The Green Bay Packers are in the playoffs after a whirlwind season. They head to Jerry World as underdogs on Sunday. Not only are they going into it white-hot, but it’s hard to remember the last time they didn’t have their way against the Dallas Cowboys. However, seven-seeds are 0-6 with a -73 point differential since the NFL expanded to a 14-team playoff in 2020.
Vegas is siding aggressively with that narrative despite Green Bay’s late-season resurgence. To their credit, Dallas has played great football all year. Jordan Love and the rest of Matt LaFleur’s offense didn’t hit their stride until Thanksgiving morning. But evaluating the pre- and post-November Packers as separate teams is tempting.
The books have the Cowboys as seven-point favorites, and they’re giving the Packers an implied probability of only 27% to pull off the upset. One of the biggest reasons? Dallas has star receiver CeeDee Lamb, whose reign of terror down the stretch has put him pretty much on par with Miami Dolphins speedster Tyreek Hill. The pair have put together the best receiving campaigns in the league. Hill’s media coverage has been a season-long affair. Conversely, Lamb’s coming-out party has recently challenged us all to begin considering him in conversations about the league’s elite.
Given how far Matt LaFleur’s offense has come, it’s fair to say that the defense holds outsized influence over the outcome of this game. A marquee matchup awaits Lamb. His battle with Packers cornerback Jaire Alexander will shape the course of the game. He will either cut Joe Barry’s work in half or make it almost impossible to keep up. A widely respected star around the league, Alexander has had a bizarre season full of injury ambiguity and one of the most comical suspensions you’ll ever see. He’s also proven that he can shut down allegedly unstoppable receivers, most notably when he locked down Justin Jefferson in a must-win game last season.
I wish I could say that what’s up in the air is whether Alexander will win the heavyweight matchup. He also didn’t practice Thursday, jeopardizing his status for Sunday. LaFleur characterized the new ailment as “kind of a freak deal…stepped on someone’s foot and rolled an ankle.” It’s hard to understate the potential domino effect that that fluke could have. The Packers have been riding with seventh-round rookie Carrington Valentine opposite Alexander. He’s a big, physical corner who has certainly outperformed his draft position. But things could get rough if he has to take on the Lamb assignment. A Joe Barry soft-zone disaster-class feels like a death sentence of equal brutality.
This is the perfect week for a man-heavy scheme, with Valentine matching up well with Michael Gallup’s profile and Keisean Nixon‘s potential to run with Brandin Cooks. But that all gets thrown out of whack if Alexander sits. If the Packers are going to come out of there with an upset victory, it will take at least one of the better defensive performances of the season. That possibility and all of the upside associated with it runs through CB1. Vegas projects Lamb to go for 100 yards. If you know anything about Green Bay, you probably know that while Alexander could have the over bettors in torture chambers, there are a few universes where that number looks like child’s play.
As for the offense, they should probably expect to do some heavy lifting. Recent weeks suggest that may not bother them too much. The 17 points they put up last week failed to do justice to their performance; Love completed over 87% of his passes for 316 yards and a pair of scores. That’s a clear indicator that where they have to execute is the red zone. Almost every drive has looked good these past three weeks. Last week, Bo Melton and Romeo Doubs were each a fraction of a second from adding to Love’s touchdown total. Missing out on those this week could mean the end of the season.
The market agrees that we are in for some points on Sunday. The game total of 50.5 is eclipsed only by Los Angeles and Detroit’s 51.5. For the Packers, it feels like everything will rest on how many points they give up – their season, Barry’s future, and what position their next first-round defender will play (safety is a heavy favorite at the moment). And that itself rests on Jaire Alexander. He’s a franchise player, and they’re paying him like one. You expect players like him, Rashan Gary, and Kenny Clark to have an outsized impact in these moments. Alexander has an aura like no other player in the league. Will it be street clothes, soft zones and excuses, or sunglasses and cigars in the locker room?
