Through a combination of pass rush and coverage, the defense generated two turnovers and 3 sacks in week 16.
The Green Bay Packers turned in probably the most impressive defensive performance of the entire NFL season on Monday Night in week 16 by pitching a shutout in a win over the New Orleans Saints. The Packers throttled the Saints 34-0 in a game that never felt close from the moment the offense stepped on the field for the game’s opening drive.
The defense forced three sacks and two turnovers on Saints backup quarterback Spencer Rattler, getting both a strip sack and an interception. They also held Rattler to 15/30 for just 153 passing yards while holding the Saints offense to 67 rushing yards (28 of which were quarterback scrambles).
Currently, Hafley has the Packers defense ranked 12th in EPA/play in neutral game scripts and 4th overall if the win probability selector is turned off. Not too shabby of year for this unit and a night and day difference from last season.
Three sacks on Rattler
The defense generated three sacks, one of which led to a turnover and recovery by the Packers defense on their first sack of the game. The pressure that Hafley dialed up was also an added layer to a scheme where he’s built on previous weeks wrinkles and designs. It came on a nickel corner blitz with cover-3 behind it post-snap.
The pre-snap shows the defense in cover-2 or some kind of split safety shell coverage. Hafley sends Kiesean Nixon off the edge and Zayne Anderson, making his first NFL start at safety, rotates down to the flat, making the post snap rotation similar to cover-3 “sky.”
The offense is trying to run a play action high cross concept but the overloaded side of the pass rush puts 3-on-2 and disrupts the timing of Rattler’s drop back. He has pressure from Nixon’s blitz the second he turns around to look for his throw. Nixon’s hit jars the ball loose to the turf where Rashan Gary scooped it up for the recovery.
On his second sack, right before halftime, Hafley dialed up a familiar coverage on first down, inverted Tampa-2 from a cover-3 pre snap shell.
Though this looks like cover-3 conceptually post snap, the deep middle safety is actually playing a technique that allows him to play top down in this coverage. Xavier McKinney is the high middle zone player here post snap, a zone that allows him to cut crossers or dig routes over the middle. The corners bail to the deep half before playing flat-footed deep half technique reads.
The Saints actually have a good play call on to stress this coverage with a corner route on the right side and chip flat route, both routes putting the flat defender in conflict.
Rattler should be looking to his right when he sees the deep middle safety middle zone drop. McKinney does a good job of not getting too low and this likely influenced where Rattler was looking and confused him for a brief second.
If he had read it quicker though, he might have come back to the corner route on the right side where he could loft a pass out over the flat defender into the void. The hesitation forces him into the sack as there’s no time and nowhere else to go with the ball.
Up front on this play, the pass rush is running a tackle/tackle stunt where the stunt comes from the opposite side the running back lines up on. This ensures that the late loop around to the backside B-gap can’t be chipped by the back exiting the formation to his checkdown route.
The Saints run the same pass protection scheme as the 49ers and Texans (Klint Kubiak is off the Kyle Shanahan tree) and therefore suffer from the same design flaws defenses have taken advantage of all season.
The Packers bait the slide to the offense’s left. The offensive line is blocking four linemen down to the two widest defenders away from the tight end side (they have chip help to the right from the tight end).
Karl Brooks spikes the A-gap into the guard and center, the back exits, and Devonte Wyatt loops around late into the B-gap as the free rusher. Rattler has to pull the ball down as Wyatt loops inside for the sack.
The third sack was straight zone drop Tampa-2 coverage from the same static pre-snap 2-deep shell.
In the video, the Saints are running an all deep curl concept called “attack” but the defense is zone dropping over the top of the routes to the sticks on first down. The route concept for Rattler is essentially “pick a side” or pick the best matchup.
In this case he should be throwing the outside route to the bottom of the screen. Pre-snap showed the corner playing off the route to the bottom. But he hesitates and winds up letting the rush get home. Brenton Cox beats the right tackle around the edge with a nice dip and rip move to the outside and grabs Rattler around the legs to take him down.
Outlook
The defense is showing up at the right moments late in the season, momentum that will surely be needed as they head into a crucial game with the Vikings. The Packers cannot win the division but a win gets them closer to locking up the 5th seed where they will play the weakest division winner in the wildcard round. In the next article we’ll look at the interception late in the game.