Packers 2023 Week 1 Odds & Ends

or, G-Boys makin' with the freak freak

Every week I spend a lot of time digging into a handful of plays, leaving a lot of other stuff I love to the side. That’s unfortunate so I wanted a place to just kinda throw them and say a few words. This is that place. Will it happen every week? Who knows! But it’s happening this week and that’s all that truly matters.

Funky S***

For a variety of reasons - to stress the Bears defense, to put a bunch of looks for future defenses to worry about, and also to just have a little fun - Matt LaFleur reached deep into his bag of tricks to trot out some really fun looks & tweaks to the offense. It was only week 1, but this stuff felt far from a gameplan specific attack. This is stuff LaFleur was just kind of tossing around in the backyard and looking to build off of. I wanted to highlight a couple of those here.

This look, man. THIS LOOK. If you thought the Packers would be light in their TE heavy looks because of the lack of bodies in that room, you were sorely mistaken. (It’s me. I am the one who is mistaken.) QB in pistol out of 13 personnel (1 RB, 3 TE, 1 WR), with 2 of the TEs in the backfield offset from the QB and tight to the line. On the first instance, they ran a heavy run look, with the TEs pulling across the formation and leading the RB.

They showed it one other time in the game, this time as a play action shot play to Samori Toure. The ball falls incomplete, but Toure is open on the play.

That’s two entirely different plays out of this heavy, funky alignment that they’ve shown in week 1. We will definitely be seeing this much more going forward, likely with some fun stuff attached to it.

Short Motion to Glory

LaFleur showed a lot of short motion, switch releases this week. It’s something he has shown before, but never this much in one game. The combination of youth and speed at wide receiver and tight end opens creative doors that simply were not open before.

You’ve got this nice little switch release to a Cross-Country Dagger look on the top. On this concept, the inside man clears out the middle for the follow. By utilizing short motion to the switch, you’re forcing the defense to adjust on the fly, and get some bodies running into each other along the way.

You’ve got Luke Musgrave short-motioning to a sit route against some roomy zone coverage.

You’ve got yet another instance of short-motion to Cross-Country Dagger, this time with Reed as the short-motion/lead-man.

Which ended up with one of the coolest throws of the night: the no-look to Jayden Reed to hold the LB in place.

Really cool when it works, a little maddening when the throw sprays wide. That no-look isn’t just for show, though: you can see how the LB is reading Love’s eyes and drifts to the middle of the field, opening the throw to Reed. Beautiful, beautiful stuff.

My Favorite Low Red Zone RPO

Aaron Jones got his rushing TD on this play, but the Packers had it tagged with an RPO on the left that is one of my absolute favorites in this area: a tight-follow slant out of a stack, with the underneath receiver cutting tight on the hip of the top man. The idea is to have the top receiver shield the underneath receiver from the inside DB, while having the routes tight enough to where the outside DB can’t get to it in time.

They didn’t throw it here, but the fact that they’re showing it at all is enough to get me hyped. When they hit a TD on it this year, I will lose my mind.

Another Goal Line RPO and a Blast From the Past

As they did with Christian Watson in the third preseason game, the Packers had a backside fade route tagged to a goal line run. The throw here is higher, which I like: give your receiver a chance to go up and Moss a dude. Doubs does a great job here of getting his body back around then going up and getting those cookies.

But the real reason I loved it so much? I couldn’t help but be reminded of this catch from James Jones.

We saw some really fun, creative and diverse stuff from LaFleur this week. I can’t wait to see how this evolves as the season progresses.