I’ve spent so much time with the Packers RPO game over the last few weeks that I’m starting to see them in my sleep. More than that, I’m starting to extol the virtues of handing the ball off. Me! I look at myself in the mirror and I don’t recognize the man standing in front of me. It’s a whole new darkness that, quite frankly, I’m not familiar with. Although I also don’t know that I hate it.
Today, I wanted to dig into an RPO in the Packers arsenal. Beyond that, I wanted to dig into that RPO in a very specific area of the field. I don’t know why I’m playing coy: the title already tipped you off.
In the middle of the field, the Packers have a slant tag as part of their RPO game. In most of the field, it’s an isolated slant, set off from the line.
In the low red zone (0-10 yard line), they use a different look. They tag a follow-slant combo out of a stack look.
On its own, it’s one of my favorite combos in that area, because it can be extremely tough to defend. The Packers have been combining this combo with their inside zone/duo run package and had some nice success with it.
In the video below, I walk through 3 instances of the Packers running this concept in 2021 and talk about what the concept/WR alignment forces the defense to do in terms of defending it, and how that can lead to a better opportunity to get a touchdown on the ground.