A complete and utter dismantling.
That’s the best way to describe the Green Bay Packers 45-7 victory over the Dallas Cowboys.
The Packers were dominant both offensively and defensively, more so than they’ve been all season, and have to feel pretty good about themselves heading into their bye week.
The game never really seemed to be in doubt, but the Packers 28-point second quarter ended any question.
Offensively, the Packers moved the ball at will, controlled the clock and Dallas’ supposedly stout pass rush never really posed a threat to quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Rodgers, who was sacked once, threw for 289 yards and three touchdowns, completing 27 of 34 passes. Filling in for the injured Donald Driver, James Jones had his biggest game of the season, catching eight balls for 123 yards and touchdown. Greg Jennings was almost as impressive with seven receptions for 80 yards and a touchdown.
The Packers rushed for 138 yards, led by John Kuhn’s 50. Brandon Jackson had 68 total yards and two touchdowns.
The Packers defense was even more dominant than a week ago, when they shut out the New York Jets. They sacked Cowboys quarterback John Kitna four times, intercepted him twice and forced two fumbles.
Clay Matthews was his usual dominant self, finishing with four tackles, a sack and an interception, which he returned 62 yards for a touchdown. Matthews also had one of the game’s best plays, stuffing Dallas running back Marion Barber on an early third-and-1. The defensive player of the year campaign is now in full effect.
Charles Woodson had one of his better games of the season, with five tackles, a sack and a forced fumble. Like Matthews, Woodson pressured Kitna for much of the night, coming on an array of blitzes that kept the Dallas offense completely out of sync.
Tramon Williams continued to be the Packers lockdown corner and the much-maligned Jarrett Bush even had a solid performance. Bush had two tackles, but also stripped the ball from Dallas kickoff returner Bryan McCann shortly before halftime and Nick Collins returned it for a touchdown.
Collins had perhaps the one lowlight of the evening, when he delivered a helmet-to-helmet hit to the back of receiver Roy Williams’ head in the third quarter. Collins will be getting a fine from the league this week.
Overall, the Packers defense was more than impressive, though. Kitna finished with only 183 yards and the Cowboys three-headed running back of Barber, Felix Jones and Tashard Choice combined for only 39 yards rushing.
The biggest negative for the Packers is defensive end Ryan Pickett again aggravated his ankle injury. However, he’ll have two weeks to recover, as the Packers enter their bye week in otherwise great shape at 6-3.
If anyone wants to nitpick, the Cowboys are now 1-7 and they clearly won’t be challenging anyone for anything, except the rights to the No. 1 draft choice in next year’s draft.
That being said, the Packers did exactly what they were supposed to do and beat the hell out of Dallas with a nearly flawless effort.
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It was amazing to watch…complete and total DOM-ination in all three phases. Did you catch that reference to Coach of the Year Capers?
It almost seemed like Dallas just ran out of energy after the blocked field goal early in the game and showed up again just before the half ended. I would of rather the Packers have been challenged in the game. It just looked the Cowboy players we’re just drained and very uninspired even in the 2nd quarter. Time to clean house in Dallas and really get back to basics. The Packers looked great on defense and decent on offense. I want to see what our offense looks like against the Queens in 2 weeks and then we can really believe the improvements have been made. Great game going into the bye!
Lets all hope the Viking’s performance this week was a fluke. We need to beat the Vikes in Minny!!!
That was the first Packers game I’ve ever watched were I felt pity for the opposing team.
Not me….I kept recalling the mid 90’s games. I was disappointed Jones dropped that TD to run the score up further.
As much as I’ve harrassed Jarrett Bush, he also had that muffed punt recovery. That was a good, athletic play. I’m not so sure it woudl have stood up to a replay review, but that doesn’t matter any more.
An impressive win all the way around. It was clear that them boys were mailing it in – as noted by the lack of effort by Jenkins on James Jones’ TD. Yet they still needed to execute and they did that. The passes were there. The protection was there. And on D, Kitna never got really comfortable.
Anyone else sorry to see Al Harris get released? That is a classy, hard working guy. I wish him the best.
I personally think releasing Harris is a mistake. He’ll almost certainly be dressed in Purple next week. I can’t stand to see that anymore. They can wait until Tramon is resigned before cutting him free.
I don’t know enough about his rehab to know if it’s a mistake or not. It was a horrible injury and at almost 36 the odds of him not losing an additional step as a result appear to be huge. He wasn’t a burner to begin with.
I saw the videos on NFP. I came away even more impersseed with him as a person than I was before. Yet, there’s a huge difference between a successful rehab and being able to compete in the NFL. In that regard, I understand the move.
I thought it was hilarious when after the Pack scored a TD to make the score 28 to 0 Chris Collinsworth said ” Looks like the packers are doing the Lambeau leap, I bet Jerry Jones wants to do a leap of his own.” I could just picture that wrinkley old fuck jumping off the back of Lambeau field and splattering next to the statue of Curley because he can’t stand to live after a beating like this. haha Collinsworth you da man!