Much like last week, I took a little time and walked through every one of Jordan Love’s dropbacks from the preseason game against the Patriots. He had 9 total dropbacks and 8 throws, and I tried to run through them a little quicker than I did the previous week. Pretty low bar to clear, really.
But I know not everyone wants to sit back and watch ~20 minutes of football clips going backwards and forward while a lunatic draws on them, so I wanted to throw the individual plays here, with a small amount of analysis thrown in for good measure. You ready? You sure? This is my Halloween.
Dropback 1: 2nd & 5
They’re leaning really heavy into PA Boot this preseason. It makes sense: it’s a core concept so you want to make sure you’re repping it, and you also want to keep the offense relatively basic to avoid giving away all your tricks early.
And I guess it’s a good thing they’re doing it now, because they had some issues with it in this game, starting right here. The main Sail concept (deep corner route, intermediate crossing route and flat route) is covered.
Packers are in I formation with Josiah Deguara as the upback. He motions to the left pre-snap, then winds back to the right post-snap to pick up the blocker on the edge. He whiffs badly - BADLY - and ends up on the ground.
With everyone else covered, Love fires to Deguara. The ball is too high and it falls incomplete.
Pretty rough rep. When Love throws to Deguara, he’s well outside the tackle box. To me, this feels like one where you throw it away and learn to fight another day. Don’t love the decision or throw here.
Decision: Not good
Throw: Bad
Dropback 2: 1st & 10
Patriots have a staggered safety look pre-snap, trying not to give too much away. At the snap - or, slightly before - the Patriots rotate back into a two-high look. The Packers are running verts on the outside. Love checks the safeties, sees that the vertical routes are capped by the safeties, then takes the checkdown to Luke Musgrave in the open space of the middle of the field.
Musgrave chips the end into the loving arms of Zach Tom, then releases to the middle. The Patriots seemed like they really wanted to take away the intermediate middle of the field for Love. Those deep-dropping linebackers means there was plenty of room for Musgrave after catching the ball.
Decision: Good
Throw: Good
Dropback 3: 2nd & 7
Another PA Boot passing concept, another incompletion. This one has a Slam route tagged to the boot side, which is a tiny little wrinkle in this concept that I love. Musgrave is on that route. The idea behind it is to fake the block down then slow-play the release and settle into some space. He doesn’t really do that and it ends up clogging the throwing lane. Love ends up trying to fit the ball into Musgrave on his back hip, but Musgrave can’t haul it in.
If you’re interested in a deeper look at this play and entirely too many words on the Slam route, I wrote it up for Cheesehead TV this week. I had a lot of fun digging into it.
Overall, I liked the decision and throw here. The play didn’t go as it could have, but I think Love did the best with what he was presented.
Decision: Good
Throw: Good
Dropback 4: 3rd & 7
This is a concept we’re all going to be very familiar with this year, I think. I used to refer to it as Curl/Dig, but I’ve seen it called Spin and I like that because it’s shorter (and also the name of a music magazine I used to enjoy, which I realize is the kind of sentence only an older man would type).
The curl is meant to pin down the hook defender, then you just wrap that in-breaking route over the top. Love reads it on the dropback, sees the hook defender pinned down, then just lets this sucker rip.
The safety is breaking down when Romeo Doubs breaks, but the placement is perfect and Doubs makes a really nice catch for the 1st.
Decision: Good
Throw: Good
Dropback 5: 2nd & 7
I’ll put this in the Smash family of concepts, but with a switch release off the line. It’s a high-low read to the right boundary, with the routes being a shorter breaking route from the outside and a corner route over the top. Typically, you read the shallow boundary defender. If he stays home with the short route, throw the corner. If he drops under the corner, throw the shallow route.
The Patriots defenders get a little crossed-up on the release, giving a free shallow boundary. Love sees it and just takes the shallow route to Musgrave. Musgrave hauls it in, but you’d like to see the throw be a little lower so Musgrave doesn’t have to leave his feet.
One other thing that you get a good view of from the end zone angle: before the snap, Love sees something in the defense and moves AJ Dillon to his left side. The Patriots are bringing a rusher from that side and Dillon absolutely stones him in the hole. Nice recognition from Love and a great bit of pass-pro from Dillon.
Decision: Good
Throw: Not good
Dropback 6: 3rd & 4
Packers are running a Drive concept (dig and a drag) from the right side, and a clear-out/out combo on the left, with Jayden Reed running the out route. With the Patriots focusing on taking away the middle of the field, the Drive concept is dead. But the boundary is cleared on the left, putting Reed man-to-man on the out route.
Reeds works hard to get outside leverage, then cuts to the boundary. Love lets it loose before Reed is out of his break. The ball is a little inside and the defender is driving on it. It makes its way through to Reed, but he can’t haul it in.
But that sucker is on a line. That’s 17 yards from the opposite hash on an absolute rope. You’d like to see the ball put maybe a little more towards the boundary to avoid a dangerous situation, but it’s a good pass, thrown with anticipation.
I’m also not completely ruling out the possibility that Reed is supposed to break a little harder on this, which would have put the ball right on the numbers. One of those things it’s impossible to know without being in the building.
Decision: Good
Throw: Good
Dropback 7: 2nd & 9
The shot to Romeo Doubs. The Packers are running Cross-Country Dagger from the left side (crossing route from the inside with a in-cutting route behind it). Again, the Patriots are looking to neutralize this area of the field for Love, so the concept is dead.
The Patriots are showing a potential Quarters look pre-snap, with the two safeties pinched to the middle of the field and the boundary corners showing off coverage. At the snap, Love looks to the middle of the field and sees the safeties held in place. They take a step forward, even.
That tells Love two things:
The concept is dead
He has Romeo Doubs man-to-man with no safety help on the outside
Love hits the back of his drop, takes a gather step and chucks the ball to Doubs.
It was called incomplete on the field, but Matt LaFleur challenged it and Doubs - with some nifty footwork - was able to get both feet down. A big 42 yard again.
Really nice read from Love, and a nice throw. The ball could have been put out a little more in front of Doubs, but he was able to fade the ball to the boundary and put it in a spot where only his receiver had a shot at it.
Decision: Good
Throw: Good
Dropback 8: 1st & 10
The only dropback that wasn’t a pass attempt. In the video I said it looked like they were running a high-cross concept, and that is how the routes look. But, after watching it a dozen more times, I think they’re running a half-boot variation to PA Boot, where the Sail route turns into COP (corner/post) route.
It’s one of the main counters to PA Boot. Get the defense seeing the familiar motion, have them fade to the concept, then have the deep receiver reverse to the middle of the field while the QB pulls up on a half-boot and look to go bombs away.
The Patriots don’t bite and cover it up well. I think there’s something else going on here that causes some confusion with the offense. Luke Musgrave slices under the line on the split-zone action - something commonly seen on the wide zone run, as well as PA Boot - then pulls up to block the right side. The problem is that Josiah Deguara - lined up as the upback in I formation - is also looking to block the edge.
Deguara gets there first, leaving Musgrave to just kinda look around and help with one of the defensive linemen. If I were to guess, I’d say Musgrave was doing what he was supposed to do, while Deguara was supposed to release to the “run” side, then release to the middle of the field. I’m obviously not 100% sure on that, but, given how I’ve seen the Packers run this, that seems like the most likely thing that was supposed to happen.
Either way, the concept isn’t looking good and pressure is starting to compress the pocket from the inside. (If Love has a little more time I could see him throwing to Doubs on the deep crosser on the left, but that’s a long throw with a safety looking to drive on it.) So, with a completely vacant middle of the field, Love takes off.
Really nice recognition by him to peep the defender behind him to gauge how many yards he thought he could get. Love slides for an 11 yard gain, gets hit late, a scuffle ensues and the Packers get an extra 15 yards tacked on.
Decision: Good
Throw: Good
Dropback 9: 2nd & 5
And we arrive at the end, a touchdown pass to Jayden Reed. You can see Love pointing to his left before the snap, telling Dillon that it looks like the Patriots are bringing heat. Nice recognition from Love on that. Christian Watson has inserted under the line and gives the man a nice bump before releasing, then Dillon buries him in the dirt. Nice bit of blitz pick-up.
The concept is - once again - Cross-Country Dagger, with Reed on the lead crosser and Doubs as the trailing in-cutter. And - once again - the Patriots are looking to take away the intermediate middle of the field.
On this concept, the QB is reading the lead receiver (the crossing route) first. If he’s not open, he will then look to the trailing in-cutter, with the idea that the crosser has cleared room for the trailer.
The Patriots drop their linebackers in the middle and Love sees them holding in place. He can’t hit Reed initially, but those LBs are holding steady so there won’t be a window for Doubs. So the throw is to Reed. But that pesky LB. Honestly, it’s not really that different from the look that led to Love airmailing the ball to Musgrave in week 1.
Love holds the LB just enough, then fires a perfect bullet to Reed: in-stride and up-and-away from coverage.
Reed hauls it in and finds paydirt.
Good pre-snap recognition, good read, great job holding the linebacker and a perfect throw. A great rep to cap off the day.
Decision: Good
Throw: Good
Much like week 1, this was an extremely encouraging performance. The only decision I really have any issue with is the first one, and that’s just because I’d prefer a throwaway when the world is burning around you. Overall, Love did a lot of really nice things and made some great decisions. It seems like he has full command of this offense. He looks extremely comfortable.
It’s just two preseason games so far and we have no idea how he’ll look over the course of an entire game/season, but, so far, it’s hard to have too many issues with how Love has looked in this preseason. At this point I just want to sleep until September 10th.
While we’re here, I guess I’ll just do a little wrap-up on the rest of the week, instead of putting that in another post.
In addition to the Love film room, I did one on Rasheed Walker.
Walker has been impressive so far when watching the broadcast, so I wanted to take a deeper look at him. I walked through 24 snaps and came away still being impressed with him. Big fan of Walker, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see him on the field this year. Even if everyone is healthy and he’s not a day 1 starter, I feel like we’ll see him as the 6th offensive lineman (so long, Marcedes Lewis) in some sets. He certainly looks like a dude, and I’m hyped to see more of him.
I also did a short video on something I’ve been wanting to see in Green Bay for a while: a vertical RPO.
This is something they never really did under Rodgers, but I was holding out hope they’d incorporate this kind of thing into their offense a little more this year. They haven’t run many RPOs this preseason, but this was a little look into something I hope the offense leans into a little more this year.
And, as I mentioned earlier, I dug into the PA Boot w/Slam play for Cheesehead TV and got into some of the little nuances of that route. I didn’t even have to go back far for an example of a good Slam route: Jayden Reed did a great job in week 1 of the preaseason.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. Hope you all enjoyed it. We’ve got one more preseason game and then we’ve got regular season football. We’re so close.