Packers must get back to play-action to keep Love in rhythm while run game eats
The Green Bay offense grinds team to dust on the ground, but hasn't taken full advantage of the play-action game to maximize Jordan Love.
Matt LaFleur may be a young and dashing head coach, but his old-school mentality of establishing the run flows through Josh Jacobs, the NFL’s leader in first-quarter touches. Setting a physical tone provides both a tangible and psychological benefit to the Green Bay Packers, particularly as the weather gets colder, but against the best teams, they’ll need Jordan Love to be in a rhythm early too. They can’t do one at the expense of the other. If they want to start fast against the best teams, a problem we discussed yesterday, the best way for them to bridge this gap is to get back to LaFleur’s Shanahan roots and start spamming play-action.
Green Bay boasts one of the most efficient, creative, diverse, and powerful running games in the NFL. Two weeks ago, eight Packers had a rushing attempt against the New Orleans Saints. Against the Vikings, it was only three. For whatever reason, LaFleur tends not to dip into his bag of tricks in the games that matter most, preferring instead to leave them for Malik Willis and September games against the Colts, or blowout spots against give-up teams on Christmas Eve eve.
But he doesn’t have to do anything particularly novel to get this passing game going early in games. LaFleur has oddly been less apt to call play-action most of the season, even when the running game is humming. Love ranks 16th in play-action rate among quarterbacks with at least 200 dropbacks according to Pro Football Focus charting.
Earlier this year, LaFleur explained why he’s going under center to play-action less this year, in an effort to avoid having tight ends block defensive ends, but they’ve been able to find unique ways around that. They’ve found shotgun play-action even off their single-wing spinner series that harkens back to 1940s football.
They’re just … not using it despite being wildly successful when they do. Jordan Love is 4th in EPA/dropback when using play-action this season, behind only Josh Allen, Matthew Stafford, and Lamar Jackson. But Jared Goff, who sits at 5th, has used play-action on almost twice as many attemps.
Being efficient is awesome, but being efficient more often is even better (duh).
We expected to see a heavy dose of it against the Seahawks given their issues defending it, and yet the Packers played only a shade above their normal play-action rate. That game was never particularly in doubt, but it still serves as a useful example of the Packers not pressing their advantage.
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