Packers offense to face same tree, different fruit with Lions defense

Lions DC Aaron Glenn is the third straight coach off the same defensive coaching three the Packers will face.

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Everyone runs it now. Play the San Francisco 49ers and it’ll be one version, the Los Angeles Rams another. The Green Bay Packers use it too even if the terminology sounds different. The Miami Dolphins might seem like they play an entirely different sport, but they have it as well. All are version of the same offensive system and playbook originating from Mike Shanahan. At this point, more than half the league runs a version of this scheme, creating a familiarity that can help defenses in their preparation.

The same is said when an offense faces the same defense over and over. Back in the early 2010s, seemingly everyone copied the “Legion of Boom” Seattle Seahawks. Within a short time, that system ran its course as opposing offenses grew familiar with it via repetition and adjusted to its strengths and weaknesses.

And the Packers have received a crash course on one particular defensive system in 2023. Week 4 will be the third time in three weeks that they will face a Dennis Allen defense, this time a version called by former New Orleans Saints defensive-backs coach Aaron Glenn. While this may be an extremely young Green Bay offense, it shouldn’t be caught off guard by what the Lions want to do.

Glenn’s Lions want to be the Saints. After all, he played and coached under Allen in New Orleans. They even went out to get defensive back C.J. Gardner-Johson to run amok in this secondary as only he can. Detroit GM Brad Holmes snagged versatile defensive back Brian Branch to be their Malcolm Jenkins, jack-of-all-trades type. And while they don’t have the production yet to show for it, the way they plan to attack the Packers won’t come as any kind of surprise.

According to FTN Fantasy, the Lions play man coverage 48.6% of the time, just a tick below the Saints at 49.3% (and just ahead of the Packers at 48% flat). Last season and for much of the Aaron Rodgers era, when teams had success against the Green Bay offense, they used physical man coverage like how the Saints played this past Sunday.

The difference is New Orleans has cornerbacks Marshon Lattimore and Alontae Taylor who played with such unrelenting verve and impact at Lambeau Field that FOX Sports color analyst Jonathan Vilma invoked the hallowed name of Charles Woodson.