Packers look to bounce back in Dallas

Packers vs Cowboys: Recent Matchups Have Gone GB's Way

How do the Packers respond from a bad loss? Will they be like the 1997 team, which rebounded from a pair of bad defeats (to Philadelphia and Indianapolis) to go 10-1 over its last 11 regular season games to advance to a second consecutive Super Bowl? Will they be like the 2010 Packers who started 3-3, loss a pair of overtime games to teams who did not make the playoffs (Washington and Miami), and then rebounded to win four in a row, which included two wins over Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings?

Or will they be like the 2022 team, which had a really bad loss in London (to the New York Giants) and let it snowball to five straight losses, which eventually cost the team a playoff spot. The Packers head into the Sunday Night tilt in Arlington, Texas as winners in 10 of the last 11 matchups with the Cowboys, dating back to 2009. The 10 wins include three playoffs wins in 2014, 2016 and 2023. The dominance in this rivalry is a stark contrast to the dominance the Cowboys had from 1991 to 2008.

After facing the league’s top defense in yards in the Browns, Sunday Night’s matchup with the Cowboys defense could be just what the Packers offense needed. The Cowboys enter the game having given up 24 points to the Eagles, 37 to the Giants and 31 to the Bears.

For the Packers to be successful this season, their defense has proven the offense just needs to get over the 20-point mark. Russell Wilson was able to have a season-high 450 yards in their week 2 overtime loss to the Cowboys. In the Giants other two games, Wilson could not crack over 200 yards passing and now lost his job today to rookie Jaxson Dart. In comparison, in three games, the Packers defense has allowed 13 points twice and 18 to the Commanders. They still have not allowed a touchdown before the 4th quarter.

The matchup with the Cowboys defense could be very favorable for Jordan Love, who had one of the best game’s of his young career two years ago in his first playoff start in Dallas. His performance was reminiscent of vintage Brett Favre, who despite never winning in Dallas, did win his first playoff start in 1993.

In three games, the Packers have had three different players lead the team in receiving yards: Doubs 68 vs. Detroit, Kraft 124 vs. Washington and Golden 52 against Cleveland. For the Packers to walk out of Dallas with a 3rd win in 4 games, the passing game will likely need to resemble the group that went into Dallas three years ago.

Packer Transplants 304 — Take It Out On Dallas

Aaron Nagler and Corey Behnke are back for Packer Transplants LIVE! The guys try to move past the embarrassment of the Browns loss by focusing on and manifesting the Packers beating up on the Dallas Cowboys.

What Happened to the Packers in the Trenches?

Sunday was an eye-opening reality check for the Green Bay Packers. They were heavily favored to beat a limited and struggling Cleveland Browns team. Many thought the Packers might be the best team in the NFL. But rather than coming out and flexing their muscles, they were outcoached, outplayed, and outworked. The best football teams are those that can dictate the trenches. Every team struggles to win football games if their offensive and defensive lines don’t perform. That was the case for the Packers on Sunday. 

The Browns won the matchup in the trenches, and they ultimately won the ball game. Through the first two weeks of the NFL season, one of the Packers’ biggest strengths was being able to win in the trenches - both on offense and defense. The offensive line was keeping Jordan Love upright, allowing him to produce some of the best numbers in the NFL. The defensive line was living in the opponent’s backfields, shutting down opponents’ rushing attacks and making life unpleasant for quarterbacks.

Sunday’s matchup with Cleveland was shaping up to be another favorable matchup. Cleveland’s offensive line was banged up, and its quarterback is immobile—the perfect recipe for the Packers’ new and improved pass rush. Not to mention, Green Bay’s offensive line was finally getting healthy, and Matt LaFleur is known for being able to neutralize elite pass rushers. Unfortunately, strong matchups on paper don’t always translate to satisfactory performances on the field.

Zach Tom will miss Sunday's game against the Cowboys

Zach Tom lasted one play in Cleveland prior to heading to the bench after re-aggravating the oblique injury he suffered in the Packers Week 1 game against the Lions.

While Jordan Morgan was the first one off the bench at right tackle vs the Browns, there's a good chance rookie Anthony Belton will get his second start at right tackle, while rotating with Darian Kinnard. There's no word yet if Tom will be placed on injured reserve, though that remains a possibility.

Execution Outweighs Play-Calling

At some point in life, everyone learns that age-old saying, "actions speak louder than words." It can be applied to many different scenarios, but the meaning of it is that what someone does holds much more weight than what they say. We can say we want to be a better person, but what are we doing to be that better person? It's what we do to achieve that end-goal, which has more value than what we say we will do.

The football field is no different. A team can say they plan to control the line of scrimmage, but until they do that, their words are meaningless. They have to execute their plan successfully.

Vince Lombardi believed that unless basic skills like blocking and tackling were perfected, complex strategies were meaningless. One such situation could be play-calling. It doesn't matter what play a coach tells his players through the headset to run; if it's not executed properly, 9/10 times, it won't be successful. This isn't to say that every single play-call is the right one, and it's up to the players to execute it to be a success, but when a play goes wrong, it's not always the fault of the guy on the sideline wearing the headset.

Sunday in Cleveland, in a tied game, the Packers made their way to Cleveland's 22-yard line after a 20-yard pass interference penalty and a Tucker Kraft 18-yard catch and run. There were only two minutes left on the clock, the Browns had only one timeout, and the Packers were well within the range of kicker Brandon McManus. There were three plays called after this. A 1-yard run for Josh Jacobs and a -1-yard run for Jacobs basically put the Packers in the same spot on the field with 1:12 left in the game. On third down, Rasheed Walker was called for a false start, walking them back five yards, and then Jacobs ran again, only gaining 2 yards before the Packers called a timeout with 0:27 remaining to kick a 43-yard field goal.

Unfortunately, we all know how the game turned out from that point. And the blame game was off to the races with an emphasis on Matt LaFleur being too conservative with his play-calling at that point in the game.

The Packers OL was a MESS in week 3

CHTV co-founders Aaron Nagler and Corey Behnke discuss the disaster that was the Packers offensive line against the Cleveland Browns.

What went wrong on the Offensive Line?

On Sunday, Packers fans everywhere were treated to a monumental collapse, in which a struggling Browns offense was able to score 13 points in the last 3:38 of the fourth quarter. Up until that point, the defense was able to pitch a shutout, hold the Browns to less than 200 yards, and generally remain mistake-free.

The offense? Well…

When you’ve got an offense that is as high-volatility as the Packers is, the name of the game is setting the floor. We’ve seen everything from the offense during the Jordan Love-Matt LaFleur era, from the sky-high pummeling of Dallas in the playoffs in 2023, to… well, this game. Jordan Love is a rhythm quarterback with one of the best arms in the game. . Josh Jacobs is capable of taking games over, and it looks like the receiver room has found its sea legs, led by emerging superstar Tucker Kraft. The floor setters are the offensive line, and with as many resources that the Packers have poured into that room over the years, they were unacceptably out-performed on Sunday.

The raw numbers are bad. Like, really bad. Via PFF’s individual player grading: Rasheed Walker: 34.1, Jordan Morgan: 40.7, Aaron Banks: 40.9, Elgton Jenkins: 44.6, Anthony Belton: 41.6 and Sean Rhyan 54.3. Five penalties for the unit as a whole. Six sacks, eleven hurries, and seventeen pressures. 2.6 yards per rush. Before this game, the Packers were a top-10 team in pass blocking efficiency, but Sunday was such a historically bad performance that the team now ranks *30th.

So what went wrong? As the Packers players have admitted to themselves, sometimes the only thing that can stop the Packers is themselves. And against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, that statement was put to the test.

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