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Honestly, I don’t have much for you after a 40-40 tie between the Green Bay Packers (2-1-1) and the Dallas Cowboys (1-2-1) at AT&T Stadium Sunday night. I don’t think anyone was expecting a shootout in this game. That was a tough one, a very tough one to swallow, a tough pill to swallow.
For those of you who are interested in history, there was a NFL Scorigami in this game. It was the 1,093rd unique final score in NFL history.
That was a very disappointing and frustrating football game to watch. The offense came out of the gate looking good, they kept moving the ball and should have been up 14-0 until that blocked extra point got blocked and ran back for two points to make it a 13-2 game which certainly changed the tenor of the game, but that doesn’t have anything to do with Jeff Hafley’s group being unable to stop a nose bleed.
The Cowboys killed the Packers defense whether it was with the quick game and three step drops or the occasional shot that they took, the Packers had no answers. For the first time this season it felt Jeff Hafley had no answers and no ability to change up his approach. The defense wasn’t getting home with four, so he wasn’t going to send huge numbers, although he sent pressures from time to time. But the part that really bothered me was the approach on back end where they continuously played off coverage and soft coverage, allowing free releases off the line of scrimmage for Dallas receivers again and again and again. To me that was frustrating. Just the seeming refusal to change anything on defense. Once it seemed Dallas was content with papercutting them to death – which is what it felt like all night long – they really had no answers for it. Obviously, the loss of Devonte Wyatt likely played a role in to Hafley’s play calling. But you gotta give credit where credit is due, I thought Brian Schottenheimer called a really good game for the Cowboys, his game plan and the way he called the game was excellent.
It was a very disappointing night from the Packers defense on all three levels. To me the worst thing we saw from the Packers defense was the tackling – or lack thereof – you could make a blooper reel of all the missed tackles. We saw everyone taking turns missing tackles and that was very disappointing.
Tonight gave me PTSD of the Joe Barry days because it felt like watching a Joe Barry defense.
I know there was some missed holding calls, but that’s true for every game, that’s not anything unusual. But at some point you’ve got to overcome that and beat your man clean, and for the most part the Packers were unable to do that.
The one missed call that was egregious was not calling the intentional grounding penalty on Dak Prescott. It was frustrating as hell and it would have put Dallas behind the sticks, but it’s not like the Packers were stopping them. Dallas probably would have ran some 10-15 yard dig and gotten right back into third and manageable. But it is frustrating because it was so obvious and such a horrible non-call.
On the flip side, Jordan Love I thought played a hell of a game with a banged up offensive line and kind of the inability to get the run game going consistently early. Although, I thought as the game went along the offensive line settled in very nicely in both pass protection and run blocking. There was some real avenues available for both Josh Jacobs and Emmanuel Wilson. I thought Wilson played a hell of a game too.
I was pretty disappointed with Matt LaFleur’s clock management in the game. Especially in overtime, it felt like he got way too cute and tried to leave no time for Dallas, which felt weird for an overtime game. I thought they did a great job driving down to put themselves in a position for a touchdown, especially considering that fourth down conversion, it was a heck of a play from JLove to Matthew Golden in a gotta have it, game on the line play.
Now we go into the bye week, hopefully get a little healthier, maybe get some guys back, especially up front on the offensive line, beat the Bengals on October 12th and we’ll be on our way. But it’s going to be a long two weeks to wait for that sitting on this tie and last weeks Cleveland debacle.
I’ll have to watch the game again Monday and watch the All-22 and maybe I’ll write another blog later this week.