Fireworks In Arlington: Why the Green Bay Packers won

A Quick Start

When facing a team like this current iteration of the Cowboys, one of the most effective gameplans relies on getting a fast lead on the opposition. Forcing a team which is built heavily on the dominance of its running game to play from behind may not necessarily be a death sentence for their chances, but it does mitigate the overall impact and damage they can bring about through their most effective weapon.

Even with this hope clearly in mind however, there is no guarantee a team can actually bring to fruition this sort of plan. Also to keep in mind: for all the positive talk surrounding the offense during the “run the table” streak, there have still been plenty of games where it takes the group to really get going. Just a game before, Green Bay was forced to punt the ball on their first five offensive drives when playing the Giants; beyond that, there were three other games in the streak where Green Bay had to punt at least three times during the first half.

The slow starts didn’t manage to take down the Packers lately, but they were a paramount problem in the 4-6 start to the year, and against an offense as effective as Dallas’ the Packers could find themselves in an insurmountable hole if they didn’t come out firing on all cylinders.

Fortunately, that is exactly what Green Bay did.

From the beginning, it was as if the Wild Card round never ended for the offense. The first three drives by Aaron Rodgers and Co. all went for touchdowns. These weren’t exactly the simplest drives either; each of them went for at least 75 yards, and two of them lasted at least 9 plays. Big-time plays were spread across each of them; between 34 yard strikes for touchdowns to 14 yarders to convert key third downs, there was plenty going well to help the offense put those points on the board. Combining the fiery offensive start with a nice defensive effort to begin gave the Packers a 21-3 at one point and a 21-13 lead at the half.

The Packers would end up needing every one of those early point with the second half comeback mounted by the Cowboys. Without the early success on offense, this may have become much closer to the unfortunate outing during the regular season than any of us would’ve been hoping for.