GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers were supposed to beat the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night. Quickly, it looked like they were on their way.
The Packers got the ball to start the game. Eight plays and 69 yards later, it was 7-0. One Cowboys three-and-out later, the Packers were on the move again. A third-and-18 screen to Savion Williams gained 16 yards, making it fourth-and-2 from Dallas’ 49.
Coach Matt LaFleur kept the offense on the field. Rather than all gas and no brake, it was all brake and a delay-of-game penalty.
Presumably, with the Jordan Love offense sprinting out of the starting block and Dallas’ defense on its heels, LaFleur thought about going for it on fourth down, right?
Nope.
“Never thought of going for it right there,” LaFleur said.
Really?
“I know some of our guys wanted us to go for it,” LaFleur said.
There were two schools of thought. The first was to go for it and hope to ride the momentum to a 14-0 lead. And if Dallas got a stop, trust an elite defense to keep the Cowboys’ off the scoreboard. The second was to punt, trust an elite defense to get the stop and go back on offense.
LaFleur opted for the second option.
“Here’s the deal,” LaFleur said. “If that happened in the second half, based on the complexion of the game, I probably would’ve had a different decision. In the first half, the way our defense has been playing up until this point and with the kicker they have, (Brandon) Aubrey, you’re already in field-goal range for him.
“Hindsight’s 20/20. Had I known the game was going to go the way it was going to go, would’ve gone for it. But, unfortunately, you don’t have that foresight all the time of how the game’s going to go.”
It’s the kind of conservative approach that has gone out of favor in the NFL. The Lions’ Dan Campbell is one of the ringleaders of the all-gas approach but he’s not alone. It’s a small sample size but there have been 12 instances of teams facing a fourth-and-2 from between midfield and the opponent’s 45-yard line this season, according to Stathead. The offense has gone for it eight times, punted twice and, as Green Bay opted to do in the situation, taken a delay of game twice.
If the NFL is the most popular sport in the United States, second-guessing the football coach after an upset loss might be the second-most popular. However, the reality is LaFleur’s decision worked. Daniel Whelan’s punt pinned the Cowboys at the 11. Dallas gained one first down before it punted the ball back to the Packers. With decent field position, Green Bay took the ball and drove for a touchdown to lead 13-0.
Betting on the defense seemed like a smart idea in the moment. Green Bay’s defense was dominant in the first three games and to start Sunday’s game.
Would the way the defense finished that game, having allowed 40 points, 436 yards and five touchdowns in a span of six games change LaFleur’s way of thinking?
“I don’t think anything’s an absolute,” he said. “I think every game is its own game and you got to judge based on the flow of the game, who you’re going against, who they have. I’d say there’s a lot of layers to it, a lot of factors in determining whether or not to go for it in those situations.”
The Packers are 2-of-3 on fourth down this season. Through the small sample size of the first four weeks of the season, only one team has gone for it less than Green Bay. Carolina leads the way with 11, followed by the Chiefs and Jets with 10, and the Browns, Lions and Giants with nine.
During the LaFleur era, Green Bay has gone for it 131 times on fourth down, which ranks 17th. Cleveland is first with 196, followed by Detroit with 192 and Carolina with 190. Seattle (97), San Francisco (98) and Kansas City (98) are at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Another fourth down that LaFleur didn’t consider going for was the final one of the game. On fourth-and-14 from the 16 with 1 second remaining in overtime, sending out the field-goal unit to salvage a tie was a no-brainer.
“Interesting,” he said of the premise. “Let them come up here and answer questions after the game. It’s great if it works out, but I would say it’s probably less than 5 percent.”
Lions Part Ways With ‘Promising’ WR After Falling Down Depth Chart
The Detroit Lions cleared up some space on their roster by parting ways with a wide receiver who flashed some big potential in the preseason.
The team announced on Tuesday that receiver Ronnie Bell was released from the practice squad, a move that came after he had fallen to the bottom of the depth chart. The Lions used the open spot to bring in some reinforcements at linebacker, leaving Bell in search of a new NFL team.
Ronnie Bell Had a Knack for Touchdowns
Bell came into the NFL in 2023 as a seventh-round pick of the San Francisco 49ers and had a relatively productive season. He appeared in 17 games that year and served mostly on special teams, but added an unlikely scoring punch to the offense. Bell made six receptions for 68 yards, with three of those catches going for touchdowns.
Bell saw his role shrink in 2024, appearing in nine games and making two receptions for 22 yards. As Jeff Risdon of USA Today’s Lions Wire noted, Bell came to the Lions early this year and showed some promise in the preseason.
Bell, a former Michigan standout, had a promising preseason with the Lions as he attempted to reboot his NFL career, but a logjam of depth at wide receiver made Bell expendable,” Risdon wrote. The Lions had elevated undrafted rookie Jackson Meeks off the practice squad over Bell in Sunday’s win against Cleveland.
Bell caught five of his six targets in the preseason for 62 yards. Though he missed making the active roster at final cutdowns, he was added back to the practice squad. It was a dire sign for Bell once Meeks was activated for this week’s game, however, and the Lions decided that his spot on the practice squad would be better served for a member of the defense.
Lions Add New Linebacker
As Risdon reported, the Lions used Bell’s spot on the practice squad to sign linebacker Ty Summers, who spent time with Detroit during the summer of 2024 but did not make the roster.
Summers spent the 2024 campaign with the New York Giants, playing in 16 games with two starts,” Risdon wrote. “The 6-1, 241-pound TCU product made 29 tackles and one PD in a little over 100 defensive snaps in New York. He began his NFL career in 2019 as a seventh-round pick by the Packers.
While Summers may provide some depth, the Lions are getting big contributions from a player at the top of the depth chart — Derrick Barnes. The Lions signed him to a three-year extension this offseason, which defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard said was one of his biggest priorities on defense.
“I told him, ‘That’s a player I have to have,'” Sheppard told reporters. “I believe this kid can play four, five spots on the football field and do it at a high level. He can play all three stack backer spots, he can play defensive end. So when you’re able to have a player like that, you see them out in the apex in 11-person personnel – which is really a nickel spot.
“So when you have a player like that, it allows you that ability to present the same looks pre-snap and then post-snap be able to play a different variety of coverages, different variety of pressure packages and things like that.”
