Due to the short week and the travel back from Green Bay after the Saints game, I didn’t get a chance to get to everything I wanted to get to, so the RPO Report, sadly, was left by the wayside. I’m sure there are 2 of you who are upset. I’m planning on doing a season-to-date check-in after week 5, so I’ll have the week 3 numbers in there.
How about the Lions game? How did the RPOs do?
It’s still a relatively minor part of this offense. Only 7 RPOs on the day and only 2 of those were thrown. The overall YPA of 5.1 makes this the most successful RPO usage of 2023. A fairly low bar to clear, but that bar has now been cleared.
They once again broke out the bubble/slant tag, which makes twice this year. They haven’t thrown it yet - and this play ended up gained 4 yards despite Newman’s best efforts - but I like that they’ve been trotting it out. One of these days they’re going to hit it and I’m going to have the biggest smile on my face. (It’s run by Doubs on the left.)
Their best gain on the day was this Hank (hitch/slant) look off jet motion. It’s a wide zone, split flow look with the throw option to the left. Jayden Reed [11] releases to the flat off jet and Romeo Doubs [87] runs a hitch route. The defense doesn’t bump far enough over to cover it off jet, which makes for an easy call for Jordan Love. Get rid of the ball quickly to Doubs in space.
The Packers only had 11 run plays on the day, with 5 of those featuring an RPO rag. Of those 11 runs, the ones with the RPO tag fared much better than the straight runs.
I mentioned this on the Week 2 RPO Report but it may just be one of those things I’ll keep talking about until it happens or until the run game improves: the Packers need to lean more heavily into the RPO game. I don’t want to rehash my argument, but I’ll reiterate the main reason: this young WR core simply isn’t consistent enough in run-blocking to force them to commit to it as often as they do. With the make-up of that group - young, inexperienced but fast and athletic - the best way to use them is to go heavier into the RPO game. Use the athleticism to either create yards after the catch or by dragging defenders away from the line with RPO routes.
In addition to that, the offensive line is beat up and they haven’t been creating movement in the run game. Even in week 1 - the Packers best performance on the ground - they managed a measly 1 yard before contact. ONE YARD! That’s insane!
If they’re not getting movement up front, the blocking by the wide receivers doesn’t really do much. One of the main benefits of getting receivers to block is to help to generate explosives. If the running backs aren’t making it through the line, there is very little hope of generating explosives.
Until the line generates more movement, lean hard into the RPO game. Please.
I did some things this week, so let me talk about them real quick.
As is my custom, I sat down with John Kuhn and talked about some plays from the Saints game. We looked at 5 running plays, which is something I found to be very enlightening. I’m not the most well-versed in run game stuff, so getting to talk to John about it was awesome.
(By the way, saying, “I talked Xs & Os with John Kuhn this week, as I do every week,” is still a little surreal for me. It’s been great getting a chance to talk football with him every week.)
I also got to talk with him after that Saints game, which you may find to be a more entertaining conversation. Because, ya know, wins.
Over on my YouTube channel, I talked about a couple plays. First up: a sack of Love early in the Lions game. I talked about a hand signal that Love made and what a misunderstanding of that hand signal meant for the play itself.
I also looked at a miss to Doubs in the middle of the field. Watching live, it was one of those, “man, how do you miss that throw” type of throws. But, after digging in, it was clear why the misfire occurred. Defense are working to take the middle of the field away and Love is doing his best to pry it open.
And if you want an actual good play, take a look at this video I did after the Saints game on the long completion to Romeo Doubs. I take a look at a play against the Falcons and how that may have informed this one. Really fun play.
And then I wrote some stuff. For Cheesehead TV, I dug into the overall passing game against the Lions, then took a look at two plays I really liked (both of which went to Christian Watson).
One of them was this touchdown off an RPO. The Packers typically throw this based on a numbers look, but this one was thrown based on the defensive alignment.
For Packer Report, I wrote about the nifty short-yardage concept the Packers trotted out for a two-point conversion. It looks like they’re setting up for a sprint-out/WR screen, but Reed peels off and works back behind the defense. Beautiful little play.
Even with the loss, I had a lot of fun looking at all this stuff. Hope you all enjoyed it a little, as well. Hoping next week will be filled with breakdowns of nothing but amazing plays from the Packers in a big win over the Raiders. A man can dream.