Aaron Rodgers threw four touchdown passes and guided Green Bay’s drive for the winning field goal to give the unbeaten Packers a 38-35 victory on Sunday over the New York Giants.
Mason Crosby kicked a 31-yard field goal on the final play of the game to extend Green Bay’s best-ever start to 12-0 with only four victories remaining to complete an undefeated campaign.
“When we had adversity our offense stepped up and we were able to pull out the victory,” Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. “It’s all part of the journey.”
Photo: AFP
Green Bay clinched a playoff berth with the victory and the NFC North Division title when New Orleans beat Detroit 31-17. Also booking a playoff spot were San Francisco (10-2), who beat St Louis 26-0 to seal the NFC West crown.
The Giants (6-6) stumbled to their fourth loss in a row, but remained only one game behind NFC East leader Dallas, who lost 19-13 in overtime to Arizona. The Giants play Dallas next week and took confidence from testing the perfect Packers.
“We’ve got to regroup,” Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. “We really came together. We played with emotion. If we play with positive intensity, those are the things that bind us together.”
Photo: AFP
Clay Matthews, who returned an interception 38 yards for a first-half Packers touchdown, said the team will take victory in its stride even after a narrow escape.
“It was the biggest test so far,” he said. “We have done a fantastic job of overcoming adversity. This was a good measuring stick of where we are and where we want to go. We will learn from it and try to take momentum into next week.”
Rodgers threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Greg Jennings 5 minutes, 10 seconds into the third quarter to give Green Bay an 11-point edge, but Eli Manning answered 3 minutes, 20 seconds later with a four-yard touchdown pass to Hakeem Nicks, pulling New York within 28-24.
After Lawrence Tynes kicked a 50-yard field goal to lift the Giants within 28-27, Rodgers flipped a seven-yard touchdown pass to Donald Driver with 3 minutes, 34 seconds remaining to put Green Bay ahead 35-27.
Manning answered by driving the Giants 69 yards for a touchdown, capping it with a two-yard scoring pass to Nicks with 58 seconds to play and D.J. Ware ran for a two-point conversion to equalize at 35-35.
The Packers took over and Rodgers, who finished with 369 passing yards, hit passes of 24 yards to Jermichael Finley, 27 yards to Jordy Nelson and 18 yards to Jennings to put Green Bay on the Giants’ 12-yard line, setting up Crosby’s game-ending kick.
“He made a couple significant plays there late,” Coughlin said. “We thought we would be going into overtime. Not to be.”
Elsewhere, Matt Prater kicked a 23-yard field goal as time expired to give the Denver Broncos a 35-32 victory over Minnesota for their fifth victory in a row.
Denver moved into a share of the AFC West Division lead at 7-5 with Oakland, who lost 34-14 at Miami to end a three-game Raiders’ win streak.
Baltimore and Pittsburgh stayed even atop the AFC North at 9-3 with triumphs as the Ravens ripped Cleveland 24-10, while Pittsburgh routed Cincinnati 35-7.
Houston (9-3) topped Atlanta 17-10 to stay atop the AFC South by two games over Tennessee, who kept pace by beating Buffalo 23-17.
New England (9-3) beat winless Indianapolis 31-24 to stay atop the AFC East by two games over the New York Jets, who rallied late to down Washington 34-19.
Washington’s seventh loss in eight games came as Sports Illustrated reported that Redskins tight end Fred Davis and tackle Trent Williams, both starters, will be banned for the last four games of the season for positive drug tests.
Cam Newton scored his 11th, 12th and 13th rushing touchdowns of the season to set an NFL record for such scores by a rookie quarterback in Carolina’s 38-19 victory over Tampa Bay.
Dexter McCluster caught a twice-deflected pass for a 38-yard touchdown on the last play of the first half to give Kansas City a 10-3 victory at Chicago.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but