Packers Report Card: Gold-Star Performance Highlights Grades vs. Cowboys

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The grades are in after the Green Bay Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys 23-13 on Sunday night, and the highest marks were attached to the defense.

One year after giving up 40 points to the Cowboys, they held them to seven points before a garbage-time touchdown got them into double-digits.

The task in front of them was not a small one. The Cowboys have largely the same cast of characters. Dak Prescott is still their quarterback. George Pickens and CeeDee Lamb were healthy and on the field.

It didn’t matter. The Packers never allowed Prescott to get comfortable.

“Rush and coverage, baby,” safety Xavier McKinney said. He was right. When defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon was not dialing up blitzes, Green Bay had Prescott guessing on what coverage they were playing.

They get the highest mark in our weekly report card following the team’s third consecutive victory.

Pass Offense

Jordan Love was three plays away from throwing four touchdown passes and topping 350 passing yards. That was not to be as the Packers’ struggles with drops reared their ugly head again.

Matthew Golden and Christian Watson dropped one touchdown apiece. Golden had another that could be called a drop or a pass breakup by Joey Porter Jr. Tucker Kraft continued to struggle with one drop and another play that could have been a reception but he did not drag his foot at the sideline.

Love, despite what the box score numbers say, was excellent save for two plays. He had one interception that he threw to linebacker Dee Winters on a telegraphed pass to Golden. He almost threw another interception that turned into an instant-replay debacle before ultimately being ruled an incompletion.

He did all that despite having little protection, zero run game and receivers that continued to let him down throughout the night.

Is it perfect? No, but the Packers’ quarterback has played very well the last two weeks.

The group in front of him left a little to be desired. Dallas’ pass rush has been largely ineffective this season, ranking 29th in sack percentage. Love was sacked three times and hit on eight occasions, according to the official stats. He was pressured on 40 percent of his dropbacks, according to Pro Football Focus. Rashan Gary had 10 pressures.

The guard combination of Laken Tomlinson and Travis Glover struggled for the first time since becoming starters against Tampa Bay earlier in the month.

With four full weeks of practice under his belt, will next week be the time for Kevin Zeitler to make his debut at right guard? That remains to be seen, but this group was not as good on Sunday as it had been. The line will face better defenses during this next stretch of games, starting with a date next week with the Lions led by the mighty Aidan Hutchinson.

Grade: C.

Rush Offense

If there is a way to sum up the Packers’ run game to start this season, it came on their first possession of the game. 

Dallas was the 32nd-ranked defense against the run coming into play. The Packers’ first three runs had a long gain of 0 yards. Yes, 0. MarShawn Lloyd continues to try to bounce runs outside that are designed to stay between the tackles. Pierre Strong and Kaleb Johnson don’t offer much juice in the run game, either, though Strong wound up getting most of the run and made some things happen as a receiver.

Josh Jacobs is expected to return to practice on Wednesday, but will he have any room to roam if he plays on Sunday at Detroit?

In the battle of the very stoppable force against a movable object, the movable object looked like the Steel Curtain from the 1970s.

The Packers had 40 rushing yards in the first half on 15 carries, with 14 of those yards coming from Jordan Love. Lloyd, the team’s starting running back, had minus-2 yards on three carries.

The atrocity of the run game cannot be understated. The failure falls on the offensive line and the guys being asked to carry the ball.

Perhaps inserting Kevin Zeitler into the lineup with Jacobs will give them a boost next week against Detroit.

Grade: F.

Pass Defense

Take a bow, Jonathan Gannon.

Last season, the Packers’ defense had no answers for Dak Prescott and his group of receivers. Those same players were on the field on Sunday night. The Cowboys even added CeeDee Lamb, who missed last year’s matchup. Prescott rang up 319 passing yards and three touchdowns in a 40-40 tie, with George Pickens catching eight passes for 134 yards and two touchdowns.

Sunday night? Not even close.

In 54 pass attempts, Prescott threw for 258 yards. His only touchdown pass came after the game had largely been decided. He was only sacked once but under duress most of the night, which led to two interceptions and a third wiped away by a questionable roughing-the-passer penalty.

Pickens had six catches on 11 targets for 73 yards. Lamb had nine catches on 18 targets for 70 yards.

“Did they score?” cornerback Keisean Nixon asked.

The answer was no. The Packers held one of the top receiver duos in football out of the end zone with a cornerback group that entered the season shrouded in questions.

The difference in play style from 2025 to 2026 is prevalent. The Packers are not willing to just wait around for one of their defensive linemen to make plays. Gannon is more than willing to force the issue.

He forced the issue on Sunday, and the Packers’ defense is rolling ahead of another big test next week against the Lions.

“Yeah, I thought JG was aggressive, getting pressure on the quarterback,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “It’s hard to throw when you’ve got stuff in your face, and I thought the coverage was outstanding. Our guys challenged them. They did a great job.”

Evan Williams and Brandon Cisse had interceptions, and Carrington Valentine had a pick that was eliminated by Lukas Van Ness’s dubious roughing penalty. Javon Bullard broke up three passes, including one on fourth down.

“I was really happy just overall with our whole defensive performance, especially against that offense,” 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.’ But our defense, they did their job. They got one (touchdown) late in the game and I thought for the entire game our defense really balled out.”

Grade: A.

Rush Defense

The run game was not much of a factor for Dallas. It wants to throw the ball, first and foremost. With the Packers leading by two scores for most of the game after opening up a 10-0 lead, the run game became even more of an afterthought.

Overall, the Cowboys ran for 48 yards on 15 carries. Their longest run was 8 yards.

Not bad for a group that was shorthanded on the defensive line and is still working on replacing linebacker Edgerrin Cooper.

Green Bay has been excellent against the run each of the last two weeks but will face a well-rested Jahmyr Gibbs next week as the Lions are coming off a bye. Will they hold him to 48 yards rushing on 15 carries? Probably not, but a similar effort is going to be needed.

Grade: A.

Special Teams

How was Trey Smack going to rebound after missing three kicks last week? That was a big storyline coming into a game in which it felt like points were going to be precious to each team with a shootout in the forecast.

A shootout did not break out, but the Packers’ rookie kicker was clean. He made both extra points and three field goals for a perfect night at the office. His last field goal all but iced the game in the fourth quarter.

Coleman Owen, who was elevated from the practice squad, returned punts in place of Skyy Moore and had a 16-yard-return. J. Michael Sturdivant looked comfortable returning kickoffs, as well. Daniel Whelan averaged 50.3 yards per punt. Ultimately the special teams did not make any egregious mistakes. A clean game was a welcome sight after last week’s debacle.

Grade: B.

Coaching

Forget about Matt LaFleur and Cam Achord for a minute. LaFleur had his team ready, and it built on last week’s win over the Bears in a spot that could have been prime for a letdown. LaFleur gets credit for that. Achord’s special teams were fine.

The star of the show, however, was defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon. Against a team that hung 40 on them a season ago, Gannon kept the Cowboys guessing all night. His defense has been the best unit on the team all season, even if the numbers do not fully reflect that.

He’s been excellent without two of his best players for most of the season. His pass rush largely needs to be manufactured. His cornerbacks are a rookie and a veteran everyone wanted released before the season. He has weaponized his safeties.

Gannon turned one of the league’s better quarterbacks into a player who looked like he did not trust what he was seeing. Dak Prescott never looked comfortable while facing pressure from 11 individuals.

“It’s tough, obviously, when you get an experienced guy like that, a premium QB in this league,” safety Xavier McKinney said. “You want to make it as hard as possible for him to be able to see coverage. You want to give him a coverage pre-snap and then post-snap you want it to look different. That slows down timing, that slows down rhythm.

“So, we’re able to do that. We understand that game plan coming into the game and, obviously, we got the playmakers back there, but once we add that element of adding the disguise game, knowing when to disguise, knowing what to disguise that helps everybody’s job a lot more and it’s way easier.”

Gold star for Jonathan Gannon.

Grade: A.

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