I wanted to start this off with, “it’s the quarter point of the year,” but, with the extra game added, that’s not technically correct. So instead I guess I can say, we’re at the 23.5% completion point of the year, so I thought we would look at how the RPO game has fared so far this season.
So let’s look at the overview. By my numbers, the Packers have dialed up 70 RPOs this year. Here’s how they’ve done:
They’re throwing on 30% of them, and it seems to be working well for them. There is one play that is driving up the overall average in the passing game - a completion on a Glance tag that went for 40 yards - but even if you remove that play, they’re averaging 5.0 yards when throwing on an RPO. Not bad!
Let’s give a little overview of how they did with their passing tags on the season.
In keeping with last season, the Bubble tag has been their most called tag, but they’re only throwing it on 15.8% of their calls. Which, somewhat surprisingly, is slightly higher than they did last year (they threw the Bubble on 13.6% of those tags in 2021). I anticipated a bit of a decrease this year, just based on the fact that Davante Adams isn’t in Green Bay and that’s a tag that works well with his skillset. But if they have the numbers on the outside they’re throwing it regardless of who the WR is. Only three attempts on the Bubble is an extremely small sample size, but the 7.7 YPA is nice: they averaged 3.6 when throwing the Bubble last season.
Smoke was also a nice surprise. They threw that tag on 26.3% of the time last season and averaged 5.8 YPA (I will fully acknowledge that sometimes the Smoke “tag” is less a tag and more a check at the line if the defense is in off-coverage, but it still gets included here either way because there’s really no way to determine the difference). This year they’re throwing at a slightly higher clip (33.3%) and have found more success with it (7.3 YPA). That tells me that teams are likely playing deeper in off-coverage on those, giving the WR a little more room to move after making the catch. The threat of speed helps with that as well. Of the 3 targets, Doubs was on the receiving end of two of those, averaging 8.5 YPA.
I love seeing Glance finding success. The Packers threw that tag on 9 total RPOs last season, and they’re already at 4 for the year. Let’s hope that trend continues.
Alright. What about the rush tags?
I was pounding the table last year for more Power run looks (Power is kind of the generic bucket I’m throwing anything that has a pulling guard/tackle/center into). There are a couple reasons for that:
As defenses get better at defending zone running, the wide zone run game becomes less-efficient. If you want a good running game at this point, you need to be more diverse, and mixing in the power run game is a huge part of that.
Pulling offensive linemen can keep the offensive line closer to the line of scrimmage for longer while also triggering LBs, which allows for a slightly longer-developing route and puts the second level of the defense in conflict.
This season, my prayers have been answered. Through 4 games, 30% of the Packers RPO calls have come from the power rushing look, and it has been their most efficient option, averaging 6.9 YPA. That has been a really nice surprise, and I certainly hope it continues throughout the rest of the season. I have no reason to believe that it won’t.
Lastly, what is the state of the RPO game when stacked up against their non-RPO runs?
They’re averaging a full yard less with an RPO tag than they are without an RPO tag. As we saw above, they’ve only averaging 3.7 YPA with the Wide Zone RPOs, which is still they’re most-used base run. Going forward, I wouldn’t mind seeing a little less wide zone and a little more power.
Overall, I like what I’ve seen from the RPO game this year. Yes, there is still some work to be done, but the pass YPA is up from last year (6.7 YPA in 2022 vs. 4.8 YPA in 2021), which is encouraging. Combine that with the more diverse looks in the running game and an increase in the vertical RPO tags and I’m feeling good. Can’t wait to see how this shakes out over the rest of the season.