A win! There was a win! And it was a win with a relatively minimal amount of passing. A total of 23 dropbacks on the day (resulting in a scant 20 attempts for Aaron Rodgers), which feels insane.
Of those 20 attempts, 3 of them were RPOs. That feels low! But you don’t want words for that: you want the chart. The beautiful, beautiful chart.
Overall, only 25% of the RPO calls resulted in a throw. For the sake of comparison, 43.8% of RPO calls against the Lions were thrown. Now, that was a bit of an extreme example, but it’s nice to see it come down a bit to a level we’re a bit more used to.
The passing YPA on the WR Screen was a result of a single play: the long completion to Allen Lazard in OT off a common WR Screen RPO look. Here’s a clip from earlier in the game, when they handed off the ball on an inside zone look with the WR Screen tag:
That play came with 11:06 remaining in the 1st quarter. They didn’t show that look again until 4:47 remaining in OT. Same inside zone look, same initial releases from everyone in trips. Except Lazard sells the block from his #2 spot, then releases up the field. The safety is rotating to the WR screen look, so he runs himself out of position and Lazard picked up 36 yards. Beautiful call in a big moment.
Overall, not a nice day from the passing game in an extremely limited sample size.
But how did the rushing game perform?
To the delight of the “run the ball” crowd, the Packers came out with a run-heavy approach. Not only that, they leaned heavy into “called runs”, instead of a more RPO heavy approach. Only 24.3% of their runs were paired with an RPO tag. As a comparison? Against the Lions, 40.9% of their runs had an RPO tag with it. Is this the sign of an altered approach going forward, or a gameplan specific approach against the Cowboys? I guess we’ll see.
Let’s take a look back and see what I wrote/talked about this week, shall we? Buddy, even with a short week, it was a doozy, so buckle up. Let’s start with the writing.
For Packer Report, I walked through a little tweak on a well-worn passing concept. Teams have been looking for a way to take away the PA Bang Dig, so the Packers decided to use a replacement dig with the concept to take advantage of that.
For Cheesehead TV, I took a look at the overall passing game, then dug into a couple plays: a way the Packers used to get a free release on a dig route and a outside pitch running play that featured Christian Watson.
Speaking of Christian Watson, I did a couple things specific to his huge game. At the behest of Ross Uglem, I dug into some numbers on how the Packers have looked on a per-drive basis with Watson vs. without him, and made a little Twitter thread. It was fun and pretty illuminating.
I also did a livestream that clocked in at just a shade under an hour, where I walked through 18 snaps from Watson’s game: 10 from the passing game, 8 from the rushing game. It’s a bit long, but I feel like I got a much better view of Watson’s full impact on the offense by doing this exercise, so I hope you’re able to take something away from this.
But that’s not all for the breakdown videos. Not by a long shot. I talked about a missed opportunity to hit Toure off a broken play due to a break down in pass pro.
I talked about the COP tag (corner/post) on their PA Boot concept that they’ve been trying to hit, but just can’t quite get there.
I talked about the big gain from Lazard off the RPO that I referenced earlier. In this video I say that this isn’t an RPO, but that’s wrong. I hadn’t done a good enough job looking at the o-line before putting this out, and that’s on me.
I talked about the benefit of IDing defensive drops earlier and how that can benefit the checkdown.
And then I talked about a small tweak one of their core RPO tags that led to a decent gain. I love seeing these little tweaks.
Beyond all these videos, I was lucky enough to show up on a couple others! I joined Aaron Nagler to talk a bit about the win over the Cowboys.
Then I got to spend some time with the beautiful lunatics at Lombardi’s Bar. Talked about Christian Watson, how defenses may alter their approach going forward, defended Amari Rodgers’ honor, and more. Had an absolute blast.
And finally - mercifully - Steve Perhach & I did the Pack-A-Day YouTube stream for Wednesday. Talked about the release of Amari Rodgers & Kylin Hill, talked about the match-up of Packers Offense and Titans Defense, and engaged in general tomfoolery.
Overall, busy week, but a very good one. I’m tired, but extremely happy.
I’m gonna go watch Smile, have a little something to drink, then get ready to do it all again after Packers/Titans. As always, thank you to every single one of you. I appreciate you all.