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LaFleur on not running the ball late in TNF loss: 'That's a great question'

Quinn Harris / Getty Images Sport / Getty

With his team down by seven in the fourth quarter on two separate drives, Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur elected not to run the ball inside the 5-yard line.

Four straight incomplete passes at the 1-yard line with just over nine minutes remaining resulted in a turnover on downs. Later, with 28 seconds left, Aaron Rodgers threw an interception from inside the five to seal a 34-27 win for the Philadelphia Eagles.

"That's a great question," LaFleur told reporters when asked why he chose to solely call passing plays on those key situations, according to Ryan Wood of the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

He later added: "Unfortunately, it didn't work out for us."

The Packers struggled to run the ball against a stingy Eagles front four, as Aaron Jones accumulated just 21 yards on 13 carries. LaFleur instead focused primarily on the passing game, which found greater success throughout the night.

"It was not the way we intended to go in this game," he said. "But they played a lot of two-deep, and when they were playing two-deep we were struggling to run the football. If teams are going to play you in two-deep and you can't run it, it's going to be tough to gain yards. We thought the best method to attack them was to kinda dink and dunk it down the field.

"When you have one of the greatest quarterbacks ever, you trust him to continually gain yards and get down the field. We were able to accomplish a lot of what we wanted to do."

Green Bay suffered its first loss of the season as a result of Philadelphia's two goal-line stands. LaFleur's squad will hope to rebound next week in a road date with the undefeated Dallas Cowboys.

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