Looking at the Packers passing game in their Week 16 win over the Saints
The Packers came into this game as heavy favorites and walked away with a 34-0 victory and clinched a spot in the playoffs. Not too shabby.
How did the passing game look?
Jordan Love continues his stretch of good QB play as the season goes on. Quite a few attempts behind the LOS (Line Of Scrimmage). That’s 2 weeks in a row that we’ve seen that. Against the Seahawks in Week 15, 33.3% of Love’s attempts were behind the LOS (per PFF). This week, 25% of his attempts were behind the LOS. I don’t think this is a vision of things to come – only 5% of his attempts were behind the LOS against the Lions in Week 14 – but it’s something to keep an eye on.
Because of the high amount of attempts behind the LOS, Love’s ADOT (Average Depth Of Target) was 7.5 yards, a decent amount lower than his season average of 9.2.
He wasn’t connecting well on his deep ball this week, only going 1/4 for 37 yards. However, he did well in the intermediate portion of the field this week, which was largely absent last week against the Seahawks. When targeting 10-19 yards down the field, Love was 3/4 for 57 yards. His lone incompletion was on a deep curl to Dontayvion Wicks on 2nd & 7. It was a play that could have been flagged for Defensive Pass Interference, but it wasn’t, which is consistent with how the refs were calling the game so I’m fine with it. (More on that later.)
Love didn’t have the best day under pressure – 3/10 for 12 yards – but he also had his only touchdown throw of the day while under pressure. He had 2 batted balls under pressure, giving him an adjusted completion percentage of 50% while under pressure. His average time to throw under pressure was 3.4 seconds.
When kept clean, Love was 13/18 (72.2%) for 170 yards (9.4 YPA). He had 1 throwaway, bringing his adjusted completion percentage up to 76.5% while clean. His average time to throw when kept clean was 2.53 seconds.
Overall, another effective, efficient and turnover free day at the office from Jordan Love. He even had a moment where he shouted down the devil on his shoulder on a 4th & short and took the sure-thing as opposed to the potential explosive.
Did I want him to take the shot to Christian Watson on this play? I absolutely did – and so did he, but it’s a tougher throw and the 1st down is the most important thing at that moment. So, wrestling against his very nature, Love took the shorter throw to Kraft instead of chucking it deep to Watson. Is that growth? Depends on your own personal philosophy, I guess. (The Packers ended up scoring a TD 2 plays later to take a 14-0 lead, by the way.)
Before we get out of here, I do want to show this play from Malik Willis. Willis was 1/2 on the day, with his completion being an absolute laser to Jayden Reed.
Let’s look at the touchdown to Dontayvion Wicks before we get out of here.
The Packers got the ball to start the game and proceeded to go 61 yards in 9 plays to get down to the 2-yard line. That drive included Josh Jacobs chucking Tyrann Mathieu out of bounds.
Josh Jacobs stiff-arming Tyrann Mathieu to the shadow realm, with a little soundtrack and the Wilhelm Scream treatment. pic.twitter.com/PWOOnMQhR8
— Dusty (@DustyEvely) December 25, 2024
After that Jacobs run, the Packers ran Jacobs up the middle for no gain, then lost 1 yard on a shovel pass to Wicks. Now facing 3rd & goal at the Saints 2, the Packers wanted to make sure they came away from their first trip to the red zone with a touchdown. They dialed up a beauty.
The Packers game out in 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR), in a 3×1 set out of shotgun. The right side of the formation has a bunch with Jayden Reed [87] at the point, Romeo Doubs [87] underneath and inside & Dontayvion Wicks [13] underneath and outside.
Doubs motions out before the snap, leaving the stack of Reed and Wicks. While Doubs angles toward the end zone, Reed and Wicks run a tight version of Hank, a quick-game staple consisting of a hitch from the outside (Wicks) and a flat route from the inside (Reed).
Wicks takes one step forward and quickly turns back to Jordan Love [10], creating a natural pick. Reed releases underneath the pick to the flat, which should have room with Doubs clearing out the boundary defender.
The Saints do a good job of switching coverage, with Kool-Aid McKinstry [14] picking up Reed in the flat after Ugo Amadi [0] runs into Wicks.
Because of that, Reed isn’t open, but Wicks finds the middle of the field wide open for him after Amadi tries to pull of an incredibly dramatic acting job. “I’ve been wronged,” he screams from the ground.
Wicks releases inside and Love finds him just before the free rusher hits home.
Nice job by Love to come off the flat route and work his way back to Wicks.
Just to address the elephant in the room here, this wasn’t offensive pass interference and, as we talked about earlier, the refs were letting both teams play on both sides of the ball. After watching this, I assume there will be people who will ask, “why run something like this after getting that OPI call against the Lions?”
You run it because it’s effective in this area, it’s rarely called and if you run it correctly – as the Packers do here – it’s not really OPI. There’s nothing in here that is set up as a block. Wicks is running a one-step hitch. If a player runs into him, that’s not really his issue. I’m a big fan of this call.
Albums listened to: The Choir – Chase the Kangaroo; The Killers – Don’t Waste Your Wishes; Emmy The Great & Tim Wheeler – This is Christmas