Miami Dolphins-Green Bay Packers 2024 Week 13 five biggest storylines

The Miami Dolphins will look to even their record at 6-6 when they take on the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on Thanksgiving evening.

The Dolphins are on a three-game winning streak with wins over the Los Angeles Rams, Las Vegas Raiders and New England Patriots. The Packers are 8-3 and are coming off a loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Week 12.

The Dolphins and Packers will meet for the first time since Christmas 2022, when Green Bay left Miami with a 26-20 win.

Here are the five biggest storylines for this year’s Week 13 matchup.

Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but the Dolphins haven’t had much success in cold weather games in recent years. While conditions here won’t be nearly as brutal as Kansas City in January, it won’t exactly be South Florida weather either. At some point, the Dolphins will have to prove that conditions don’t matter to their offense and defense, and this would be a good start.

Of course, at the forefront of the weather factor will be quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. Although we’ve already delved into this narrative just because his record was a bit exaggerated. What’s more important here is whether Tagovailoa can continue the ridiculously high level of efficiency he’s shown since returning against a Packers defense that’s infinitely better than what the Dolphins saw against the Raiders and Patriots.

This game will feature an interesting quarterback battle between 2020 first-round picks Tagovailoa and Jordan Love. The latter has had a season full of ups and downs, starting with a scary-looking ankle injury in the opener in Brazil. Love’s biggest problem this season has been turnovers, and the Dolphins would make their job of winning much easier if they could beat him once or twice, and a few sacks wouldn’t hurt either.

A big key to Green Bay is the running game, led by free-agent acquisition Josh Jacobs. The Dolphins had a lot of success stuffing Jacobs last year at Hard Rock Stadium, but he was running behind the Raiders’ offensive line at the time and his quarterback was Aidan O’Connell, who the Dolphins didn’t have to worry about nearly as much as they did Mach Jordan Love. Keeping Jacobs under control, at least to some extent, is a big key in this game.

We hate to keep harping on special teams, but such is life, especially when we think back to the 2022 meeting at Hard Rock Stadium and remember Keisean Nixon returning a 93-yard kickoff return for Green Bay laid down. He didn’t score on the return and the Dolphins held Green Bay to a field goal, but the point stood. And it won’t be as easy as letting Jason Sanders kick deep into the end zone to prevent a long rebound, because the ball just doesn’t run that well in the cold – and again, it will be cold.