The Green Bay Packers walked out of a rainy MetLife Stadium with a 20-17 overtime win Sunday that almost nobody would have predicted from the box score.
Green Bay finished with 199 total yards, drew 14 accepted penalties for 133 yards and lost the turnover battle. No team on record since 1941 had won a game under that combination. Clubs that previously landed in the same spot were 0-44.
Rookie kicker Trey Smack ended it with a 26-yard field goal after the Packers defense stuffed New York on the first two snaps of overtime. The victory lifted Green Bay to 1-1 and snapped a six-game losing streak that had stretched back through last season’s playoffs.
The Packers never led in the second half until that final kick. They trailed 17-7 with just over 11 minutes left after Jason Sanders hit a 32-yard field goal for the Jets.
Jordan Love then directed a 73-yard touchdown drive, finding Christian Watson from three yards out to cut the deficit to three. Skyy Moore’s 63-yard punt return set up Smack’s 34-yard kick that tied the game at 17 with 2:59 remaining.
Love completed 16 of 29 passes for 145 yards and two scores. His other touchdown was a six-yard dump-off to MarShawn Lloyd in the second quarter, Lloyd’s first NFL score.
The Jets outgained Green Bay 285-199 and held the ball more than 10 extra minutes. Geno Smith went 27 of 41 for 247 yards and a five-yard touchdown pass to Garrett Wilson.
Both sides were sloppy. The teams combined for 27 accepted penalties and 289 penalty yards — more than either offense produced. Green Bay fumbled multiple times but lost only one, the play that set up New York’s late field goal.
Jets coach Aaron Glenn said afterward, “There’s a number of things that go through my head that we have to fix. It’s always tough when you feel like you were right there in the thick of it and then you didn’t overcome and you let the other team overcome and win, and that’s something that’s tough.”
Glenn added, “But I will say this: This loss is not going to define who we are and what we’re about. I will say that. And it’s not OK. And our guys are going to take it like that: It is not OK.”
Smith put it more simply: “We just have to close the game better. We had the lead, obviously, in the fourth quarter. We had opportunities to close out the game and we didn’t capitalize on those. So, for us, it’s always going to get back to the drawing board and find ways to get better.”
Linebacker Demario Davis gave the visitors credit.
“They did what great teams do down at the end of the game,” he said. “They showed they’re resilient, closed the gap and took the lead at the end. Just have to give them credit.”
Lukas Van Ness set the tone for Green Bay’s defense with 1.5 sacks, three tackles for loss and four quarterback hits. Love said of the linebacker, “Man, I thought he was flying around and making a lot of plays.” The Packers also survived an ugly opening drive. Jayden Reed (neck) and right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele (knee) were carted off on consecutive plays. Green Bay still found enough answers on special teams and in the fourth quarter to avoid its first 0-2 start since 2006. Coach Matt LaFleur’s team converted just one of nine third downs and spent most of the afternoon pinned behind the chains. Yet the defense forced a pair of sacks to open overtime, a false start made it third-and-30 for New York, and an unnecessary-roughness call on Jarvis Brownlee Jr. helped move Green Bay into field-goal range. Love acknowledged the recurring problem.“In two weeks, we’ve had a lot of penalties that have put us back,” he said.
The Jets had a chance to ice it late in regulation. Glenn went for it on fourth-and-1 near midfield and Braelon Allen was stopped. New York won the overtime toss, chose to receive, and immediately went backward. For one afternoon the numbers did not decide the winner. The Packers left New Jersey with a win that looked impossible on paper and a reminder that football still finds ways to ignore the usual rules.
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