Trey Smack’s overtime kick rescues Packers after Jets let control slip away

A comeback assembled in small pieces

Green Bay did not spend this game piling up offense. It spent it surviving long enough to make three late scoring moments matter. The Packers opened the scoring when Jordan Love hit MarShawn Lloyd for a 6-yard touchdown at 9:35 of the second quarter, then watched the Jets answer with Braelon Allen’s 5-yard rushing score at 6:04. New York finally created daylight on Garrett Wilson’s 5-yard touchdown catch from Geno Smith at 2:30 of the third, and when Jason Sanders added a 32-yard field goal with 11:04 left in the fourth, the Jets had a 17-7 lead and the cleaner shape of the game.

That is what makes the finish stand out. Love found Christian Watson for a 3-yard touchdown with 7:58 remaining, Smack tied it with a 34-yard field goal at 2:59, and Smack ended it from 26 yards out with 5:23 left in overtime. Green Bay reached 20 points while converting only one of nine third downs and producing just 199 total yards. The escape route came from details around the offense: Smack was perfect, Daniel Whelan averaged 54.0 yards on six punts, and Skyy Moore supplied field-position help with 92 punt-return yards and another 116 on kick returns. On a day when the Packers rarely looked comfortable, their specialists made sure they were never out of range.

The Jets owned the ball but not the day

New York controlled too much of this game to finish with only 17 points. The Jets held possession for 37:40, ran 72 plays to Green Bay’s 50, posted 21 first downs, and converted 8 of 19 third downs while the Packers barely stayed on the field. Geno Smith’s line was useful rather than reckless: 27 completions on 41 attempts, 247 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions. Wilson caught the touchdown and added 57 yards, Adonai Mitchell matched Breece Hall with 63 receiving yards, and Hall gave Smith a true outlet by turning five catches into 63 yards of his own.

What the Jets never found was a dependable run game to turn that control into separation. They rushed 27 times for 67 yards, just 2.5 per carry. Hall managed 29 yards on 16 attempts, and Allen had the touchdown but only seven yards on five carries overall. That kept too much of the offense in Smith’s hands and gave Green Bay’s front a way back into the game. Lukas Van Ness finished with 10 tackles, 1.5 sacks and three tackles for loss, Edgerrin Cooper added a sack and three more tackles for loss, and the Packers totaled four sacks, nine tackles for loss and 10 quarterback hits. New York moved the ball, but it did not move it with enough force to bury Green Bay when the chance was there.

Our take: the uglier team won the cleaner moments

Our take: this was not a convincing offensive performance by Green Bay, but it was a revealing one. Love protected the ball, threw two touchdown passes and avoided an interception, and that mattered because almost everything else around him was messy. The Packers were flagged 14 times for 133 yards, rushed for only 63 yards, lost a fumble, and still found a way through because their mistakes never became fatal. That is the good news. The warning is just as plain: a team that goes 1-for-9 on third down and produces 199 yards cannot count on an overtime kick every week. Green Bay would benefit from finding more steady production beyond the red-zone finishes; Matthew Golden led the club with 58 receiving yards, and no rusher reached 33.

Our take on the Jets is harsher because the game invited them to finish it. They did not turn the ball over once, they possessed it for nearly 38 minutes, and they still let a 10-point fourth-quarter lead dissolve. The biggest shared flaw between the teams was discipline, but it hurt New York just as much: 13 penalties for 156 yards is too much waste in a one-score game. If there is a practical fix to start with, it is not glamorous. A team that got only 36 rushing yards from Hall and Allen combined on 21 carries has to find more balance somewhere, because asking Smith to keep extending drives while the ground game stalls is a narrow way to live.

In that sense, this result felt less like a statement and more like a lesson. The Jets had the volume. The Packers had the final answers. When a game is this uneven on paper and this tight on the scoreboard, the winner is usually the side that handles the handful of decisive snaps better. On Sunday, that was Green Bay, and Smack’s right leg supplied the proof.

Scoring moments

1. Period 2 · 9:35

   MarShawn Lloyd 6 Yd pass from Jordan Love (Trey Smack Kick)

2. Period 2 · 6:04

   Braelon Allen 5 Yd Rush (Jason Sanders Kick)

3. Period 3 · 2:30

   Garrett Wilson 5 Yd pass from Geno Smith (Jason Sanders Kick)

4. Period 4 · 11:04

   Jason Sanders 32 Yd Field Goal

5. Period 4 · 7:58

   Christian Watson 3 Yd pass from Jordan Love (Trey Smack Kick)

6. Period 4 · 2:59

   Trey Smack 34 Yd Field Goal

7. Period 5 · 5:23

   Trey Smack 26 Yd Field Goal