The Packers overcame disastrous first down results in win over Cowboys

The Green Bay Packers had plenty of bright spots in their victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night Football, but the team's first down offense was not among them. The Packers consistently shot themselves in the foot at the start of offensive series throughout their 23-13 victory, regularly losing yardage and requiring Jordan Love to go into hero mode on second- and third-and-long situations.

Fortunately, Love did just that, as he threw for 276 yards and a touchdown while adding a second score on the ground, all while being pressured on nearly 50 percent of his dropbacks. With the Cowboys' defense consistently seeing big numbers on the yards to go category on the scoreboard, they were able to tee off on Love, hitting him several times and recording three sacks.

The fact that the Packers were able to score 23 points - a number that probably should have been more like 30, had their receivers caught the football in the end zone consistently - is truly remarkable given the disaster that the Packers put up on first down. Of the Packers' 27 plays run on first down (not including one defensive penalty), the team failed to gain yardage on 13 of them, either via incomplete pass, no gain or loss of yardage on the ground, or an offensive penalty. That's roughly half of the time that the team still has double-digit yards to gain after a first down play.

In those 27 snaps, the Packers managed to have a success" (defined as picking up at least 40% of the required yards to gain) on just 5 of them. That's a hilariously bad 18.5% success rate on first down, and consistently setting themselves up in long distance situations required Love and the Packers to have a 65% success rate on 3rd and 4th downs to make up for it.

Indeed, Love was 2/7 passing for just nine yards on first downs; on all other downs, he was 22/34 for 269 yards and a touchdown. (His rushing touchdown, a quarterback sneak, did come on first down).

The run game was no better than the passing game, either. MarShawn Lloyd, Pierre Strong, and Kaleb Johnson combined for 15 carries on first downs, gaining a net of just 25 yards. Because of the long distances, I counted only six true running plays on other downs. Furthermore, the run game had as many plays go for no gain or negative yardage on first downs as they had gains of four yards or more (four each).

And then the Packers also had three first-down penalties and a sack, only adding to the ugliness.

Here's a look at the play-by-play results on first downs on Sunday night. As a warning, you may want to find an eyewash station after looking at this.

Again, it's shocking that the Packers were able to put together a successful offense with such dramatic ineptitude on first down. Credit Jordan Love for being fearless and accurate in the pocket for this team being able to put together five scoring drives to reach the 20-point mark, and for putting still more balls in places where his receivers should have made plays and pushed the team closer to 30.

If the Packers can clean up their execution and start getting positive yardage on first downs with more regularity, this offense could very easily take a big step forward.