LONDON, ENGLAND (WTAQ) – Three glorious days in London were dashed in thirty minutes of football as the Green Bay Packers were stunned in the second half at Tottenham Stadium by the New York Giants, falling 27-22 in their first ever international regular season game.
An all too familiar pattern returned, solid play from both sides of the ball for two quarters and a confounding performance in the other two.
A strong partisan showing of Packer faithful filled the Hot Spurs stadium with an NFL record crowd of 61,024. They saw the Packers strike first with a Mason Crosby 46 yard field goal on the opening drive. Even more encouraging, for the first time in five games the defense didn’t give up a point in it’s first series.
A key pass interference penalty drawn by Robert Tonyan got the ball to the Giants four yard line later in the opening quarter and on the next snap, Aaron Rodgers threw a quick strike to Allen Lazard who strolled into the corner behind a Romeo Doubs block for an impressive 10-0 lead.
New York, playing with a quarterback on a sore ankle and without two of it’s top receivers, still hit a big passing play when Daniel Jones found Darius Slayton running away from Eric Stokes for 26 yards. A holding penalty cooled the drive and Graham Gano hit a 48 yard field goal as the opening quarter came to a close.
Green Bay promptly drove 75 yards in 13 plays with an impressive mix of runs and short passes, capped by an excellent play action fake from Rodgers who then found a wide open Marcedes Lewis for a two yard score and a seemingly comfortable 17-3 lead.
It looked like the defense would get another stop when Jaran Reed sacked Daniels Jones for a loss inside the New York 10, but Rasul Douglas was called for defensive holding. Instead of behind the chains series, the Giants deployed their wild cat formation with Saquon Barkley, the NFL’s rushing leader taking the direct snap and finding a hole for a 40 yard run. That led to another trick play, a double reverse with Barkley getting the first pitch and he lateraled to tight end Daniel Bellinger heading the other way. Dean Lowry sniffed it out but couldn’t get enough of Bellinger who scored from two yards out making it a 17-10 game.
The Packers drove from their own 25 to the New York 30 in just over a New York minute and Crosby ended the half with a 48 yard field goal good for a 20-10 lead at the break.
It was all Giants from there.
Another first down sack on the opening play of the third by Rashan Gary was wiped out by a Darnell Savage hold downfield and New York cashed in the break with Gano’s 37 yard field goal.
The Packers reached the New York 36 but on third down, Rodgers got sacked to force a punt. Pat O’Donnell pinned the Giants at their 9 Undaunted, New York put together an exhausting 91 yard drive, covering 15 plays and over 8 minutes of possession. With Barkley sidelined with a sore shoulder, it was Gary Brightwell who finished it off with a hard two yard run up the middle to tie the game.
The defense didn’t get much rest as Aaron Rodgers threw three straight incompletions in :16 leading to yet another punt.
Barkley returned in a big way, catching a short pass and covering 41 yards to set up his two yard run around right end, in the wild cat formation again, giving New York it’s first lead at 27-20 with just 6:08 to play.
The offense finally found some life and reached a first down at the New York 15 at the two minute warning. Aaron Jones burst up the middle for 7. On second down, Jones gained two more. Facing third and one, Rodgers tried to hit Cobb on a left corner fade but it went incomplete when Kayvon Thibodeaux got a slight tip.. Instead of pounding it, Rodgers tried another pass on 4th down for Allen Lazard in a one on one matchup to the right, but the ball never got there as Zavier McKinney blitzed clean off the edge to bat it down.
The Giants forced the Packers to burn all three timeouts on kneel downs and with :15 left, punter Jamie Gillan took an intentional safety.
Green Bay’s hail mary attempt never materialized as Rodgers got his arm hit and the fumble was chased down by Jon Runyan as the clock struck zero.
A game that started so promising, ended with Head Coach Matt LaFleur unable to mask his disappointment.
Where do you start?
With an offense that can’t seem to make any big plays? A game plan that once again doesn’t utilize Jones enough? A defense that had such high, self-expectations going into the season, only to get overrun by a shorthanded offense again?
The Giants outgained the Pack 338-301. New York converted 6 of 11 third down plays against a unit that was leading the league in that department going in. Barkley with 70 yards Jones with 37 accounted for nearly all of the 125 yards on the ground. Slayton led the team with 6 catches for 79 yards, routinely running away from Stokes in coverage.
Offensively, Jones led with 63 yards on 13 carries, A.J. Dillon pounded out 34 yards on only 6 carries. Cobb had a big afternoon with 7 catches for 99 yards. Rodgers finished 25 of 39 for 222 yards and two scores, a passer rating of 96.3.
Aaron Rodgers meets the international press.
But he was rather glum faced when talking about what should have been a fun experience in the United Kingdom will be remembered by an overall flat performance.
Not if LaFleur can help. Hardly a fan of the long trip and the short week following their return going into the game, he’ll even feel less enthusiastic about coming back anytime soon following the showing.
The only injury of note for the Packers was wide receiver Christian Watson who left after re-aggravating his hamstring injury.
Safety Adrian Amos cleared the concussion protocol and started.
The inactive players were Sean Rhyan, Rasheed Walker, Samori Toure, Devonte Wyatt and Jonathan Ford.
The sightseeing was fantastic, the enthusiasm among all those Packer fans who made the journey was impressive, the stadium is a first class building, but Green Bay’s 3 game winning streak went up in smoke, just like the pre-game fireworks.
At 3-2, Green Bay is looking back up at Minnesota in the NFC North race after the Vikings held off a Chicago Bears rally 29-22. The Detroit Lions got walloped by New England 29-0 on Sunday to fall to 1-3. Up next, the other New Yorkers, the Jets, fly into Lambeau next Sunday at noon.
The boys did a lot of soul searching on the long, long flight back home.
Cheerio from London!
