The Dallas Cowboys lost in frankly embarrassing fashion last week to the last place team in the NFC North, 31-14 at the Chicago Bears. Their consolation prize for coming off their second loss of the season in which they also lost CeeDee Lamb and Tyler Booker to multiple week injuries? A home date with the first place Green Bay Packers, and Micah Parsons, on Sunday night – a team Dallas hasn’t beaten since 2016, and not at home since 2007.
In all three games this season, the Cowboys have looked like
a team that’s needed to follow a very narrow path to victory to have a chance under Brian Schottenheimer. The path at least involves winning and losing with the Cowboys’ best and highest-earning players on the field, which is ideally how NFL teams need to operate from top down. Lamb’s absence against the Packers will be a big void in this way for the offense, but there are still things Dak Prescott and the rest of the offense can do to give themselves a better chance to upset the Packers compared to the Bears loss.
In our weekly Cowboys win or lose scenarios for last week in Chicago, we highlighted the Cowboys key to winning as attacking the middle of the field and staying on schedule offensively. The Cowboys did not do a good job in these areas without Lamb, as most of their completions over the middle were for short gains, and more notably they were taken out of the run game early. The Cowboys defense allowing big plays for touchdowns was the main reason for this, but as the game went on the Cowboys’ offense own turnovers did not help either. Prescott threw two interceptions following Javonte Williams’ fumble on the opening drive.
This leads us to how the Cowboys can start to establish a home field advantage on Sunday night, winning their second home game in as many tries on this young 2025 season.
The Dallas Cowboys will beat the Green Bay Packers if…
They control the ball on offense and have zero turnovers.
There was a brief moment in time in week three where things actually felt good around the Cowboys. If that feeling could have been bottled up right then and there, a lot of Dallas fans would be looking to drink it in before kickoff to gain some hope against a Packers team that’s had their number. Coming off a thrilling win against the Giants, the Cowboys got the ball first against the Bears and had an explosive Williams run that would have put them in Bears territory, if not for a punch out at the end of the play that created the game’s first turnover. It feels likely the Cowboys defense was flat out bad enough in this game to find a way to lose it no matter how the script went, but the Cowboys at least had the right idea offensively to control tempo and look to force the Bears into being one-dimensional with Caleb Williams.
The Cowboys still have big play threats on the field offensively with George Pickens assuming the WR1 role and KaVontae Turpin, but they should be looking to lean even further into playing ball control against the Packers. Tight ends and running backs have had the most success against the Packers defense this season, although Green Bay is second in least first downs allowed on the ground, behind only the Browns team that upset them 13-10 last week. The Packers defense coordinated by Jeff Hafley also leads the league in lowest yards per pass attempt allowed. They’ve done this despite allowing the fifth most completions, with the fewest attempts against of these five teams at the top the Cardinals, Seahawks, Ravens, and Giants.
The opportunity for the Cowboys offense to have methodical drives and run the ball between the tackles should be there, but they’ll need to finish with touchdowns not field goals. In their last meeting with the Packers, that fateful playoff loss in 2023, Jake Ferguson caught three red zone touchdowns. Ferguson is a player that coach Schottenheimer specifically highlighted as one playing well in this offense right now, so using both the run game and passes to Ferguson to grind out this game without Lamb could be in the cards.
The Cowboys will need to do so while avoiding all turnovers if possible. Prescott has thrown at least one interception in each of the last five consecutive losses to the Packers, and more than one in the last three.
The Dallas Cowboys will lose to the Green Bay Packers if…
Their defense does not change their looks in the secondary.
The way the Cowboys defense has come out in zone looks this season will at least be a different look compared to the Dan Quinn defense that Jordan Love torched in his only career game against the Cowboys, but the results stand to be the same if Dallas does not adjust anyway from what Matt Eberflus has done so far. The Cowboys stand little chance to replicate the five sacks the Browns had against the Packers last week to hold them to ten points. They didn’t have any sacks against Love in that Wild Card loss, and that’s with Micah Parsons in their colors and not Green Bay’s like he will be Sunday night.
The Cowboys need to find another way to limit big plays through the air, and simply lining up in deep coverage to deter these types of passes has not worked. The Packers offense is also set up well to test the Cowboys defense in tackling, with run-after-the-catch opportunities and a run game that forces a defense to set a strong edge. In order to do this, the Cowboys should use safeties Malik Hooker and Donovan Wilson in different roles. This duo’s best plays this season, which are few and far between, have come when they can operate in a tighter area and worry less about the ball going over their head.
By moving Wilson and Hooker at least marginally closer to the line of scrimmage, the Cowboys can present a better edge to their shell defense. They can have either player in better position to take advantage of any deflections or errant throws. Using their safeties in this way while also moving their cornerbacks closer to their receivers in both man and zone coverage would give some resemblance of harder pre-snap looks for Love to decipher. Dallas has put some secondary blitzes on tape this year against the Eagles in week one, so keeping that threat against the Packers could at least deter Love from holding onto the ball looking for downfield shots. It would also help the Cowboys’ box numbers against the run.
Lining up in the same spots and dropping into the same coverages does not work against many quarterbacks in this league, least of all Jordan Love who can throw from all arm angles and off platform with ease. The Cowboys expect to have both DaRon Bland and Trevon Diggs back together as their tandem at cornerback in this matchup. The time is now to use a defense getting closer to full strength, also expecting Jadeveon Clowney to make his team debut against the Packers, to actually play to the strengths of their personnel and give the Cowboys offense a chance to stay balanced in this game.
If they’re unable to, there may not be anything left to save on this 2025 season even if Prescott stays healthy and the offense continues to play relatively well, which is a worst-case scenario for the start of Schottenheimer’s tenure. This Cowboys-Packers meeting comes early enough in the season where the need to talk playoff probability and all of that is not a factor, but the home team still needs to play with much better compete defensively to avoid a 1-3 start and remain in the NFC East picture.
