The Green Bay Packers (9-8) are going on the road to play the Dallas Cowboys (12-5) in the NFC Wild Card Round on Sunday at AT&T Stadium. At most sportsbooks, the seventh-seeded Packers are touchdown underdogs.
Football is a complicated game, but finding the reasons for winning individual matchups between teams each week is often a straightforward exercise. What wins games? Excellent quarterback play, winning the line of scrimmage, taking care of the football and taking it away, controlling the important situations and overcoming or taking advantage of the injury situation.
So, who has the edge at quarterback entering Sunday’s showdown?
Let’s take a look at the important numbers:
| Jordan Love | Dak Prescott | |
| Completion % | 64.2 (20th) | 69.5 (2nd) |
| YPA | 7.2 (14th) | 7.7 (6th) |
| TD passes | 32 (2nd) | 36 (1st) |
| Total TDs | 36 (4th) | 38 (2nd) |
| Passer rating | 96.1 (11th) | 105.9 (2nd) |
| Success rate | 47.6 (9th) | 51.5% (2nd) |
| EPA/play | 0.156 (5th) | 0.245 (2nd) |
| DVOA | 19.0 (6th) | 18.3 (8th) |
| QBR | 62.0 (9th) | 72.6 (2nd) |
| PFF grade | 83.0 (11th) | 90.8 (2nd) |
| Big-time throws | 34 (5th) | 38 (1st) |
| Turnover worthy plays | 17 (11th) | 14 (5th) |
| Sack% | 4.9 (5th) | 6.2 (15th) |
| PFF grade under pressure | 62.6 (6th) | 77.8 (2nd) |
| Completions, passes thrown 20+ yards | 32 (3rd) | 35 (1st) |
| Games, multiple TDs, 0 INTs | 9 (1st) | 7 (3rd) |
| Games, passer rating over 100.0 | 10 (2nd) | 11 (1st) |
The numbers paint a fairly clear picture. Prescott, a leading MVP candidate, is the better and more experienced quarterback overall. He was one of the NFL’s top five quarterbacks from start to finish in 2023, and he’s about to start his seventh career playoff game. Love — a first-time starter — endured ups and downs during the first half of the year and will make his playoff debut Sunday. While Prescott has the clear edge in just about every meaningful statistical category, Love’s finish to the 2023 season can’t be dismissed. He struggled early on but caught fire around Week 9, and it’s not unfair to say he’s been one of the NFL’s most impressive quarterbacks and most valuable players overall since the start of November.
So, what do we have here? Prescott, a veteran quarterback enjoying his best season, against Love, a first-time starter who is playing the position at the highest level entering the postseason. It’s nothing if not a terrific battle of young and impressive passers.
In fact, it might be the best quarterback matchup of Wildcard Weekend. Since Week 9, Love and Prescott are both either No. 1 or No. 2 in the NFL in completions, passing yards and passing touchdowns. Both are top five in passer rating and success rate.
Is Love capable of out-playing Prescott on Sunday? Certainly. Love won back-to-back NFC Offensive Player of the Week awards to end the 2023 season and produced six games with multiple touchdowns, zero interceptions and a passer rating over 100.0 in his final seven games. He is playing at a level approaching Aaron Rodgers’ last MVP season in 2021. And in his last two games indoors on turf in Detroit and Minnesota, Love threw six touchdown passes without an interception — suggesting the Packers’ young but speedy passing game could really fly in Dallas.
But Prescott — who threw 22 touchdown passes and only three interceptions with a 120.0 passer rating at home in 2023 — still gets the slight edge here, based on experience, consistency of play and location of the contest.
Here’s Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire on the Love vs. Prescott matchup:
Let’s start with Jordan Love, who’s been among the NFL’s best quarterbacks in the second half of the season. Since Week 9, he’s completed 237 of 345 passes (68.7%) for 2,666 yards (7.7 yards per attempt), 21 touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 108.2. These are wildly impressive numbers for a first-year starter with a highly aggressive mindset – in that time, Love has completed a league-high 23 passes of 20 or more air yards for 724 yards, seven touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 126.4. Under pressure, which Love will see from the Cowboys, he’s also been outstanding, with 42 completions in 92 attempts under pressure for 742 yards, seven touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 100.9. At this point, there isn’t much you can do to fluster Love, and the extent to which head coach Matt LaFleur has handed the offense over to his young quarterback tells you all you need to know about his development.
Here’s the problem for the Packers – we have a situation in which Dak Prescott is saying, “Everything you can do, I can do… perhaps better.” In that same period since Week 9, Prescott has completed 254 of 370 passes (68.6%) for 2,882 yards (7.8 yards per attempt), 26 touchdowns, four interceptions, and a passer rating of 110.7. And yes, Love does have the league lead in deep completions, but Prescott it tied with him – 23 completions in 49 attempts for 741 yards, five touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 127.3. Under pressure, Prescott has completed 62 of 103 passes for 864 yards, five touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 99.3.So, we’re splitting hairs. The advantage would seem to be in Prescott’s direction because of something neither quarterback can control. Dallas’ defense has been outstanding all season long, though they’ve dropped a bit in Pass Defense DVOA since Week 10 – eighth in the first half of the season, and 13th in the second. However, and as all Packers fans are aware, there are issues all over Joe Barry’s defense. Green Bay ranked 22nd in Pass Defense DVOA in the first half of the season; they’ve dropped to 27th since.
The quarterbacks are as even as you can get. That’s not the problem for the Packers. The problem for the Packers is the same problem they’ve had all season. It’ll be up to Barry and his staff to close the gap with a quickness.
The Packers will have to overcome the experience gap between Love and Prescott at the game’s most important position and get a dominant effort from the defensive front against a terrific quarterback and offense — who have been close to unstoppable at home — to escape AT&T Stadium with an upset win on Sunday.
