For the most part, this analysis will study drive charts and trends with some stats mixed in, much the same way I did last week with Philly (by the way that analysis was born out by the game, I will discuss far below). In addition, I will key in on the GB losses instead of the wins. The wins were for the most part were against sad sacks (Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland and Chicago), so they really skew the stats. Their losses were against Vikings twice, Tampa Bay and the Bengals and it seems like it is better to compare to those teams that are more in line with Dallas.

There are two tales of the tape for the Packers when looking at their losses. If you look at the GB defensive stats, it says that GB has a great defense (4th in the league in yards per game vs. 18th in scoring defense), however this is deceiving.  Their defense vs. the opposing offenses in games they lost is not very good (20th). Of the total scoring drives by the opposing offense during losses by GB, 22 of those drives came during losing games vs. 30 for all the games, which is simply amazing. Of those 22 scoring drives, 10 came on long drives, 3 on short drives, 4 from special teams play and the rest came from a combination of turnovers and big plays on offense. Points scored against GB in losing games were 137 (34 per game) vs. a total score from all games of 172 points. Another amazing fact is GB suffered 26 sacks on offense in the losing games vs. GB only causing 2 sacks on defense in the losing games!! Green Bay gave up 970 yards passing and around 400 yards running during their losing games. During the losing games, they gave up over 50% conversion on third down except to Tampa Bay.  The average per rush that GB gave up on defense in defeats is below 4.0. They caused 6 turnovers in their losses. I think in summary, Green Bay’s lack of pass rush is their Achilles heel. It seems like GB is trying hard to stop the rush (they seem to be pretty good at this), but cannot stop the pass because of their lack of pass rushing.  The Cowboys have a good record in sustaining drives and GB does not have a good record in stopping drives. Dallas should think about using the short passes to set up the run and then try their deeper balls when they get around mid field. They should use the lead draw quite a bit once they have established their pass.  I think Dallas might be able to score in the 30’s on this team. One other note, it looks like their best pass rusher (Kaupman) will be out this week, which will even compound their putrid pass rush.

The second tale of the tape is their offense. Their offense remains very potent; however they have had a rash of offensive line problems.  GB’s offense in losing games has been amazingly similar to all games relating to the drive charts. GB had 17 scoring drives in the 4 games they lost vs. a total of 38 scoring drives for all the games.  Of the total 17 scoring drives, 7 were on long drives, 5 on big plays and 5 on turnovers. For the total year, they have 12 scoring drives on turnovers, 12 for big plays and the remaining 14 on long drives and short drives. Their offense drive charts are very much like Philadelphia, both relying on turnovers and big plays for a good portion of their offense, however a little better on long drives than Philadelphia. I think one of the reasons why GB has been able to sustain long drives is Roger’s ability to scramble, his accuracy and a decent running game. Their offense has still been able to average around 26 points a game during their losses which is very similar to their wins. They are averaging around 4.7 yards per rush during their losses. They have a great offense that can score on anyone, except for 2 big deficiencies. They have a terrible offensive line for pass protection and they commit a lot of penalties. Green Bay is second in penalty yards and dead last in giving up sacks. Both of these deficiencies are drive killers. Cowboys need the same defensive game plan as they did vs. Phil. (limit GB run for longer 3rd downs). Dallas also needs to have a controlled pass rush and keep in their lanes, as well as maybe having a spy on Rogers.  Green Bay on the other hand needs to go to short passing at the beginning and runs to keep them in short yardage situations. Also as a reminder, it looks like the Dallas defense is around #7 (yards per game) for the last 6 games. I saw the GB bloggers looking at the Cowboys defense as # 20 and GB’s as #6, so they are coming to the conclusion they have a much better defense. Their 4 winning games to weak sisters have given their defensive stats a boost. If you look at their defense against the tougher teams, they are #20 in yards per game, much less their horrible defensive sack totals.

Other considerations are the GB staff, players and fans are really down after the loss and their confidence is low. Their offensive line is in upheaval and they may lose Kaupman this week. Their special teams are awful and are last in the league. With all of this said, Dallas really needs to guard in the early going on taking chances / turnovers so GB does not get back its confidence in the first quarter or so. GB has a lot of offensive big play potential so Dallas needs to play their receivers somewhat how they did against the Eagles, and the overall defensive game plan should be very similar to the Eagles game plan. On offense, Dallas can be reasonably aggressive once they have a couple of series under their belts. By that time, they should be able to determine how the GB defensive game plan is leaning (stop run or pass) and react accordingly. I think this game goes Dallas 34 and 24 for GB, assuming the weather is decent.

Just as a Philly review (my pregame analysis vs. the actual game), it held up pretty good. Dallas had a conservative offense plan and Dallas played field position. I predicted that Philly could not sustain high scoring drives. 9 of their points came on sustained drives, 7 came as a result of big plays. Philly had poor field positions all night. We won the turnover battle based on the conservative game plan and frustrating McNabb (his passing was terrible as usual when he has to sustain drives). The one thing I thought was Dallas could sustain drives better, but Dallas’s scoring came on turnovers and big plays for the most part.