Green Bay, Wis. — Rico Dowdle made one big mistake on an otherwise splendid afternoon.
Dowdle and Carolina Panthers kicker Ryan Fitzgerald made sure it didn’t prove costly.
Dowdle rushed for 130 yards and two touchdowns, and his big run in the final minute set up Fitzgerald’s last-second 49-yard field goal as Carolina beat Green Bay 16-13 on Sunday to climb above .500 and snap the Packers’ three-game win streak.
It was the second time this season that Fitzgerald, a rookie from Florida State, has made a winning field goal as time expired. He hit a 33-yarder in the Panthers’ 30-27 triumph over Dallas on Oct. 12.
“I think there is a sort of comfort level from the fact that I’ve done it before,” Fitzgerald said. “I’m still learning new experiences. Tough environment on the road this week, tough conditions.”
The loss could prove costly for Green Bay (5-2-1). Packers star tight end Tucker Kraft was carted off the field with a knee injury in the third quarter.
“It doesn’t look good,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “It’s going to be tough, but it’s football. Other guys are going to have to step up.”
Carolina (5-4), a two-touchdown underdog according to BetMGM Sportsbook, bounced back from a 40-9 home loss to Buffalo. Fitzgerald and Dowdle both had to redeem themselves from setbacks earlier in the game.
Dowdle’s second touchdown of the day gave the Panthers a 13-6 lead late in the third quarter. He celebrated that score by thrusting his hips twice, an homage to a “Key & Peele” sketch, and was called for unsportsmanlike conduct.
“From my understanding and everything I’ve learned, we go over stuff like this every week in the meeting room. I definitely think you’re supposed to get two pumps,” Dowdle said. “Hopefully, I don’t get a fine.”
Fitzgerald’s ensuing 48-yard extra-point attempt into a swirling wind was well short, keeping Carolina’s lead at 13-6. So when Green Bay’s Josh Jacobs scored from 1 yards out on third-and-goal with 2:32 left, the Packers didn’t need to go for 2 and tied the game on Brandon McManus’ extra point.
After Carolina got the ball back, Dowdle’s 19-yard carry on second-and-10 from midfield set up Fitzgerald’s kick.
“I just wanted to make up for it,” Dowdle said. “So I knew I had to come out there and keep putting my best foot forward, because I didn’t want that to end up biting us.”
Panthers coach Dave Canales said this past week that Dowdle would get the bulk of the carries after splitting time with Chuba Hubbard. Running behind an injury-riddled offensive line, Dowdle delivered against a Green Bay team ranked third in the NFL in rushing defense.
“From carry one, it was attitude, it was aggression and violence at the end of it,” Canales said. “It really does affect the group. It affects the whole sideline when they see that kind of energy. That kind of violence, it gives them confidence. It’s who we want to be.”
That wasn’t Canales’ only pregame move that paid off.
The Panthers usually defer when they win the coin toss, but they took the ball first. As a result, Fitzgerald’s game-winning kick was much easier than the jumbo-sized extra-point attempt he missed in the third period.
“I’ve got to give a lot of props to (special teams coordinator) Tracy Smith,” Canales said. “He and I were talking before the game and he was like, ‘If we take the ball, we can set ourselves up to have the ball with the wind to our backs to finish the game to give us the opportunity.’ And it played out just like that.”
More games
▶(At) Pittsburgh 27, Indianapolis 20: Jaylen Warren ran for two touchdowns, and the Pittsburgh Steelers forced Indianapolis into six turnovers. The Steelers (5-3) ended a two-game losing streak by harassing Colts quarterback Daniel Jones into the kind of mistakes he’d largely avoided during Indianapolis’ scorching-hot start.
Jones threw three interceptions and fumbled twice, including a strip-sack by Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt in the second quarter that seemed to shake the Steelers out of a weeks-long funk in which the NFL’s highest-paid defense gave up yards and points at an alarming rate.
Watt’s recovery, which came with the Steelers trailing by a touchdown and looking lifeless and on the receiving end of a smattering of boos from an uneasy Acrisure Stadium crowd, set up the first of Warren’s two touchdown runs and started a familiar pattern. Pittsburgh’s defense would take it away, then Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers’ offense would convert that turnover into points.
Pittsburgh turned three of Indianapolis’ giveaways into touchdowns during a stretch in which they ripped off 24 straight points to take control.
Two snaps after Warren’s plunge tied it, Jones threw an ill-advised pass right to Steelers linebacker Payton Wilson, who returned it 17 yards. Rodgers found Pat Freiermuth for a 12-yard touchdown pass two plays later to give the Steelers a lead they didn’t even flirt with squandering.
Rodgers finished 25 of 35 for 203 yards and a score on a day Pittsburgh’s offense managed just 225 yards of total offense.
Then again, the Steelers didn’t need Rodgers to be prolific, merely competent on a day the defense regained its ball-hawking swagger.
Jones completed 31 of 50 for 342 yards with a passing touchdown and a rushing touchdown but his three picks matched his season total coming in and he had serious trouble securing the ball in the face of a pass rush that sacked him five times.
Steelers defensive coordinator Teryl Austin pledged to simplify things after losses to Cincinnati and Green Bay in which Pittsburgh’s secondary gave up a staggering 688 yards through the air.
The patchwork unit, so banged up that safety Kyle Dugger started after arriving in a trade with New England on Thursday, found a way to keep the league’s highest-scoring offense in check.
The Colts’ 20 points tied a season low, and a significant chunk of their 368 yards came in garbage time.
Perhaps more troubling for Indianapolis was the way Jones – whose resurgent play after six mostly forgettable seasons with the New York Giants helped propel Indianapolis’ remarkable start – regressed into the mistake-prone decision-maker that made him expendable in the Big Apple.
Facing the league’s worst pass defense, Indianapolis coach Shane Steichen opted to put the game in Jones’ hands rather than running back Jonathan Taylor. Taylor, the NFL’s leading rusher, was held to a season-low 45 yards on 14 carries and was an afterthought even during the first half, when he ran it just eight times while Jones attempted 20 passes with diminishing results.
Indianapolis remains atop the AFC South despite the stumble. Pittsburgh remains the only team in the AFC North with a winning record. Perhaps just as importantly, the Steelers saw a bit of their confidence return after their 4-1 start had started to look like a mirage.