RPO Report Weeks 1-5 and some random numbers
or, let's just mess around with pivot tables I guess
Usually in this space I take a look at how the Packers did in the RPO game in the previous week. But we don’t have a recent game, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to look at the RPO game on the season.
I also chart a decent amount of stuff on the offensive side of the ball throughout the season, so I thought I’d dig into that a bit. Because everyone loves numbers.
To kick this off, let’s talk RPOs. How is it doing overall?
Overall, not great. When they throw the ball off an RPO, they’re gaining about what you would hope to gain off a run. And when they’re running the ball off an RPO, they’re doing…significantly worse than you’d hope to gain off a run.
Not that the non-RPO run game is doing much better. Sure, it’s doing better by comparison, but maaaaaaaaaaaan is that damning with faint praise.
This speaks to one of the main issues: the Packers just haven’t been effective running the ball this year.
There is, however, another issue. The RPO game needs to be diversified a bit, and Jordan Love also needs to be a bit more aggressive in terms of throwing off these looks. Over the past couple of years, the Packers have leaned a little too heavily on a handful of horizontal passing tags (bubbles, flats, etc.) and defenses have figured out how to take those away.
Part of the reason for the reliance on those tags was the preference of Aaron Rodgers. It’s fairly well-known that Rodgers did not like the post-snap RPO reads, preferring to live in the pre-snap read world of RPOs. There’s nothing wrong with that: the pre-snap read RPOs can provide a nice, clear picture for the QB of what to do with the ball before the ball is even snapped. There are no post-snap decisions to make: just rise and fire. For a QB with a quick-trigger like Rodgers, I get it.
But those pre-snap RPOs live in a horizontal world, which limit explosiveness and can make you a little predictable. We saw teams bait the Packers to throw on those RPO looks, then immediately shut them down. With Love at the helm, I was hoping we’d see some more post-snap reads.
I’m still hopeful. We’ve seen some vertical, post-snap reads making their way into the RPO game. No vertical-pushing glance routes yet, but we have seen a handful of Hank (curl/flat) tags (their biggest gain off an RPO this year was a 10 yard completion to a Hank concept). In some instances, we’ve seen dual tags: Hank to one side and a Slant or Fade route to the other side.
The other big thing to bring up on RPOs is the frequency they’ve been running them. Over the last couple of seasons, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for RPOs to make up 30% of the Packers plays. This season, they’re sitting at 15.2%. But it looks like they’re ramping up. Here are the percentage of plays that have been RPO calls by week:
Week 1: 16.9%
Week 2: 6.5%
Week 3: 14.9%
Week 4: 13.2%
Week 5: 22.8%
I’d expect that number to stabilize somewhere in that 20%-25% range. As we see that happen, I hope we see them continue to utilize the post-snap RPO and expand their menu a bit when it comes to those pass tags. Love has been doing a good job of reading the defense and processing information, so I feel good about him making the right read in those situations. He may just need to be a bit more aggressive in throwing them.
Alright. Let’s just kinda look at some other numbers before we get out of here. How about some personnel groupings?
To the surprise of no one, the majority of the Packers plays come out of 11 or 12 personnel. They’re more balance out of 12, but average more yards out of 11.
As a refresher, the first number in a personnel grouping is the number of running backs, the second number is the number of tight ends, and the number of wide receivers is assumed based on subtracting the sum of personnel from the 5 available skill positions. Those groupings that start with a “6” mean the Packers used an extra offensive lineman. So the grouping of 611 means 1 RB, 1 TE, 2 WR in terms of skill position players on the field.
What do we have for shotgun vs. under center tendencies? (For this purpose, I’m treating shotgun and pistol as the same.)
We’ve got a pretty big tendency in the shotgun chart: when lining up in shotgun out of 11 personnel, the Packers are passing 79.6% of the time. When under center out of 11 personnel, they’re passing on 45.2% of the time. This more or less holds true no matter the down/distance.
That’s something they may look to balance out of a bit out of the bye, so as not to give their opponent too big of a tendency to key on. If defenses can assume run out of 11 when under center and pass out of 11 when in shotgun, that can give them a pretty big advantage.
Quick shift to play action.
The Packers are sitting at ~25% play action in their passing game on the season, which is right around where they were in 2022. Their highest rate of play action came in week 5 against the Raiders, where they used play action on 35% of their passing attempts. It was also the most effective: they average 11.9 yards on play action and 3.1 on non-play action. For the season, they have averaged 7.6 YPA when using play action and 5.7 YPA when not using play action.
Of course, it’s not as easy as just saying “use more play action.” Defenses are changing the way they defend against the run to take away some of the easy completions that offenses have been able to get off play action. Over the last couple of years, the cheat code was to target the middle of the field off play action. Move the LBs with the threat of the run, then attack the area behind them. As defenses adjust, that’s no longer the gimme throw it once was. The Packers are trying to target the middle of the field off play action this season, but the lanes simply haven’t been there.
Off play action, the Packers are targeting the middle of the field on 42.6% of their attempts, but only averaging 6.1 yards per attempt. They’re averaging 9.5 YPA off play action on attempts outside the numbers. A lot of those outside the numbers attempts have come off secondary reactions, as the middle of the field has been taken away. One of the Packers most consistently effective concepts over the last couple of years - Strike - has seen a drop-off in production, as the lanes that used to be wide open aren’t there anymore.
Lastly, let’s just look at success rate by down. I still use Football Outsiders’ (RIP) definition of success, which is this: a play is defined as successful if you gain 45% of the yards needed on 1st down, 60% of yards needed on 2nd down and 100% of yards needed on 3rd & 4th down. Here is what the Packers have done this year in terms of % of yards gained by down:
1st down: 59.5%
2nd down: 45.4%
3rd down: 67.7%
4th down: 168.6%
Overall, they’re setting themselves up pretty well on 1st down, but faltering on 2nd & 3rd. When they can get to 3rd & medium (4-6 yards) or 3rd & short (1-3 yards), they’re doing well (gaining 149.2% of yards needed on 3rd & medium and 207.1% of yards needed on 3rd & short). The problem is 3rd & long. They’re facing 7.4 3rd & long plays per game and only gaining 46.6% of yards needed. A little better performance on 2nd down for more manageable 3rd down and we’re really cooking.
I could go on for much longer with all kinds of numbers, but this feels like enough for now. Looking forward to actually watching the Packers on a Sunday this weekend.
Thanks for the newsletter! This is greedy, as I’m already impressed by what you track and i’m asking for more, but I’m curious about those 11 personnel shotgun vs. under center tendencies. If we’re only going shotgun on 2nd or 3rd and long when the situation already dictates pass, it isn’t really a tip to the defense that we’ll be passing. However, if it’s first down or 2nd and reasonable and we still use shotgun and then pass 80% of the time out of it, that’d be a problem. Do you have any down and distance numbers for when we are using shotgun?