Nobody around the Metroplex needs a reminder of how the last trip through this matchup went. The Dallas Cowboys and Jordan Love traded touchdowns until the scoreboard read 40-40 last September, and now Dallas has to go up to Lambeau Field on Sunday night with a 2-3 record and a defense still being rebuilt on the fly.
Green Bay has won two straight, including a 31-7 rout of Chicago. Here’s what should worry Dallas most.
Jordan Love has Dallas figured out
Love has faced the Cowboys twice, counting the January 2024 wild-card game, and the numbers are hard to look at. He is 47 of 64 for 609 yards with six touchdown passes and zero interceptions, a 134.2 passer rating that ranks first among all players with at least 50 attempts against Dallas, according to the Packers.
He arrives hot, too. Love was just named the FedEx Air Player of the Week after posting a 137.5 rating against the Bears, a regular-season career high.
Green Bay lives on big plays
The Packers lead the league with 14 offensive plays of 30-plus yards, per Sharp Football Analysis. Dallas has allowed 37 explosive plays, tied for the fourth-most in the NFL, the team’s own site noted this week.
Christian Watson and Matthew Golden rank first and second among all receivers in yards per route run by Pro Football Focus’ measure, at 4.77 and 4.56, the Packers’ website reported. That’s a brutal pairing for a secondary missing Cobie Durant and waiting on Joey Porter Jr.’s ankle.
A pass rush that knows Dak Prescott
Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
Green Bay owns the fifth-highest pressure rate in football at 42.2% and blitzes on 33.2% of snaps. Against Tampa Bay’s pressure, Prescott went 3 of 13 for 28 yards when the rush got home, according to DallasCowboys.com.
The man calling the Packers’ defense is Jonathan Gannon. As Arizona’s head coach last season, his Cardinals pressured Prescott 15 times and sacked him five times. Safety Evan Williams explained the plan plainly: “If they see one-on-one, Dak has no hesitation of going up and just letting them try to make a play. It puts a lot more importance and pressure on disguise, trying to show them something else.”
Lambeau has been a house of horrors
Green Bay is 10-1-1 in the last 12 meetings, playoffs included, and 8-2 against Dallas at Lambeau Field in the regular season. The Cowboys’ last win in the series came in October 2016, and a victory Sunday would be only their third at Lambeau since 1995.
Matt LaFleur sounds like a coach expecting a shootout. “They prove it time and time again they’re extremely high powered,” he said, via the Packers. “They can score a lot of points, they can put a lot of yards on you.” Kickoff is 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC.
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