Welcome back! Here we are in our first regular season game of The RPO Report. Are you excited? Because I’m excited.
The goal of this space is to assess the RPO game on a week-to-week basis. I did a big piece digging into the 2021 usage, but I wanted something that was a bit more up-to-date. In that piece I dug into a lot of the mechanics. I’m not going to be doing that every week, because that feels like a lot of work. (Maybe I’ll put together a primer down the road.)
That piece was written for a couple reasons. The first reason is because I was curious how they did. The second reason was more of the driving force: there has been a narrative that the Packers should call more traditional run plays because Rodgers throws way too much on the RPO calls. I wanted to see if that was true.
In 2021, it was not true. Rodgers threw on 21.1% of RPO calls, and the run game was slightly more effective on average with an RPO tag than without it (4.3 YPA overall, 4.4 YPA on RPOs).
So let’s do it. How did the Packers do with their RPO game in Week 1?
By my count, they called 14 RPOs and threw 6 of them (pass% of 42.9%). I would assume that number is going to come down significantly as the season goes on, but every pass went to an advantageous look. Their favorite tag to throw on was WR screen: a concept that is strictly a pre-snap read based on numbers. Rodgers threw the screen 3 times, but only picked up a total of 10 yards. One of the attempts was almost jumped for a pick-six.
Their most successful passing RPO was on the Swing tag. Same general idea as the WR screen in that it goes to an overloaded side and is a pre-snap numbers read, but it gives the ball to the RB with a head of steam toward the line and the ability to read blocks.
The running game fared much better. A 8.0 YPA makes it an overwhelming success. Their best tag for the running game was Bubble. They ran twice on the Bubble tag, picking up a total of 32 yards.
I have been pounding the table for a more vertical-hitting RPO game from the Packers. So much of what they do is horizontal and generally behind the line of scrimmage. That was pretty much the norm in week 1, as well. They dialed up 1 vertical RPO (Glance route), and they handed the ball off for an 11 yard gain.
I’ll be curious to see how these numbers look as the season goes on. I certainly don’t expect runs to average 8.0 YPA all year, but that 4.7 YPA for the pass is right in line with 2021 (4.8 YPA on passes in 2021). I would hope they would get a little more creative in their RPO game and see that pass number increase, but I guess we’ll see.
My song for today: “I Need Thee Every Hour” by Anathallo