Hello! Welcome back! Pull up a chair.
I’m still trying to figure out exactly how I want to present all of this information, but I think it’s starting to round into form. You could argue that this is all something I should have finalized during the dregs of the offseason, but that’s neither here nor there.
In this space, we’re digging into the RPO game of the Packers against the Bears, and trying to view it from a handful of different angles. We’re going to look at some numbers, then watch a video or two of a few RPOs that really stood out from the crowd.
Let’s start with a video, and we’ll look at my favorite RPO look from the day: a twist on their WR screen RPO in the low red zone, with Lazard looking like he’s blocking from the #2 spot before releasing.
Beautiful stuff right there.
But how did the RPO game do overall?
Just looking at the RB runs, the Packers averaged 5.8 yards per attempt on the day (8.8 from Jones, 3.4 from Dillon), and neither of the RPO aspects met that threshhold.
But let’s look a little more. What was successful in the RPO run game?
The Packers handed off on Inside Zone the most, and that’s where they found their best success, tallying 7.2 YPA on those plays. The Wide Zone game was pretty brutal, only picking up 2.0 YPA.
How about when they threw the ball?
WR Screen is the only one that picked up any positive yards. I talk about the Slant tag in the video a little below in this column. So, ya know, get hyped.
Let’s strip away whether it was a handoff of a pass. How did the core rushing game concept fare?
I like the increased use of the Lead/Power running scheme with the RPOs, but the gains haven’t been there yet. Keep using that, guys. I have faith those numbers will improve throughout the year (especially if they tag more vertical pushing routes to that run scheme).
What about the passing tags?
They didn’t throw the Bubble a single time, but it was the most used tag.
Now, let’s get to the big question: how did the running game fare with & without any kind of RPO tag?
Runs without an RPO tag averaged 2 yards more than those with RPO tags. The run concept that seems to have been impacted the most was Wide Zone. On runs with an RPO tag, Wide Zone averaged 2.0 yards per attempt (7 carries). On runs without an RPO tag, Wide Zone averaged 10.1 yards per attempt (7 carries).
I’m not really making any grand sweeping statements about the state of the RPO game right now. We’re going game by game, then likely looking back after 4 games and reassessing.
To end this very unorganized post, have a video of me talking about 2 RPOs that really stood out to me this week.