Evan Williams backed away from the line of scrimmage and took away the touchdown Dallas was threatening to score. Green Bay had advertised pressure, then its safety dropped into coverage and intercepted Dak Prescott near the goal line. The Packers did not need Micah Parsons on the field to make the quarterback hesitate.
The Green Bay Packers beat Dallas 23-13 at Lambeau Field on Sunday night, winning their third straight game to reach 4-2. They have allowed 34 points across those three victories and held each opponent to 14 or fewer, a streak the franchise had not produced since 2016, according to ESPN’s Rob Demovsky.
That changes the question surrounding a defense waiting for its best pass rusher. Parsons remains out while recovering from a torn left ACL, and linebacker Edgerrin Cooper is lost for the season with a torn Achilles. Rather than simply endure those absences, defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon has built a workable alternative around blitzes, tight man coverage and takeaways.
Matt LaFleur said, “If you told me going into this game that you’re going to score 23 points, I was like, ah, we need to score 30-plus.” Dallas had scored 40 against Green Bay last season. This time, the Cowboys remained on seven points until the final minute.
The Dallas Cowboys finished with 48 rushing yards on 15 attempts. Their longest run covered eight yards, and their only offensive play longer than 17 yards was a late 21-yard completion to George Pickens. CeeDee Lamb caught nine passes for 70 yards, but volume did not translate into the explosive gains Green Bay needed to prevent.
Williams’ interception captured the difference between showing pressure and becoming predictable. ESPN reported that he began at the line, retreated and closed on a pass intended for Lamb. The team’s official game account recorded a Zaire Franklin blitz forcing an incompletion on the preceding play. Prescott then threw into the coverage Williams had reached from a very different starting position.
One series later, rookie cornerback Brandon Cisse intercepted Prescott after Lamb slipped. It was Cisse’s first career interception and Green Bay’s ninth of the season, already two more than the team recorded throughout last year. ESPN counted 11 total takeaways, tied for the league lead entering Monday.
Prescott’s difficulty was not confined to the first-half interceptions. ESPN Analytics credited Green Bay with pressuring him on 21 of 41 second-half dropbacks, after only four pressures before halftime. The aggressive approach also brought a cost: three fourth-quarter roughing-the-passer penalties. The defense can point to the result without pretending the execution was clean.
The offense did enough to make those defensive possessions matter. Jordan Love threw a nine-yard touchdown pass to Matthew Golden on the opening scoring drive, which covered 90 yards and included four third-down conversions. Love later scored on a one-yard sneak, and Green Bay led 17-0 at halftime.
Love finished 23 of 41 for 276 yards, one passing touchdown and one interception, the official recap confirmed. Golden caught six passes for 104 yards and the touchdown. Those passing gains supplied the room for a victory that the rushing attack still could not provide: Pierre Strong Jr. led the Packers with 28 yards on 11 carries.
Dallas did have chances to extend drives after halftime. Javon Bullard broke up a fourth-down pass early in the fourth quarter, and another possession ended when Prescott threw beyond the end zone on fourth-and-11. The quarterback whose franchise touchdown record had been celebrated earlier in the season finished Sunday with one touchdown pass and two interceptions as Dallas fell to 2-4.
Green Bay’s next personnel boost could come on offense. ESPN reported Monday that Josh Jacobs came off the commissioner’s exempt list after missing the first six games and could make his season debut this week. His removal creates the possibility of playing; it does not establish that he will take the field.
The need is plain. Without Jacobs, the Packers have averaged 59.8 rushing yards per game, the league’s lowest figure, and have not reached 100 as a team in any game this season, ESPN reported. Restoring a credible ground attack would give Green Bay another way to sustain drives rather than asking the passing game and defense to carry the same burden every week.
Parsons’ return remains a separate timetable, not a confirmed date. The encouraging part for Green Bay is what has happened before either player returns. Gannon’s defense has protected leads, taken the ball away and limited big plays without its most prominent pass rusher. The penalties and running-game problems remain, but Sunday showed that 23 points can now be enough.
