Matt LaFleur didn’t blink when the Packers reached 4th-and-2 late in Week 7 against the Arizona Cardinals, and that decision helped turn a tight road game into one of Green Bay’s biggest early-season wins.
The play lands at No. 9 in the Packers’ Top Plays of 2025, and it fits the bigger story of LaFleur’s evolving approach on fourth down. He once built a reputation as one of the league’s more aggressive coaches in those situations, living by the “All Gas, No Brake” mindset he preached.
In recent years, though, that edge had dulled a bit, with more of an appetite for field goals and field position. In 2025, the pendulum started swinging back.
That shift showed up in Arizona.
The Packers were in the middle of their longest road trip of the season, coming off a 27-18 win over the Cincinnati Bengals at Lambeau Field the previous week that moved them to 3-1-1 after their early Week 4 bye. The Cardinals entered at 2-4, already a team with a strange habit of playing to the wire.
They had opened the season with dramatic wins over the Saints and Panthers, each time hanging on with late fourth-down stops. After that, Arizona dropped four straight, all by four points or fewer, with the 49ers, Seahawks and Titans beating them on last-second field goals and the Colts finishing them off with a Jonathan Taylor touchdown run and a fourth-down stop inside the 10.
So when this one got tight, the finish felt fitting.
Arizona looked ready to take a 13-3 lead into halftime after scoring with seven seconds left in the second quarter, but Green Bay answered before the break. A 22-yard pass to Romeo Doubs set up Lucas Havrisik’s team-record 61-yard field goal, trimming the deficit to one score. The Packers tied it after Rashan Gary’s strip-sack of Jacoby Brissett led to a Josh Jacobs touchdown, then the teams traded touchdowns on the next possession.
Arizona moved back in front on a field goal with 9 minutes left in the fourth quarter. Green Bay went three-and-out, but the defense came through with a stop on a Brissett quarterback sneak near midfield on 4th down. That gave Jordan Love the ball trailing by three with just under six minutes remaining.
Love kept the drive moving with an early 3rd-and-8 completion to Tucker Kraft, then Jacobs picked up 8 yards on three straight runs. That set up the crucial moment: 4th-and-2 from the Arizona 29 with 2:32 left.
LaFleur took a timeout to sort through the choice. A field goal would have tied the game, but it would also have handed Arizona 2:32 and good field position with a chance to win with a kick of its own. Going for it offered the chance to seize control with a touchdown, even if it carried the risk of coming away empty.
LaFleur chose aggression.
Green Bay lined up with three receivers stacked tightly to the left, with Tucker Kraft on the line of scrimmage in the middle, Matthew Golden inside of him, and Malik Heath a yard off the line outside. Romeo Doubs was split wide right. After Golden motioned out of the stack, Love took the shotgun snap with Jacobs to his right and dropped back to read it.
Heath settled near the sticks, but he was bracketed by a defender and Budda Baker. Golden was covered on the sideline.
Kraft, though, got a little separation on a deep out against safety Dadrion Taylor-Demerson. Love saw it, laid the ball in perfectly near the sideline, and Kraft made the catch for a 15-yard conversion.
The drive stayed alive, and Green Bay made the most of it. Jacobs carried the ball three more times, burning the two-minute warning and one Arizona timeout before punching in the go-ahead touchdown on his third run. That made it a four-point game, which turned out to be the difference.
Arizona still pushed the ball to the Packers’ 27 on its final drive, but Micah Parsons came up with his third sack of the game, and Brissett followed with two incompletions. Green Bay held on.
If the Packers had settled for the tying field goal, Arizona would have been in position to chase the win with a kick of its own. Instead, LaFleur trusted Love and Kraft, and they delivered one of the defining plays of the season. The result moved Green Bay to 4-1-1 and offered a clean snapshot of LaFleur getting more comfortable with his old aggressiveness when the moment called for it.
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