After a back-and-forth affair filled with lead changes, incredible offensive execution and a pendulum wildly swinging between revenge for either Jerry Jones or Micah Parsons, Sunday’s epic between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys ended in an anticlimactic 40-40 tie.

The game’s finish — a 34-yard field goal by Brandon McManus as overtime expired — felt underwhelming after a second half filled with explosive plays. It also exposed what’s become a growing concern for the Packers: the conservative decision-making of head coach Matt LaFleur.

Not only did Green Bay seemingly play for a tie in overtime, the Packers twice punted inside Cowboys territory, all decisions that may have prevented Green Bay from winning the game.

“Obviously didn’t come down here to tie a football game, it’s disappointing,” LaFleur said postgame.

In the extra period, the Packers began their first and only possession with four minutes and 40 seconds on the clock. After a reception by Matthew Golden on a 4th-and-6, Green Bay had the ball on its own 38-yard line with three minutes and 45 seconds to go.

Between the Golden catch and the McManus field goal, the Packers ran only eight plays from scrimmage despite having both a timeout and the two-minute warning to stop the clock. Though Green Bay was likely trying to prevent Dallas from getting the ball back, the offense’s lack of urgency prevented the team from threatening to score what would have been a game-winning touchdown.

The only time the Packers threw into the end zone in overtime came on a dicey play, when quarterback Jordan Love snapped the ball with only six seconds left — and his incomplete pass hit the turf with only one second remaining.

“That just goes to the level of detail where we’re not where we need to be,” LaFleur said of the game’s final plays. Immediately before the incomplete pass in the end zone, Love completed a pass for a loss of a yard inbounds that kept the clock running.

LaFleur added: “The operation was way too slow. Ultimately, the communication’s gotta get better.”

“It’s something that we gotta fix, we gotta clean up and be better,” Love said of the sequence.

While Green Bay’s slow play prevented the Cowboys from ever seeing the ball again, it also hindered its own offense.

“I’m not gonna get into what our strategy is going to be,” LaFleur said when asked directly about his overtime philosophy when having the ball second. He conceded he was trying to balance a “fine line” between scoring and leaving time for Dallas.

Of course, the game may never have gone to overtime if not for LaFleur’s decision-making in the first half.

On the Packers’ second drive, LaFleur opted to take a delay-of-game penalty and punt instead of attempting to convert a 4th-and-2 from Dallas’s 49-yard line.

Later, Green Bay had a 4th-and-5 from the Cowboys’ 45 but decided to punt. Dallas embarked on a 95-yard touchdown drive getting the ball back, seemingly flipping the momentum of the game.

The trepidation from the Packers on fourth down is a continuation of a trend from last season.

In 2024, LaFleur had the fourth-lowest “Go Rate” on fourth down, according to Ben Baldwin of rbsdm.com, a stat which measures how often coaches attempt to convert a fourth-down when they should based on win probability added.

(Oddly, Green Bay attempted to be aggressive in a more surprising scenario: A 1st-and-15 from his team’s own 27-yard line with only 21 seconds left in the half. LaFleur called a pass play, and Love was strip-sacked, leading to a Cowboys touchdown.)

Ultimately, there are a multitude of reasons why each team didn’t win Sunday. Turnovers played a role, as did a blocked extra point that turned into two points for Dallas’s special teams.

The Parsons trade didn’t even end up being much of a factor, as both defenses combined to give up nine scores on the game’s final nine possessions.

But if the Packers fashion themselves a contender in the NFC — especially in a division with the fourth-down crazy Detroit Lions — Sunday was a reminder how a little more aggression could be the difference between a win and something worse.