Watch: The Best of Rodgers vs. Cowboys

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers threw only 20 passes on Sunday but several were of the highlight-reel variety in the victory over Dallas.
Watch: The Best of Rodgers vs. Cowboys
Watch: The Best of Rodgers vs. Cowboys /
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – Vintage Aaron Rodgers was back for the Green Bay Packers.

In dire need of a bounce-back performance after last week’s three-interception loss at Detroit, Rodgers hit peak efficiency in a 31-28 victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday. One week after throwing one touchdown and three interceptions in 43 attempts against the Lions, Rodgers threw three touchdown passes in 20 attempts against Dallas.

Aaron Jones (24 carries, 138 yards, one touchdown) and AJ Dillon (13 carries, 65 yards) did the heavy lifting on offense. Rodgers took advantage with his first three-touchdown day of the season. His 146.7 passer rating snapped a streak of six consecutive games in which he failed to his triple-digits.

“We had a super-high percentage of action passes today. That was a lot of our stuff,” Rodgers said. “We were under center a lot more, it felt like. The way the line played up front set up a lot of things. For the most part, protection was really solid with a good front. But running the football, we ran it really, really effectively, and that set up all those things.”

On third-and-1 in overtime, Rodgers faked the handoff to Jones and fired a slant to Allen Lazard for a catch-and-run gain of 36 yards to set up Mason Crosby’s winning field goal.

“We’ve been setting that play up for a while throughout the game and it hadn’t been there, hadn’t been there, hadn’t been there,” Rodgers said. “Allen and I had a conversation on the sideline and felt like if we came back to that play, it had a chance to be there and he’s pretty proficient at that route.”

This marked only the third time in his career in which Rodgers played a full game, or close to it, and didn’t throw at least 20 passes.

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.