Packers defense stifles Dolphins, awaits heavyweight bout with Lions next week

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said after Miami’s drubbing of the Patriots last Sunday that he was “excited to kill narratives” regarding his team’s deficiencies in cold weather.

According to Pro Football Talk, Tagovailoa and the Dolphins were 0-7 in games played in temperatures below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Make that 0-8.

Packers safety Xavier McKinney, Tagovailoa’s teammate at Alabama all three years both played for Nick Saban, considers that narrative alive and well after Green Bay’s 30-17 win in below-freezing temperatures on Thursday night.

“I think it affected their whole team,” McKinney said. “Obviously, they’re coming from Miami. It’s hot there and then when you come here and play in that cold weather, you get affected by it, so I think it affected everybody on that team.”

Since Week 8, when Tagovailoa returned from a six-week break because of a concussion, he ranked first in the NFL in completion percentage and expected points added per dropback, per TruMedia. Tagovailoa’s stat line at Lambeau Field looks gaudy — 37-for-46 with 365 passing yards and two touchdowns — but plenty of that was stat-padding with the Packers’ defense keeping everything in front of it with such a big second-half lead.

The more telling numbers are 17, 19, 10 and 17. Those are the point totals allowed by Green Bay’s defense in the last four games against the Lions, Bears, 49ers and Dolphins, respectively, the latter of which came against a Dolphins team that had averaged 29 points per game the last five weeks since their starting quarterback’s return. The Packers now rank tied for ninth in the NFL in scoring defense through 12 games, allowing a square 20 points per game.

Their defense is for real.

“We’re really locking into the small things and the little details to make us that much better, so we’re going to keep doing that,” McKinney said. “Obviously, we’re not comfortable with where we’re at as a defense right now. There’s some things we’ve still got to work on, but we’re going to do that.”

Tagovailoa entered Week 13 with the lowest average time to throw in the NFL and the shortest average air yards per pass attempt, according to Next Gen Stats. He likes to get the ball out quickly and throw it short. Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley said this week that the Dolphins threw the most screens of any team he’d seen on tape and were also the fastest team he’d watched. Miami ranked eighth in yards after catch per reception in the first 12 weeks, according to TruMedia.

Green Bay’s pass rush getting home and, in the cases it didn’t, the Packers having sound tackling would be paramount. Check and check.

The Packers sacked Tagovailoa five times with linebacker Quay Walker, defensive ends Kingsley Enagbare, Lukas Van Ness and Brenton Cox Jr. and defensive tackle Kenny Clark each registering a full sack. The back end took away Tagovailoa’s quick reads, allowing the rush to get home. Through the Dolphins’ first 11 games, their sack percentage allowed was 7 percent and their pressure percentage allowed was 25.4 percent. Against the Packers, those numbers rose to 9.8 percent and 28.8 percent.

As John Madden would say: “BOOM”

Back-to-back sacks!

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— Green Bay Packers (@packers) November 29, 2024

On the tackling front when Tagovailoa did get the ball out, he attempted 46 passes but only five went for explosive gains (16-plus yards). That’s an explosive pass rate of 10.9 percent. According to TruMedia, the Dolphins’ explosive pass rate entering Thursday was 13.3 percent. Only five teams in the NFL have a worse explosive pass rate on the season than the Dolphins did Thursday.

“He gets confused a little bit and just checks it down,” linebacker Isaiah McDuffie said of Tagovailoa, “and our hook players come down and try to smash the carrier.”

Fans may have been stressed seeing the Dolphins march down the field in the second half, but the Packers weren’t sweating.

“A lot of the stuff is dink and dunk, but you not going to beat us doing that,” McKinney said. “You can do that all day, but at the end of the day, we got a really good offense that’s going to put up points and eventually you going to have to take a shot down the field.”

On that note, only two of Tagovailoa’s 46 pass attempts traveled more than 20 yards in the air and both were incomplete.

“We’re totally fine with that,” added McKinney, who also acknowledged that the defense “got leaky” in the second half. “If teams want to throw screens and throw checkdowns all day, have at it. We understand that now and I think we’re doing a better job as we keep playing of being better tacklers and making sure everybody is rallying to the ball.”

The most critical sequence in the game came early in the fourth quarter. The Dolphins had just paraded down the field and faced a second-and-goal from the 1-yard line with about 11 minutes left in the game. The Packers led 27-11. On second down, defensive end Rashan Gary shed the block of right tackle Kendall Lamm and ripped down running back De’Von Achane for no gain. On third down, linebacker Eric Wilson pressured Tagovailoa on a rollout and cornerback Keisean Nixon broke up the pass intended for tight end Jonnu Smith at the 1-yard line (Nixon appeared to make contact with Smith early, but there was no flag). On fourth down, defensive tackle T.J. Slaton collapsed the pocket against right guard Liam Eichenberg on a play-action pass and Walker came on a delayed blitz to sack Tagovailoa for a turnover on downs.

“I was really proud of our defense,” head coach Matt LaFleur said. “They have a second-and-goal on the 1-yard line and to be able to hold them out of the end zone there, that was a critical moment in the game.”

A SACK ON 4TH & GOAL!

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— Green Bay Packers (@packers) November 29, 2024

Remember when the Jets came into Lambeau Field in Week 6 of the 2022 season and beat the Packers 27-10, pulling away in the second half? And how after the game, then-Jets coach Robert Saleh, now a consultant with the Packers, said he wanted to take his best friend’s team out to deep water until they drowned? And how the Lions emasculated the Packers a couple of times in Green Bay in 2022 and 2023?

This version of the Packers doesn’t seem to be built like those. How is toughness defined in football? More so than anywhere, in the trenches. The Packers rank fourth in rushing yards per game and eighth in rushing yards allowed per game. The second stat is far more eye-opening than the first, considering the Packers ranked 26th in rushing yards allowed per game from 2021-2023 under former defensive coordinator Joe Barry, now the Dolphins’ defensive run game coordinator.

Getting out to big early leads like the Packers have in recent weeks helps the pass rush because there’s less to diagnose knowing passes are likely coming, defensive end Kingsley Enagbare said, and it also helps limit opponent rushing attempts. But when the 49ers and Dolphins have run the ball, they’ve done so 30 times for only 83 yards (2.8 yards per rush).

“I see a physical brand of football where guys are running to the ball and we’re not missing a ton of tackles,” LaFleur said.

When was the last time you described a Packers defense like that?

“Just staying square, killing blocks,” Walker said of the run defense’s resurgence. “Any time guys can kill blocks and get off, things will go well. I think whenever you try to go one-for-one, just say I did my job, I got in my gap, whatever the case may be, that’s when you can get explosive runs and stuff like that. But any time we can kill blocks, shed, get off, we have a pretty high percentage chance of stopping a run.”

The Packers will need to be just as proficient against the league’s No. 3 rushing offense in Detroit next Thursday if they want to keep pace in the NFC North.

If Hafley’s unit can do again to the Lions what it has done for the last month, the Packers have a puncher’s chance and then some of taking down the NFL’s best offense and current Super Bowl favorite.