Today we look at the Packers run defense versus a tough Eagles ground game.
The Green Bay Packers are preparing to hit the road to face the No. 2 seed Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Wild Card round this weekend as the No. 7 seed. The two teams opened the season in a Week one game in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with the Eagles ultimately winning 34-29. The Packers ended up as the seventh seed with a loss in week 18.
While both teams are very different from what they were in Week one, with the Packers defense ranked fourth in efficiency in EPA/play, they’re going to have their work cut out for them as they try to limit what the Eagles can do in the running game. Eagles running back Saquon Barkley had a career year, amassing 2000+ rushing yards at 5.8 yards per carry, 125.8 yards per game, and 13 rushing touchdowns.
Barkley was limited to under 100 yards just five times this season with his two least productive games coming against Pittsburgh and Cleveland, the only two games he was held to 3.5 yards per carry or less. Barkley also led the league in total explosive runs of 10 yards or more with 46. To say that stopping the Eagles run game is of the utmost importance would be an understatement.
The Eagles rushing offense is 9th in rushing success rate (A successful play is a play that gains at least 40% of yards-to-go on first down, 60% of yards-to-go on second down and 100% of yards-to-go on third or fourth down) and first overall in rushing EPA per play. Conversely, the Packers defense is the 8th-best ranked run defense in EPA/play and 9th in rushing success rate. This will be a good test for the young defense.
In Week one, Barkley rushed for 109 yards and two rushing touchdowns on 24 carries when the starting linebacker corps consisted of Eric Wilson as the SAM, Quay Walker as the MIKE, and Isaiah McDuffie as the WILL. The linebacker trio got off to a rocky start in this game and it took several games for them to find their footing with the right combination.
On this 11 yard run by Barkley in the first half of the game in week one, McDuffie bounces inside with the tight end motion before fitting the wrong interior gap on the Eagles inside zone run. Devonte Wyatt is in the B-gap, putting McDuffie in the A-gap to the left of the center. Wyatt holds on for dear life B-gap while McDuffie follows the split zone run action from the tight end. With eyes on the tight end, McDuffie is pulled out of the A-gap, right were Barkley scoots through.
Later in the game, Kenny Clark, who also had a rocky start to the 2024 season, also was the key player on several big runs the Packers defense gave up in the first half of the season, and it started against the Eagles too.
In the two plays above, Clark gets moved out of position and doesn’t stay gap sound against the run. In a 1-gap defense, there is no need to ever try and shed the block in the opposite gap or let yourself get turned and shoved two gaps over. The result were huge running lanes for Barkley in a game they otherwise mostly bottled him up in.
Due to injuries, the Packers shuffled around their linebacker core so that now, Edgerrin Cooper is in at WILL, Eric Wilson is in at MIKE, and McDuffie is in at SAM. This week for the playoffs, Quay Walker is back at practice too, so that likely means McDuffie is out with Wilson kicking down to the SAM.
For now, the current group through Week 18 might have been the best trio they had (without Walker of course) and it’s primarily due to the emergence this season of Cooper and secondarily to small schematic tweaks to how the team plays the run game.
Cooper has emerged as the team’s best linebacker. He’s been able to make several key plays and in the cut-up above, he registered four tackles for loss in the week 17 game versus Minnesota. Also in the cut-up above, you can see a small defensive tweak to how the defense plays opposing teams zone running games, which will be critical versus Philadelphia.
Throughout the season, Jeff Hafley showed he wasn’t afraid to make changes on the fly and break tendencies he previously put on film. In recent weeks, in addition to getting a boost in performance from individual players like Cooper, the defense was able to also change how they play the run by switching to a common tactic teams use to defend wide zone running teams: the backdoor slant.
On a backdoor slant, the defensive line slants into the run blocking by reading the direction of the linemen’s get off at the snap and slanting one gap behind where the line up. The second level linebackers fill the gaps the defensive line lined up in.
Here, you can see where the rushing paths of the defensive line take them and where the linebackers fill in relation to that. The intent here is to prevent combination blocks and prevent offensive linemen from climbing to the second level.
The line is almost moving in unison. At the snap, they all read the movement quickly and step left to shoot the gap behind them. This allows the second level defenders to quickly fill without the threat of being cut off in the second level by linemen trying to climb.
Outlook
The Packers have more than enough bodies to contain the Eagles run game. For the most part, outside of just three total runs over 10 yards in week one, they did a good enough job making it difficult for the Eagles offense to move the ball on the ground. One thing the Eagles are very good at is spamming inside the tackles runs, which can wear down a defense, before breaking off a big run late in the game.
Hafley and the defense will be up for the task if the last several weeks are any indication. The Eagles do not have a diverse run game like the Lions and aren’t exactly blowing teams out either, playing in 10 one-score games this season. This is a very winnable game for the defense. Next we’ll take a look at the passing game.