The Packers vs Cowboys score finished 23-13 to Green Bay at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Sunday, October 18, 2026. Jordan Love threw a 9-yard touchdown pass to Matthew Golden and ran for a second score as the Packers built a 17-0 half-time lead, rookie kicker Trey Smack added three field goals, and Green Bay's defence intercepted Dak Prescott twice in Packers territory. Dallas, shut out for the entire first half, reached the end zone through Javonte Williams and a late Ryan Flournoy touchdown but fell to 2-4; the Packers improve to 4-2 with a third consecutive win.
A 17-0 halftime hole, two interceptions thrown away in Packers territory, and a Dallas rally that arrived with 52 seconds left
GREEN BAY, Wis. — The tone was set on the first possession. Green Bay took the opening kickoff and marched 90 yards in 14 plays over six and a half minutes, converting four third downs along the way. Christian Watson kept the drive alive with a 27-yard catch on third-and-13, Matthew Golden added a 37-yarder down the sideline — backpedalling the ball to the Dallas 24 even after a taunting flag — and on third-and-6 from the 9, Jordan Love found Golden in the end zone with 4:46 left in the first quarter.
Dallas's chances to answer kept dying in Green Bay territory, and usually by Dallas's own hand. Linebacker Dee Winters intercepted Love late in the first quarter to give the Cowboys a short field, but Prescott's first trip into scoring range ended with safety Evan Williams stepping in front of a throw for CeeDee Lamb at the Green Bay 3-yard line. Green Bay responded with a 15-play, 73-yard drive that burned more than eight minutes and ended in a 25-yard Trey Smack field goal. Prescott's next venture ended the same way: Lamb slipped coming out of his break and Brandon Cisse collected the first interception of his career. Two Cowboys possessions inside the Packers' end of the field, zero points.
A first half Dallas will want back
The half ended the way it had gone throughout. Helped by two defensive pass interference penalties, Love drove Green Bay to the 1-yard line and sneaked in himself with 25 seconds left before half-time — his first rushing touchdown since 2024, according to USA Today's Touchdown Wire — for a 17-0 lead. The half-time numbers were an indictment: Green Bay converted its first seven third downs and finished the half 9-of-10, piled up 225 yards and 15 first downs, and watched Dallas manage 107 total yards, five first downs, 21 rushing yards and seven penalties for 68 yards. Dallas returner KaVontae Turpin had already left with a rib injury after the opening kickoff, Winters departed with an ankle injury, and a Cowboys team that had talked all week about starting fast had been shut out.
Love's final line was 23-of-41 for 276 yards with a touchdown pass, an interception and the rushing score. Golden was his favourite target all night — 13 targets, six catches, 104 yards and the touchdown — a week after posting 123 receiving yards against Chicago, per Packers.com. Watson added 64 yards on three catches and Tucker Kraft, who returned after an apparent leg injury late in the second quarter, caught five passes for 37. The blemish for Green Bay was finishing: the Packers reached the red zone four times and came away with two touchdowns and two short field goals, and Watson dropped a would-be touchdown in the third quarter before Smack's 44-yarder made it 20-7. Smack, a rookie, was perfect on the night — field goals of 25, 44 and 29 yards and both extra points — and his 11 points were the difference between a comfortable win and a fourth-quarter sweat.
Dallas finally moved the ball — a half too late
Whatever was said in the visiting locker room worked, eventually. Dallas forced a three-and-out to open the second half, Prescott converted a fourth-and-2 to Lamb, and Javonte Williams finished a 46-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown run to cut it to 17-7. Early in the fourth quarter, safety Javon Bullard broke up Prescott's fourth-down throw for Lamb near midfield, and after a strange sequence in which a DaRon Bland interception was announced, reviewed and overturned a second time, Smack's 29-yard field goal pushed the lead to 23-7 with 10:10 remaining.
Prescott kept swinging. His final drive covered 71 yards in 13 plays, and with 52 seconds left he hit Ryan Flournoy for a 6-yard touchdown — Flournoy's seventh catch of the night. Needing the two-point conversion to keep any realistic hope alive, Prescott's throw for Lamb failed, Brandon Aubrey's onside kick went out of bounds, and Love kneeled out a 23-13 win. Prescott finished 34-of-54 for 258 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions — back-to-back games with multiple interceptions for the first time since October 2024, per Touchdown Wire. Lamb caught nine passes for 70 yards, George Pickens six for 73, and Williams ran 11 times for 41 yards and the Cowboys' first touchdown.
The numbers behind the Packers Cowboys score
The strangest line in the box score is first downs: Dallas won them, 24 to 20, and the total-yardage gap was only 319 to 303. This was not a blowout in volume; it was a blowout in sequencing. Dallas's two first-half turnovers both came in Green Bay territory, its offence did not score for the game's first 39 minutes, and its defence spent the first half on the field for drives of 14 and 15 plays. Third down was the hidden scoreboard — Green Bay converted 11 of 18, Dallas 5 of 13 — and it explains how a team that rushed for only 58 yards on 25 carries still controlled the night: the Packers kept the ball with throws, not runs. Prescott's 54 attempts produced just 4.8 yards per throw, the profile of an offence checking down against a defence content to tackle and wait. Both teams were flagged 11 times — 108 yards against Dallas, 96 against Green Bay — and both finished 2-of-4 in the red zone, which is where Green Bay's win carries its warning: three field goals and a dropped touchdown pass is a profile that beats a 2-4 team and troubles a good one.
Why this matters
For Green Bay, the win is a third straight and a 4-2 record built without its biggest defensive name: Micah Parsons remains sidelined as he works back from the torn ACL he suffered last December, so the revenge game this fixture was supposed to feature never happened — and the Packers' defence, built on takeaways and third-down stops, delivered anyway. Matt LaFleur has now faced Dallas six times as Green Bay's coach and never lost: five wins and last season's wild 40-40 tie in Dallas, the second-highest-scoring tie in NFL history. There is a real question underneath the comfort, though. The Packers' offence produced two touchdowns in 60 minutes, leaned on a rookie kicker for 11 points, and let a beaten opponent hang around into the final minute. That is sustainable against Dallas in October. It is a thinner way to live in January.
For Dallas, the concern is no longer a slow start to games; it is a pattern. The Cowboys have been shut out across a first half a week after a home loss to Tampa Bay in which the same offence stumbled, and Prescott's interceptions are arriving in bunches — both of Sunday's killed scoring chances, and a quarterback of his contract and standing cannot keep spotting playoff-calibre opponents two possessions and a half of football. The defence, for once, is not the main story: it sacked Love three times — Kenny Clark and former Steeler Joey Porter Jr. both factored — intercepted him once, and held Green Bay to 58 rushing yards. The Cowboys wasted that, and they wasted a Sunday on which Philadelphia lost to Carolina, leaving the NFC East there to be chased. At 2-4, the chasing has to start immediately.
What happens next
Green Bay travels to Detroit next Sunday, October 25, for a meeting with the Lions that will carry the usual NFC North weight, with the red-zone offence at the top of the fix-it list and Parsons's return still the defence's looming upgrade. Dallas gets no soft landing: the Cowboys visit the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night, October 26, a game that now functions as a hinge for their season — win it and 3-4 with the division leader beaten keeps everything plausible; lose it and the Cowboys are 2-5, three games under .500 with their margin for error essentially spent. The one asset Dallas carries into that week is real: a defence that finally played a complete game and an offence that, for the final 30 minutes at Lambeau, moved the ball on one of the conference's best teams. The Cowboys' task is making those 30 minutes show up in the first half instead.
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Sources
Sportradar box score (October 18, 2026) — final score 23-13 and quarter scores, full player statistics (Love 23-of-41 for 276 yards, one touchdown, one interception; Prescott 34-of-54 for 258 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions; Golden six catches for 104 yards; Lamb nine for 70; Pickens six for 73; Flournoy seven for 40 and a touchdown; Williams 11 carries for 41 yards and a touchdown), the complete scoring summary, and team statistics (third downs 11-of-18 to 5-of-13, first downs 24-20 Dallas, total yards 319-303, penalties, red zone). NBC Sports Pro Football Talk (October 18, 2026) — half-time report: 17-0 lead, both Prescott interceptions in Green Bay territory (Evan Williams at the 3-yard line; Cisse after Lamb slipped), Green Bay 9-of-10 on third down in the first half, injuries to Turpin, Winters and Kraft. USA TODAY live updates (October 18, 2026) — the Bland interception ruling overturned twice before Smack's 29-yard field goal, scoring chronology. Packers Wire (October 18, 2026) — scoring summary, the fourth-down stop by Bullard, Watson's dropped touchdown, Packers' third straight win. Packers.com in-game updates (October 18, 2026) — opening-drive detail (14 plays, 90 yards, Golden's 37-yard catch), Cisse's first career interception. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / jsonline (October 18, 2026) — live game blog; LaFleur's six meetings with Dallas (five wins, one tie). Touchdown Wire (October 18, 2026) — Love's first rushing touchdown since 2024, Prescott's back-to-back multiple-interception games (first since October 2024), team records (Packers 4-2, Cowboys 2-4), Dallas's first-half totals. Cowboys Wire (October 18, 2026) — Dallas winless at Lambeau since October 16, 2016; Philadelphia and the Giants both lost in Sunday's early window.