I like to think that I’m an optimistic person. Or, at least, a realistic person who tends towards optimism. That being said, this season feels effectively over at this point. The NFC is pretty weak at the moment, but some teams have started stringing together a couple wins lately. As of a couple weeks ago, the Packers were right in the thick of it in terms of their record. Now? Well, that’s no longer the case. Tampa Bay, Atlanta and San Francisco have all jumped over the Packers in terms of their wins, putting more traffic between them and the wild card spots. Yes, technically they’re still in the hunt, but the Packers are sitting 3-6 and have shown no evidence that they’ll be able to fix their offensive issues anytime soon. 

Still, we’ll march forward! In this space, we’ll keep looking at the passing game, for good or ill. We’ll continue twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.

To the passing chart!

More red than we’re used to, for sure. The chart itself is a little more scattered than it has been: fewer points behind the line of scrimmage (LOS) and more in the middle of the field.

The numbers support that, with only 11.6% of Rodgers attempts going behind the LOS (per PFF). The Packers had been throwing behind the LOS more than any other team through the first 8 weeks, much to the chagrin of many (myself included). So it’s nice to see them trend away from that in this game.

Rodgers performed well when targeting the intermediate area of the field (10-19 yards). He went 5/7 (71.4%) for 84 yards (12.0 YPA) and his best PFF grade (83.3) and QB Rating (111.6).

He was terrible in the short area (0-9 yards), due in no small part to the two end zone interceptions. That’s supposed to be an area where Rodgers should be thriving, but against the Lions he was 9/16 (56.3%) for 61 yards (3.8 YPA) and 2 INTs (25.3 QB Rating). Pretty bad.

Much like the Packers have done in recent years against the Lions, they came out chucking. Rodgers ADOT (Average Distance of Target) was 11.0, his highest of the season. And, while they had some success (124 yards), it was also an area that was littered with inaccurate throws and not a lot of separation from the receivers. When throwing 20+ yards down the field, Rodgers was 4/11 (36.4%) for 124 yards (11.3 YPA), 1 TD and 1 INT (71.8 QB Rating).

On the day, Rodgers had an average time to throw of 3.04 seconds, his highest of the season by 0.4 seconds. That is less an indication of having more time in the pocket and more because he was fleeing the pocket and looking for something outside of structure.

Overall, a pretty grim performance from the passing game, especially coming against a defense that was 25th in passing defense per Football Outsiders' DVOA. 

If you want to take one silver lining, it’s how the Packers attacked the middle of the field. In looking at the short-to-intermediate passing game, 60.7% of Rodgers targets went to the middle of the field and he completed 70.6% of his passes. So that’s something…right?

Alright, I think we’re done with this look at the passing game. I’m pretty sure everybody has already left by this point, so let’s look at a couple plays from this game. We’re going in reverse chronological order today so that we can end on a halfway decent note. Because we all deserve love and happiness.

Play 1: 3rd & 11, 12:07 remaining in the 3rd quarter

The Packers have had a number of nemeses (Nemesesis? Nemesi?) this season, and 3rd down has certainly been one of them. Per DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average), the Packers are 28th in the league on 3rd down this season (behind Arizona, Denver, Houston and Indianapolis). They performed better against the Lions than they did against the Bills (converting 53.3%), but they still missed some chances. This, Dear Reader, is one of those missed chances.

The Packers come out in 11 personnel, running a Dagger concept on the left with Samori Toure [83] and Allen Lazard [13]. Dagger is a two-man concept, with the slot receiver running a vertical route and the outside receiver running a dig route underneath. The idea is to have the vertical route clear the field for the dig route.

The Lions are showing a blitz look up front, with 7 men on the line and a single LB in the middle of the field. The Packers are keeping Robert Tonyan [85] and Aaron Jones [33] back to help protect against the blitz

At the snap, the Lions drop into an invert coverage, with two men on the line sprinting back to cover their deep quarters of the field, while the man over the center drops back into a shallow zone. The single LB drops wide and under the dig route.

The dig route is the preferred route to throw to on Dagger, so that’s what Rodgers checks first. He looks to the safety over the concept, which also allows him to see the drop of the LB. Right away he sees that the safety is backpedaling and the LB is dropping under the dig. That route is gone.

On this type of Dagger concept, the vertical receiver often has an option route based on the deep coverage he is seeing. Against a middle field closed (MOFC) look, the route will square off and take him across the face of the safety. Against a middle field open (MOFO) look, the route will bend slightly to split the safeties. That’s exactly what Toure is doing here.

During the dropback, Rodgers shifts his view from the dig route to the vertical route. He sees Toure with inside leverage on the deep safety and quickly eating up space against the dropping defender.

So he hits the top of his drop, hitches and throws over to top to a streaking Toure.

It’s a great call and read against this defense…but the ball is underthrown just enough for the defender to be able to get a hand on it and break it up.

A real shame, man. A real shame.

Play 2: 3rd & 1, 5:11 remaining in the 1st quarter

Play Action Bootleg (PA Boot) is a concept we have seen a lot from the LaFleur Packers, and with good reason: it’s a natural counter to the wide zone running system that has long been the beating heart of this Shanahan-style offense. As defenses have adapted to stop wide zone, the usage of that core running concept has declined in this offense. And, while PA Boot is still being run, it’s not being used nearly as often, and it has not been nearly as effective when run. 

Last year, defenses started keeping a guy home on the boot side and have him close in on the quarterback, as opposed to crashing the backside of the run. This year, we’ve seen defenders rushing the B gap when they see the wide zone action, which has created even more immediate pressure in the face of the quarterback.

While the Packers still use wide zone, they’re leaning heavier into a power running scheme this year than they have in the past. The defensive adjustments have certainly driven that shift in approach, which in turn has seen the decrease in PA Boot. In 2021 they were running some variation of it 3+ times a game. In 2022, we tend to see it about once a game.

Even within that one time per game, we’re seeing the Packers use some variations they haven’t done much with in the past. Which gets us - finally, mercifully - to the play at hand. 

The standard PA Boot action is to playfake in one direction, then boot out the opposite side to a Sail concept (deep corner route, middle crosser and flat route). On this rep, the Packers go to a frontside boot, which is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of faking to the right and booting to the right, the fake is to the right, then Aaron Rodgers [12] simply follows that motion to the right where he finds a Sail concept waiting for him.

Christian Watson [9] is running the deep run-off route, Marcedes Lewis [89] is running the middle crosser and Aaron Jones [33] releases to the flat. 

Watson removes the deep defenders while Jones drags the LB to the boundary. Rodgers keeps the bootleg rolling while Lewis keeps drifting a little deeper on the crosser. The LB playing under the crosser eventually drifts towards the booting Rodgers, which opens room to hit Lewis for 19 yards.

Albums listened to: Low - Things We Lost in the Fire; Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness; Semisonic - Feeling Strangely Fine; The Verve - Urban Hymns; Starflyer 59 - Gold