PACKERS FALL TO 2-1
-Green Bay loses its first contest of the year, 27-16, to the Dallas Cowboys.
-It marks the Cowboys' first win at Lambeau Field in team history (1-5).
OTHER POSTGAME NOTES:
-Tonight's paid attendance was 71,113, the largest regular-season crowd in Lambeau Field history. Also, tonight marked the 271st consecutive sellout (255 regular season, 16 playoffs) at Lambeau Field.
-Nick Collins' 61-yard interception return was the longest of his career. His previous best was 55 yards.
-With his 1.5 sacks tonight, Aaron Kampman recorded the 10th multi-sack game of his career. He now has four sacks on the season.
-Donald Driver had a season-high 76 yards receiving on four receptions.
-Greg Jennings' eight receptions were a career-high. He earned 115 yards. His previous best was seven receptions against Carolina on Nov. 18, 2007.
-Dallas RB Felix Jones became the first Cowboys rookie to score a touchdown in each of his first three games.
-Jones' 60-yard touchdown run was the longest run given up by Green Bay this season.
-Dallas WR Miles Austin's 63-yard reception was the longest pass play allowed by Green Bay on the year.
**
HEAD COACH MIKE McCARTHY:
(on Dallas' running game) "Well, statistically, they put up big numbers. Anytime someone runs for 200 yards, that's significant. But how they did it, that's the thing that we're more interested in. We made some mistakes, particularly the long run. It was an alignment error. That's what happens when things like that happen. They were able to run the ball for four quarters and kind of wear our defense down. I thought our defense was playing very well, and the offense didn't help them there in the second quarter. The time of possession at halftime was definitely tilted too far against our defense, and I think it caught up to us."
(on losing at home in a game of this magnitude) "You never want to lose. There's no doubt about it. It's frustrating and disappointing. Losing at Lambeau, I don't like it that's for sure. That's an emphasis. I definitely thought we had that going in the right direction. But the reality is that it's the third game of the season. It was a big game. It's a great measuring stick for our football team. And I'll tell you exactly what I told them. The Dallas Cowboys are further ahead than we are right now. That's the facts and that's week three. How far ahead, time will answer that question. We have work to do and we'll continue to do it and we need to get the things fixed tomorrow with our review. I'm more concerned about the medical condition of our team right now with the number of guys we had banged up in that game. We're going to have to get ready to go down to Florida, in Tampa, in six days."
(on the Packers running game) "The most important thing about running the football again is attempts, in my view. The attempts, we really didn't do a very good job of sustaining drives, you can say whatever you want, the run game, the passing game. But the times we were able to commit to the runs throughout the series that was longer than three plays, I think it was productive. But we need to do a better job of that. I was not very pleased with the production we had on first down offensively. The injury to James Jones kind of set us aside for a few series there in the second quarter and I probably didn't do a good job adjusting quick enough to that."
(on Aaron Rodgers' performance) "I thought it was steady for the most part. I thought he was in some tough situations. The pass protection I thought started off pretty good. I thought we were in a decent flow in the first quarter. The thing about protecting the quarterback, when the guy gets to throw it the other way, and they're playing downhill, it doesn't work in your favor. And I think that's what happened to us in the second half."
(on stopping Terrell Owens) "The game plan, we definitely talked about staying on top of their star players. And obviously, he's one of them. (Jason) Witten was another one we focused on, and he had a productive day. But that's game planning. You try to take away one thing, and you obviously have a one-on-one on the other side. That's usually how it works."
QUARTERBACK AARON RODGERS:
(on whether he felt like he was under more pressure than first two games) "You've got to give Dallas credit. I think their game plan was a very good one. They left five rushers on the field for the majority of the game. They tried to single up one-on-one matchups, and they've got five solid guys rushing the passer. They did a nice job covering as well. Unfortunately, I didn't have a ton of lanes tonight, didn't throw the ball as well as I wanted to and they did a nice job with their pass rush."
(on whether he saw things during the game he didn't see on film during the week) "We were interested to see how they would play us, and it was pretty evident from early on that they were going to stay in their base personnel for the most part - keep (linebackers) Zach Thomas and Bradie James on the field and keep their five rushers. So that means you're going to play a lot more one-on-one coverage. After we hit some passes on the second drive there they stopped dropping their coverage guys deep in coverage, and they were able to get pressure with three and four guys. Unfortunately, I had to hold the ball a little bit longer and took some sacks, especially in the red zone, that I'm disappointed in myself about."
(on how disappointed he is in his first loss as a starter) "It's disappointing. You'd like to win them all obviously, but Dallas is a good football team, and we unfortunately didn't play our best tonight. We're going to have to watch the film and be very critical of ourselves and get better and move on and get ready for Tampa."
(on whether they committed enough to the run) "Unfortunately the score of the game kind of dictated our play calling a little bit. I thought early on we were, and we tried at times. Third down - which has been good for us so far, 50 percent after the first two games - I'm not sure what the stats were, but I'm sure it was a lot worse tonight. And that's the key really to the run game, is converting those third downs so you can have a new set of downs and have a good run-pass option on first down."
RUNNING BACK RYAN GRANT
(on if the offense can improve from here) "To a degree. Definitely the things we didn't do and we should have. I felt like at one point we were kind of in a groove, and there were certain things, we didn't execute on certain things, and of course the penalties and different things put us in a bad position. But we got to learn from this game and you know, definitely a league of improvement so we know what we have to improve on, watching film and just playing, there are a lot of things we can get better at."
(on if the Dallas defense was a little tougher than expected) "Not tougher than expected. That's a good defense. Give them their credit, their due, but little things like me putting the ball on the ground, that has nothing to do with defense, that's just ball security. Protection. You know, those are things that we take pride in, protecting our quarterback and stuff like that. That's just some things we need to clean up."
(on what the most frustrating thing coming out of this game offensively) "Not winning, number one of course. That's why we're here, that's the number one goal. Just to be kind of flat and really we felt like we kind of put ourselves in a couple, you know, a hard position, to get us some (yards), so, second and long, first and long, those type of things, they're hard. You know, when you're playing this type of game, you know you're going to take shots, you're going to go back and forth. We need to learn from it, it's a long season, give credit that's due to them, they played hard and they took advantage of a lot of different things and that's what good teams do."
CORNERBACK TRAMON WILLIAMS
(on if Dallas is so hard to stop because of all the weapons they have) "No, to tell you the truth, I don't know man. I feel that we, I know we could have did better, everybody knew we could have did better. We went out there, we held up for awhile. They didn't get into the end zone as much in the red zone, but you know, like I said, they came up with big plays. That's the game right there."
(on what positives they can take from this loss) "We started off strong, we went pound for pound with them, but we just didn't finish, we didn't play four quarters. And that's what we got to get at, that's what we're trying to get at. If we want to get to the Super Bowl, that's what we got to do, so I mean, that's just the way it is."
GUARD/CENTER JASON SPITZ
(on if he feels Dallas is the best team in the NFL) "Well, certainly tonight they were better than us. I mean, I'm not going to speculate on if they're the best team in the NFL."
DEFENSIVE TACKLE RYAN PICKETT
(on if the biggest problem with the defensive line was at the point of attack) "Oh no, it wasn't at the point of attack, if you watch, it was a physical game, but we did pretty good in the attack. I just think he's a good back and he's finding our openings and he's breaking tackles and sometimes he was getting out of the gap. He's a good back and he finds it, so, you know, just giving him credit, he did a great job. We just didn't do a good job today, that's not acceptable. I would expect nothing like this will ever happen again with our defense. We just got to move on from there and get better."
(on if Marion Barber is that strong that he can get all of the extra yards) "He's a good back. I'm not going to go and say all of that, but he's definitely a good back and he did well tonight. I'm telling you, he found our openings in our defense. You know, the weak point of our defense, they did a good job of attacking it, they schemed us well with the run, they did different things we didn't see on tape so they were just prepared for it and we wasn't."
{sportsad300}DALLAS COWBOYS HEAD COACH WADE PHILLIPS:
(on the win) "It was a really big win for us. We certainly made some mistakes, but I thought our team played with a lot of heart like they have. They never panicked. It was another good game for us."
(on Tony Romo) "Tony never ceases to amaze me. He has a will to play. If things don't go his way early, he fights through it and plays well. Tony came through for us like he has and like we expect him to."
(on the Dallas defense keeping the Packers out of the end zone for most of the night) "I thought it was pretty outstanding. Our defense played pretty well the whole game. I was proud of our defense. They only had one big play and we still held them to a field goal on that drive."
(on Marion Barber) "Marion is the workhorse. He kept hammering and hammering. He started out a little slow, but our line and Marion will wear people down. You could see that we were kind of overpowering them at the end of the game."
DALLAS COWBOYS QUARTERBACK TONY ROMO:
(on if this team is the best in the NFC) "We have a good football team, I know that, but it doesn't matter if you are the favorite now or the least favorite. You have to keep playing football games. You aren't trying to be the favorite in Week 3. You are trying to be there at the end of the year."
(on the offense getting things going in the second half) "It was hard out there tonight. They did a great job disrupting our timing. In games like this you have to wait for a couple of big plays and you have to connect, and we did."
DALLAS COWBOYS DEFENSIVE END MARCUS SPEARS:
(on pressuring Aaron Rodgers) "We wanted to get him uncomfortable and make him run around a little bit. He was able to scramble against other teams, so our rush lanes were very important. We also wanted to get our hands up and cover receivers downfield. Overall, we did a pretty good job."
DALLAS COWBOYS WIDE RECEIVER MILES AUSTIN:
(on his touchdown catch) "It was an outside double move - a stutter go. It was one-on-one cover out there and when I stuttered, he was still on my hip a little bit behind me. That one was a perfect ball, right on the sideline, and I caught it in stride."
