The Green Bay Packers will advance to the Divisional Round of the playoffs following a hard-fought win over the New York Giants at Lambeau Field on Sunday. The Packers and Giants both got off to a slow start, but Green Bay turned it on late in the second quarter and kept the momentum throughout the second half, locking up a 38-13 win.
It was frigid in Lambeau, with the temperature around eight degrees at the beginning of the game, and the windchill was one degree. Still, Giants players took the field for warmups shirtless. It didn’t help.
It was a defensive battle early. The Giants only managed to get on the board once in the first quarter, with a 26-yard Robbie Gould field goal. New York added one more Gould field goal in the second quarter, and Green Bay answered with two touchdowns on its last two possessions of the half.
The first, a 5-yard strike from Aaron Rodgers to Davante Adams in the end zone, came after Rodgers evaded Giants defenders for over eight seconds until he had an open receiver.
The second was a last-ditch effort to put points on the board prior to the half, and Rodgers’ Hail Mary attempt was reminiscent of the one Eli Manning pulled off against the Packers in the playoffs five years ago.
Rodgers connected with Randall Cobb on a 42-yard pass with just six seconds remaining in the half to give the Packers a 14-6 lead.
The Packers kept rolling in the second half. A game that looked at times in the third quarter that it might turn into a shootout got out of hand for the Giants in the fourth quarter.
After Eli Manning narrowed Green Bay’s lead to 14-13 with a touchdown pass to Tavarres King in the third quarter, Rodgers took control. The quarterback hit Cobb with two more touchdowns, a 30-yarder and a 16-yarder, respectively. There was a Mason Crosby field goal in between Cobb’s two second-half touchdowns, giving the Packers a seemingly insurmountable 31-13 lead with just under 10 minutes remaining.
Cobb’s third touchdown didn’t just help secure the victory for Green Bay. It also tied an NFL and franchise record for the most touchdowns in a playoff game.
To add insult to injury for the Giants’ defense, Packers fullback Aaron Ripkowski added a 1-yard touchdown run late in the fourth quarter. The score extended Green Bay’s lead to 38-13 and put the game well out of New York’s reach.
Manning led a drive late, and got the Giants into scoring position, but threw an interception to Green Bay’s Damarious Randall in the end zone to end the game.
The game was emblematic of Green Bay’s season. After a slow start in 2016, during which the team struggled enough that many questioned Mike McCarthy’s job security, the Packers won their final six games of the season. The win over the Giants in wild card play was the team’s seventh consecutive victory.
Green Bay has been buoyed along by Rodgers’ play over the past several weeks. Over the Packers’ last eight contests, Rodgers has thrown 22 touchdowns and no interceptions.
The Packers won despite suffering a couple of notable injuries. Wide receiver Jordy Nelson left the game with a rib injury and did not return. Wide receiver-turned-running back Ty Montgomery had to leave the game with what seemed to be a lower body injury, but he did return in the fourth quarter.
The Packers will travel to Dallas to take on the top-seeded Dallas Cowboys in the Divisional Round.