GLENDALE, Ariz. – The Packers never led until the final two minutes of the game and escaped State Farm Stadium with a 27-23 victory over the Cardinals on Sunday.
Here are five takeaways from the come-from-behind triumph that got the Packers to 4-1-1:
- This was all about winning in the clutch moments.
A fourth-and-1 stop near midfield to get the ball back down by three points. A fourth-and-2 conversion after the Packers passed up a field goal that could’ve tied the game. Getting a sack on a last-ditch drive to help seal the game.
The Packers were very up-and-down all day long in all three phases, but when the game was on the line, they made the plays that counted most.
“I can’t say enough about our guys,” Head Coach Matt LaFleur said. “Just from the moment we got on the trip, nothing seemed to go right, to in-game a lot of things didn’t go right.
“Guys kept battling, and that’s what it takes in this league.”
- The gutsiest call of the season so far on offense paid off.
Down 23-20 with 2:32 left, Josh Jacobs had just been stopped on a third-and-1 run from the Arizona 28-yard line, setting up fourth-and-2. Initially, LaFleur sent out substitute kicker Lucas Havrisik to tie the game on what would’ve been a 47-yard field goal.
Then the coach saw “disdain” on his quarterback’s face, so he called a timeout, rethought it, and sent QB Jordan Love back out there to convert and go for the win.
He did, finding Tucker Kraft along the boundary for a 15-yard gain, and three straight runs by Jacobs put the ball in the end zone for the go-ahead score with 1:50 left.
“It’s big-time,” Love said of LaFleur’s call there. “For Matt to decide to go for that right there in that situation, to have the confidence in the offense to go make a play … it’s going to suck if we don’t get it. If you do, it pays off and you get the win.”
Those last three carries for Jacobs, who was dealing with a calf injury and was a game-time decision to play, gave him 13 for 55 yards and two scores in yet another gritty performance.
“Josh is a dawg,” Love said. “We’re going to get his all every time. He loves the game and finds ways to make big-time plays.”
- The defense’s playmakers also came through.
With the Packers trailing 13-6 early in the second half, a strip-sack by Rashan Gary gave the defense its first takeaway since Week 3 and set up the offense to go 44 yards in four plays to tie the game.
Then Edgerrin Cooper led the charge to stop Cardinals QB Jacoby Brissett on a fourth-and-1 sneak from the Arizona 48-yard line with six minutes left, when the Packers’ offense desperately needed the ball back, trailing by three. Green Bay turned that into the game-winning points.
“A fourth-down stop is a takeaway,” LaFleur said, lightheartedly arguing he sees it as the turnover-starved defense getting two on the day. “Those were probably two of the most complementary moments in the game.”
Last but not least, Micah Parsons had his first monster game in Green Bay uniform, recording three sacks. Two of them came on third downs with the Cardinals in scoring territory, forcing field goals.
The third one came on Arizona’s final drive, on first down from the Green Bay 26-yard line with 32 seconds left. He came flying around the edge for a 9-yard sack, forcing the Cardinals to burn their second-to-last timeout.
Two snaps later, it was fourth-and-11 from the 27 and Brissett’s desperation heave into the end zone was incomplete, handing Arizona yet another down-to-the-wire loss to drop to 2-5.
“It’s amazing. I can’t say enough how fun it is just to have him on this team,” Love said of Parsons. “Can’t say enough how much of a playmaker he is.”
- The Packers’ game is far from smooth, though, with a lot of uneven and frustrating play still holding them back.
Numerous pre-snap penalties on both sides of the ball were a factor, including a pair of offsides jumps on third-and-longs for Arizona that were converted with Brissett taking advantage of the free plays to take shots deep.
A couple of coverage busts left Cardinals tight end Trey McBride wide open for a pair of scores, multiple personal fouls proved costly, and the offense went three-and-out three times.
That was just the short list. It was a rough road trip from the start with the players’ charter plane delayed more than five hours in Green Bay due to a mechanical issue, which left the team doing walk-through work on the tarmac at Austin-Straubel International Airport.
LaFleur commended his team for not complaining about the travel trouble, and they found ways to get their work in. But the choppy and at times sloppy nature of their game was at the forefront of his mind afterward, particularly the offside calls that led to conversions on third-and-23 and third-and-14 to set up a pair of Arizona touchdowns.
“We cannot do that,” LaFleur said of jumping offside when the offense is specifically trying to draw it. “We’ve done it way too many times. Trust me, it’s preached regularly every day. We’ve got to clean it up if we want to become the team I think we’re capable of being.
“Too many undisciplined plays, and we’re lucky it didn’t come back and bite us.”
- The last seven seconds of the first half proved incredibly valuable.
After the aforementioned third-and-23 conversion, the Cardinals proceeded to score a TD for a 13-3 lead with seven seconds left in the half.
After the touchback on the kickoff put the ball on the 35, Love thought he was just going out there to take a knee. But LaFleur pushed the envelope, and a 22-yard strike to Romeo Doubs followed by a timeout left one second on the clock for Havrisik.
All the super sub did was bang through a franchise-record 61-yard field goal to get the Packers within 13-6 at the half and salvage something from what had been an otherwise forgettable two quarters of football.
“That’s big-time right there to make that,” Love said. “Those three points came back to be so beneficial in this game.”
A somewhat similar scenario a few weeks ago in Dallas, albeit with worse field position, cost the Packers when a strip-sack in the final seconds of the first half set up a Cowboys TD. But LaFleur was undaunted.
“Scared money don’t make money,” he said, well aware of such aggression backfiring previously. “Sometimes you’ve gotta shoot.
“A 61-yarder, I didn’t envision that going into the game. Helluva job.”
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