Christian Watson’s break out performance of 2024 stands out among struggling Packers young receiving corps.
Christian Watson exploded in week 11 with four catches for 150 yards, three of which were deemed explosive pass plays of 20 yards or more. Thanks to Watson’s heroics downfield, the Green Bay Packers narrowly came away with a win 20-19 over the Chicago Bears on the road.
Watson has had a fairly quiet season and has missed a couple of games due to injury, but in week 11, he made his presence felt among a receiving corps that has had some struggles recently. In this game, Watson emerged once again as their downfield home run hitter who could reliably get the explosive plays the offense needed.
All four of his catches contributed to drives where the Packers got into the red zone, and they scored two touchdowns on those four series. On the two failed trips that were aided by a Watson reception, quarterback Jordan Love overthrew Tucker Kraft for an interception inside the 5-yard line and the offense failed to convert a 4th-and-6 from the Bears 6-yard line. Watson did his part.
Catch #1
Watson’s first catch came on a 3rd down conversion in the 2nd quarter from deep in their own territory on a deep curl concept.
Each receiver is running a deep curl route past the sticks on 3rd down with two checkdown options in the flat for Jordan Love.
The defense is cover-3 buzz post snap with the buzz safety dropping down between Watson on the outside and Jayden Reed in the slot. Love sees the curl on the right side has no window so he resets and buys himself time in the pocket for another receiver to get open. The safety follows Reed inside so Love resets and throws a rope to Watson.
Watson turns to run up field for a potential target but sits in the window when Love releases the pass. Watson works back to the ball just before the safety and corner are able to get a hand on it and he’s tackled after a gain of 17 yards. The catch kept the drive alive, but several plays later, Love threw an untimely interception when he sailed a throw right over Tucker Kraft’s head in the red zone.
Catch #2
Watson’s first explosive pass catch set the offense up for a touchdown when he came down in the red zone after Love found him between the underneath flat linebacker and the corner over the top.
The concept is “strike stalk” or “drift stalk” in the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree. It is a full field read for the quarterback with a drift/strike route on the front side of the formation, a “stalk-rail” by the slot receiver and “drift-takeoff” by the outside receiver to the front side.
The defense is in cover-3 again here. Love drops back looking for the tight end on the drift route but the route is slow to develop. He works back to his 2nd and 3rd progressions. The drift-takeoff route is covered by the corner and safety, leaving Watson alone on the sideline.
On Watson’s release, to sell the run action, he fakes like he’s going to stalk block the slot defender versus the run. This gets the defender to keep peeking inside for the run as Watson takes off downfield and the linebacker zones off to his flat responsibility. The takeoff route from Romeo Doubs carries the corner and safety with it so Watson is alone on the sideline where Love finds him. On the next play, the offense punched the ball in for a touchdown.
Catch #3
Watson’s third explosive pass play helped get the offense into the red zone at the 8-yard line when he caught the ball downfield in double coverage.
They’re running “dagger special” from a 3×1 formation with Watson running the deep over route from the slot with the dagger route behind him.
It’s not clear who Love wanted to throw to initially here and I think Kraft busts his route. We can tell because of where he and Watson end up together in nearly the same four yards of space.
I think Kraft was supposed to run a shallower crossing route but didn’t. Love sees the route bust and immediately looks to escape the pocket with it starting to collapse from his left.
Watson sees this and breaks off his route up field while Kraft continues toward the sideline. Love could have hit Kraft right here as he was wide open for an easy throw but Love launched the pass further downfield into an area with Watson and two Bears defenders converging.
Watson was able to fight through the traffic and secure the catch. Four plays later the offense turned the ball over on downs as a 4th down scramble by Love was stopped one yard short of the goal line.
Catch #4
On the final catch, Watson again set the offense up in the red zone after a diving catch where the defender fell down. He got up and sprinted to the 14-yard line.
The pass concept is a double high crosser concept with two routes crossing in the middle intermediate area of the field. The defense is in cover-1 with a 6-man pressure in front of it. The pass protection does a nice job of blocking the rush just long enough for Love to get the pass off downfield to Watson.
Watson takes an inside release, pushes up field, stacks the defender by placing him directly behind him, then cuts inside across the field. The defender loses his balance and falls, as the ball arrives. Watson makes a diving catch, gets up, and takes off.
On the next play, Love scrambled for 13 yards to the 1-yard line then punched it in with a quarterback sneak for the go-ahead score.
Outlook
Watson had a stellar day getting open and finding space to catch and run, keeping drives alive, and setting up the offense with chances to score on each of these catches. At a point in the season where the receivers have struggled, the Packers went back to the well to dig up the explosive passes and Watson delivered in a game that helped them put some separation between them and the rest of the NFC teams battling for the wildcard spots.
With the 49ers next, the Packers should look for Watson deep and often on a defense that will likely be without Nick Bosa and a viable pass rush.