{"id":10592,"date":"2017-01-14T00:04:26","date_gmt":"2017-01-14T05:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=10592"},"modified":"2017-01-29T15:34:52","modified_gmt":"2017-01-29T20:34:52","slug":"green-bay-packers-divisional-round-keys-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2017\/01\/14\/green-bay-packers-divisional-round-keys-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Bay Packers Divisional Round Keys to Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, the <strong>Green Bay Packers<\/strong> defeated the <strong>New York Giants<\/strong> by the sound score of 38-13, thus leading them to another rematch against an <strong>NFC East<\/strong> foe. This time around, the Packers will travel to <strong>AT&amp;T Stadium<\/strong> to take on the <strong>Dallas Cowboys<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>Green Bay Packers Divisional Round Keys to Victory<\/h2>\n<h3>Time of Possession<\/h3>\n<p>This is an intriguing match because both <strong>Dallas<\/strong> and <strong>Green Bay<\/strong> rank near the top in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teamrankings.com\/nfl\/stat\/average-time-of-possession-net-of-ot\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">time of possession<\/a>, third and fourth respectively. The key to success will be which offense can\u00a0stay on the field to protect there below-average defense from being torched by the other team\u2019s offense.<\/p>\n<p>Dallas seems to have the advantage with\u00a0rookie running back <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/E\/ElliEz00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ezekiel Elliott<\/a><\/strong> and the massive offensive line. It also helps them that rookie quarterback <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/P\/PresDa01.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dak Prescott<\/a><\/strong> throws mostly short to medium passes, which makes the passing game an extension of the running game. The Cowboys use Elliott\u00a0and Prescott to sustain long, methodical drives as opposed to the quick, explosive plays that <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/R\/RomoTo00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tony Romo<\/a><\/strong> used to make.<\/p>\n<p>But facing them is future hall-of-fame\u00a0quarterback <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/R\/RodgAa00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aaron Rodgers<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>and his offensive savant\u00a0head coach,\u00a0<strong>Mike McCarthy<\/strong>. The two Packer legends went\u00a0through it all this season, but their team is once again a major player in January football. As always in recent memory, Green Bay is led by its potent offense, so Rodgers and company will have to protect the ball and the defense. It is good news for Green Bay since Dallas has only 36 sacks on the season and does not have a superstar pass rusher that could wreak havoc.<\/p>\n<p>The Cowboys rank sixth in the NFL in yards per drive (35.63), fourth in points per drive (2.54), and third in Drive Success Rate (.752 percent)\u00a0<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">while Green Bay places fourth, third and fourth, respectively, in those categories,\u00a0<\/span>according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.footballoutsiders.com\/stats\/drivestats\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>FootballOutsiders.com<\/em><\/a>. Basically, these teams can move the ball, and they put points on the board when they do. The time of possession per drive for the Cowboys is three minutes and three seconds, which ranks second in the NFL, while Green Bay\u2019s two minutes and fifty-eight seconds ranks fourth, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.footballoutsiders.com\/stats\/drivestats\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>FootballOutsiders.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Prediction: Green Bay 30-20 Dallas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, the Green Bay Packers defeated the New York Giants to earn a trip to the divisional round of the playoffs and another crack at the Dallas Cowboys<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":10453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[49,61,44,40,970],"class_list":["post-10592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-packers","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-football","tag-green-bay-packers","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-playoffs"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}