays later, Joe Mixon ran it in for the two yard touchdown. He tried to do a leap, but a great Packers fan in overalls denied him the opportunity. The extra point was good, giving Houston a 10-7 lead with 11:52 left in the first half. The Packers responded with a 6-play drive that culminated in a beautiful 30-yard touchdown pass from Jordan Love to Dontayvion Wicks. After he caught the ball, Wicks thankfully stayed in bounds. The extra point was good, giving Green Bay a 14-10 lead with 8:51 left in the half. The Packers kickoff return coverage unit allowed a big return that gave Houston great field position to start their ensuing drive. Even with this disadvantage, the Packers defense was able to keep the Texans from scoring a touchdown on this drive. The drive stalled when CJ Stroud threw an incomplete pass on third and 12 from the Green Bay 34. The field goal by Fairbairn was good from 52 yards out, cutting the lead to 14-13 with 4 and a half minutes left in the second quarter. The Packers had plenty of time to get a score before halftime, but Jordan Love ruined that by throwing a bad pick on the first play of the drive. The Texans took advantage of this interception by scoring a touchdown on the ensuing drive. Joe Mixon once again scored, this time from 4 yards away. For some reason, Houston decided to go for two. Mixon was stuffed by Evan Williams, keeping the score at 19-14 with 1:13 left in the half. The Packers still had some time to get something before halftime, but the drive stalled when Jayden Reed couldn’t hang on to a beautiful deep pass from Jordan Love that would have gotten the Packers into scoring position. After the punt, the Texans kneeled to end the half with a 19-14 lead.
The Packers defense had a great start to the second half when they forced the Texans to go three and out. On third and 5 from the Houston 35, CJ Stroud was sacked for a loss of 8 yards by Eric Wilson. Keisean Nixon caught the punt and ran for 8 yards before being pushed out of bounds at the Green Bay 29. From there, the Packers offense started their first drive of the third quarter. They had no issue moving the ball down the field on this drive. The drive ended when Jordan Love connected with Josh Jacobs on a short pass that Jacobs took to the end zone on second and goal from the 8 yard line. Jacobs celebrated his very first receiving touchdown (and Jordan Love’s 50th career TD pass) by doing his first Lambeau Leap as a Packer. The extra point was good, giving Green Bay a 21-19 lead with 7:25 left in the third quarter. The Packers defense forced another three and out, even after an offsides penalty was called on Kenny Clark. Jayden Reed made a huge mistake by fielding the ball when he should have let the ball go into the end zone for a touchback. Reed tried to make a big play out of it, but he got tackled at the 4 yard line. The Packers offense should have gotten a first down on the drive when faced with a third and 1 from the 13 yard line. Rather than run it up the gut with Josh Jacobs, who has been productive at this point, they did an end around play with Jayden Reed that went for nothing. After that disaster of a play, the Packers had to punt back to Houston. From their own 25 yard line, the Texans started their next drive with 4:35 left in the third quarter. They moved the ball down the field, but their drive stalled when CJ Stroud was sacked on third and 8 from the Green Bay 44 yard line by Eric Wilson. The punt was fair caught by Jayden Reed at the Green Bay 15. The drive went nowhere after Jordan Love was sacked on third and 3 from the Green Bay 22 by Will Anderson Junior. The punt by Daniel Whelan went 66 yards to the Houston 21 yard line, where it was returned for 11 yards by Tank Dell. After allowing CJ Stroud to scramble for a first down, the Packers defense took care of business again and forced yet another punt. This time, there was no worry about a turnover since the punt went into the end zone for a touchback. From their own 20, the Packers had another chance to put the game out of reach with 10:10 left in the fourth quarter. Once again, the Packers failed to do anything on the drive. On first and 10 from the 20 yard line, there was an illegal block penalty that negated a five yard pass play. After an incompletion on first and 19, Jordan Love was sacked for a loss of 8 yards by former Viking Danielle Hunter. On third and 27, Love connected with Romeo Doubs on a pass play that basically gave the punter better position to do his thing. After the punt return, the Texans started their next possession at their own 38 yard line with 8:11 left in the game. They managed to get into scoring range after a drive that lasted 6 and a half minutes. However, they made a big mistake. After they got first and 10 from the Green Bay 12 yard line, they proceeded to run the ball for two straight plays. Both times, the run play went for negative yards and the Packers called timeout to stop the clock. On third and 15 from the 17 yard line, the Texans decided to throw the ball. The pass to Tank Dell went incomplete, stopping the clock at a minute and 48 seconds. The field goal by Ka’imi Fairbairn was good from 35 yards out, giving Houston a one point lead with 1:44 left in the game. After the kickoff went for a touchback, the Packers offense started the potential game winning drive at their own 30 yard line. The drive almost started with a bang when Jordan Love threw a pass intended down the middle of the field for Romeo Doubs. The pass was tipped, but Doubs almost caught the pass. Thankfully, the pass went incomplete and the drive was still alive. Two plays later, Love connected with Dontayvion Wicks for a 13-yard pass completion to convert a third and 2 from the Green Bay 38. After an incomplete pass on the following play, Love connected with Romeo Doubs for a 12-yard pass completion that set up a first and 10 at the Houston 37. The Packers got 5 free yards after Will Anderson Junior was called for an offsides penalty. On first and 5 from the 32 yard line, Love went for the touchdown and threw it to Dontayvion Wicks. The bummer was that the pass went incomplete, but at least it wasn’t a turnover. On second and 5, Love found Romeo Doubs for a 6 yard pass play that gave the Packers a first and 10 at the Houston 26. An exchange of timeouts followed that, with Houston’s timeout as an attempt to freeze the kicker. Brandon McManus made the first kick that wad nullified due to the timeout. On the second attempt, Matt Orzech snapped the ball low. Thankfully, Daniel Whelan got the ball into position for McManus to win the game from 45 yards out. McManus and plenty of other players celebrated by doing a Lambeau Leap with the fans. The 24-22 win improved the Packers’ record to 5-2 on the season.
(Here are the highlights of the game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube channel. Click on “Watch on YouTube” if you’re interested.)
On offense, the Packers didn’t play their best game. There were some mistakes that were made from Jordan Love throwing two picks to a couple of end around plays that went nowhere at all. The second end around play was maddening because it should have been canned in favor of giving Josh Jacobs a chance to convert a simple third and one. Jacobs led the Packers in rushing with 76 yards on 12 carries, with the rest of the team not getting basically anything on the ground against Houston’s defense. The passing game fared a bit better, with Jordan Love throwing for 220 yards and three touchdowns. The touchdown to Tucker Kraft was basically a rocket ball that went past the hands of a defender and landed in the hands of Kraft. The second one was a beautiful rainbow of a pass that went into the hands of Wicks. I was happy to see Josh Jacobs catch his first touchdown pass ever. That TD pass to Jacobs was Love’s 50th career TD pass, which is the first of many milestones that Love will reach in his career. Even though he didn’t catch a TD pass, Romeo Doubs led the receiving corps with 8 catches for 94 yards, including two clutch receptions during the game-winning drive. Jayden Reed would have done better had he caught the beautiful deep pass at the end of the first half that would have helped the Packers get some points before halftime. I didn’t like that Love had two more picks, with the second one being an overall bad decision. In addition to that, he took a couple of sacks when he had a guy open for a pass. The offensive line didn’t have the best of times against that defensive front, but I hope that they can bounce back next week and beyond. What matters in the end (even with the mistakes) was that Jordan Love led the offense down the field to set up the game-winning field goal. I’m sure the Packers will have a great bounce back against a Jaguars team that is awful defensively. Anything can happen in the NFL, so they need to be ready to execute well.
On defense, the Packers played great against a Texans offense led by CJ Stroud, who won offensive rookie of the year last season. Stroud was shut down by the defense as he only completed 10 of his 21 passes for 86 yards and zero touchdowns. Due to CJ only throwing for 86 yards, none of the receivers had a huge impact. Stefon Diggs had a scuffle with some Packers players before the game, including Jaire Alexander. Diggs only got 23 receiving yards after that, which was hilarious to see. The only bummer was that the defense didn’t get a single turnover, but they did force the Houston offense to go three and out numerous times and sacked CJ Stroud a couple of times. Two of those sacks were by Eric Wilson, who had a great game on Sunday. Xavier McKinney had the first sack when he blitzed from CJ’s blind side. Other than the last drive for Houston that resulted in a field goal, the only time that the defense allowed points was when they were put in a bad position due to turnovers on offense and special teams. Also, the defense allowed Joe Mixon to run for over 100 yards and score twice (kudos to the fan in overalls for denying Mixon of the stands). On the second touchdown by Mixon, the Texans decided to go for two. That two-point saving tackle by Evan Williams ended up being the difference in the win for Green Bay. Kudos to Williams and Javon Bullard for being all over the place once again, with Williams playing every snap on Sunday. I’m thankful that Jeff Hafley’s the defensive coordinator in Green Bay. His unit has only given up single digit points in most of the games this season, with Houston only getting that field goal late in the fourth quarter. Hopefully they keep up that great effort week in and week out.
On Special Teams, the Packers were a mixed bag. I’ll talk about the bad stuff first. The punt return unit was not great at all. There were two awful plays in particular that I want to point out. The first one was when Keisean Nixon decided to not field the ball, which ended up being a fumble and turnover when it hit Corey Ballentine’s leg. The second one was when Jayden Reed (who should not be on the punt return unit) decided to get the ball instead of letting it go for a touchback. He tried to make a play out of it, but he got tackled quickly at the Green Bay 4. Had those two plays went the opposite way, the Packers would have been a bit more comfortable on Sunday. Now, I’ll talk about the good stuff. Daniel Whelan had a great day with his punts as he averaged nearly 57 yards per punt. Not only did he have a great day punting, but he also saved the day when Matt Orzech did a low snap on the game-winning field goal. Whelan got that ball in position for McManus to make it and celebrate with the fans afterward. One of those fans was the fan that denied Joe Mixon of the leap into the stands earlier in the game. McManus made each kick, including that final one and the three PATs. There are a bunch of things to clean up on Special Teams, and I hope that they’re cleaned up quickly.
Overall, it was a stressful win for the Packers on Sunday. It wasn’t pretty by any means and there were plenty of mistakes, but all that matters was that they got the win. I got to give the fans at Lambeau Field major kudos for embracing the white out on Sunday. It looked great during the game, though I hope that the next time the Packers wear the new uniforms is on prime time. Next up for the Packers is a trip to Jacksonville, Florida to take on the Jaguars, who won their previous game against the Patriots in London. The Jaguars are not a great team, but anything can happen in the NFL. The Packers have to be ready to execute well for 60 minutes regardless of the quality of the team. As for now, I’m celebrating a Victory Monday. Have a great week, everyone. Go Pack Go!
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