Packers Film Room: Passing game wilts in the 2nd half

Every week, we use this space to look at the Green Bay Packers’ passing game from the previous week, so let’s get to it.

It was a tale of two halves for Jordan Love. He looked unstoppable in the 1st half, going 17/22 (77.3%) for 215 yards (9.8 YPA) and 1 TD (122.4 QB Rating). He also had 6 explosive plays through the air (gains of 16+ yards).

In the 2nd half, he was 7/18 (38.9%) for 32 yards (1.8 YPA), 0 TDs & 2 INTS (7.4 QB Rating). He had 1 explosive play through the air. There are a multitude of reasons why the numbers fell off in the 2nd half, but the early injury to Christian Watson (two official 2nd half pass attempts on-or-before Watson’s injury) certainly played a role. Matthew Golden catching 2 of his 3 targets for 37 yards in the 2nd half is certainly something to keep an eye on as Watson’s status for Week 16 is still very much up in the air.

The Packers lost Zach Tom (their starting right tackle) late in the 1st half and replaced him with Darian Kinnard. On top of the down-to-down downgrade in protection between those players, Kinnard is also the preferred 6th offensive lineman in the Packers’ heavy packages. They didn’t lean heavily into it in the first half of this game, but that has been a package they’ve had a lot of success with this season: since rolling it out in Week 10, the Packers have run 48 snaps in their 6OL package, and they’ve had a success rate of 58.3% on those snaps. Of those 48 snaps, 15 were pass plays. On those pass plays, they’ve sported a 60% success rate and an explosive play rate of 26.7%.

After Tom went down, the Packers didn’t have a single snap with their 6OL package. Maybe that was because it was a package they didn’t love against the Broncos overall (they had 2 snaps out of 6OL before the Tom injury), but maybe they didn’t prep Jordan Morgan for that role during the week and opted to just stay out of it altogether. As of the time of this writing, we don’t have any information on Tom’s injury in terms of his outlook for the rest of the season, but it’s certainly something to monitor going forward.

The real story of the passing game was the constant pressure Love was under. This week, Love was under pressure on 52.2% of his dropbacks, per NFL Pro. That was the second-highest pressure rate in the league, only behind Shadeur Sanders at 52.4%. The main difference? Sanders’ average time to throw was 3.15 seconds, while Love’s average time to throw was 2.97 seconds. Love’s numbers under pressure aren’t bad – 10/19, 147 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT – but it was a constant throughout the game and pressed harder in the 2nd half.

The most jarring thing is his pressure rate when not blitzed. The Broncos blitzed on 39.1% of Love’s dropbacks, but their pressure rate was greater when they didn’t blitz him. Love faced pressure on 53.6% of his snaps when he wasn’t blitzed. He was pretty good on those non-blitzed reps – 15/25, 151 yards, 1 TD – but the numbers very much tell the story that the tape does: whether they brought extra bodies or not, the Broncos defensive line was able to generate pressure. I don’t have numbers split by half, but, based on the film that I watched, I’d say it’s safe to say that the pressure numbers increased after Zach Tom went down with his injury. Kinnard has shown himself to be a perfectly cromulent tackle, but he’s not on the level of Tom, and the Broncos made a point to attack that.

That shouldn’t hurt the Packers too much in the short term as their next two opponents (Bears and Ravens) rank near the bottom of the league in terms of generating pressure (27th and 29th, respectively), so we should see the passing offense operating pretty well as the season starts to wind down. But, after a nice 1st half in this game, we were treated to a pretty frustrating 2nd half. Love certainly wasn’t at his sharpest at times (he was slightly off on a couple throws and passed up at least one open, deeper option in favor of a shorter one that allowed him to get the ball out quicker), but the combination of pressure and the injury to Christian Watson is what ultimately put this offense in the ground.

Before we get out of here, I want to take a look at one of my favorite plays of the day: the touchdown catch by Josh Jacobs.

The Broncos had just scored a TD to take a 7-6 lead with 8:19 left in the 2nd half. The Packers proceeded to go on a 9-play, 75-yard drive that culminated in this play on 3rd & goal from the 14.

The Packers come out in 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) in a 3×1 set. They have Christian Watson [9], Jayden Reed [11] and John FitzPatrick [86] in a bunch on the left, with Matthew Golden [0] as the isolated receiver on the right. Josh Jacobs [8] is the single back, aligned wide in the backfield. And when I say wide I mean WIDE. As in, outside-the-tackle wide. That alignment gets him outside leverage on Dre Greenlaw [57].

The Broncos appear to be in a Quarters look pre-snap, and the Packers are running a Smash variant with Watson and Reed on the left Post/Rail with Golden and Jacobs on the right.

Love is initially looking to hit Reed on the left on a Post-Corner route, but when Love checks the safeties post-snap, he sees Brandon Jones [22] camped directly in the middle, taking away the throw to Reed. With Jones in the middle, Love works back to Jacobs on the right.

With the route distribution on that side, the boundary corner runs with Golden to the inside, leaving Jacobs all alone with Greenlaw on the outside. Jacobs hesitates at the top of the stem to sell a Choice route, which is something the Packers have shown a lot this season. That holds Greenlaw in place just enough for Jacobs to break vertically up the field and get an angle.

Greenlaw does a good job recovering, but Jacobs Mosses Greenlaw and shows extremely strong hands to come down with the TD.

Good read by Love and a tremendous catch by Jacobs.

Albums listened to: Cat Power – The Greatest; M83 – Resurrection [Soundtrack]; Lykke Li – so sad, so sexy