Looking at the Eagles pass game efficiency, some big plays in week 1, and how the Packers have evolved since then.
Earlier we looked at the Philadelphia Eagles‘ running game and how the Packers matchup against an explosive rushing attack. Today we’ll look at how the Packers’ pass defense might handle the Eagles’ passing attack.
In their first meeting in week one in Brazil, the Packers dropped the game 34-29 with the passing defense surrendering six pass plays over 16 yards and four of 20 yards or more. They were able to intercept Jalen Hurts twice and the game itself ended up being more indicative of two teams struggling to find their footing on a bad field more than it was about bad pass defense.
The Packers finished 28th in dropback success rate on defense at 49%, meaning they allowed opposing offenses to gain a successful play nearly one of every two passes. However, they still finished 10th best in drop back EPA/play, suggesting a truly “bend but don’t break” defensive philosophy. The Eagles, by contrast, were 8th in dropback EPA per play and 14th in passing success rate.
In week one, Hurts went 20/34 with 278 yards passing, two touchdowns and two interceptions. Receivers A.J. Brown (119) and DeVonta Smith (84) combined for over 200 yards receiving and one touchdown in that game as well with Saquon Barkley catching the other touchdown pass.
Hurts is a decently efficient quarterback despite the low volume passing stats. He’s only thrown 30+ pass attempts in a game four times this season. The one thing that sticks out about Hurts as a quarterback is he’s not going to challenge the defense with throws over the middle of the field, as he rarely throws there unless they are short underneath throws.
In the 10-to-20 yard range in week one, he only had three passing attempts that would be considered intermediate over the middle of the field, with one completion and two incompletions (one interception).
In fact, in all of his passing charts, you can see he does not throw there often. This is both good and bad for the Packers. It’s good because the Packers defense is susceptible to being gashed over the middle of the field on intermediate crossing routes and dig routes due to playing so much single high coverage. Hurts just isn’t asked to throw timing routes over the middle.
But it’s bad because of the talent the Eagles have on the outside to go deep in Brown and Smith. And Brown is listed as not having an injury status for the game despite being limited in practice this week for a knee problem.
In the video above from week one, Brown caught a 67-yard touchdown pass on Jaire Alexander in man coverage cover-1 when Alexander was caught flat-footed and ready to break on the out cut of Brown’s double move. Alexander won’t be available for this game, so the Packers defense might find themselves shifting out of cover-3 in favor of a little more cover-2 to roll coverage more to Brown.
The problem with rolling coverage to Brown is the Eagles are creative in how they can get other favorable matchups if they feel a team is devoting resources to stopping their receiving threats.
Hurts was able to find Smith in a busted coverage by Keisean Nixon when he carried the flat route on the bubble and go concept above. In cover-3, Nixon, as the seam/curl/flat defender, should have run with Smith and carried him up on the seam/wheel route. Hurts found Smith wide open after Alexander ran with Brown’s vertical route and Javon Bullard was providing deep support.
Saquon Barkley won’t catch many passes like this but the Eagles and offensive coordinator Kellen Moore were able to get Barkley on a linebacker, Isaiah McDuffie, on a wheel route out of the backfield for a touchdown. With McKinney zoning off as the deep half safety here between Brown and Smith, McDuffie would be responsible for the first receiving threat to the flat. Hurts saw the match-up and went to Barkley up the sideline because McDuffie could not keep up.
I don’t see them going away too much from these 3-deep zone coverages because they’ll want the extra defender in the box to defend the run but the hope is that they can get the Eagles in some high leverage third-and-long situations where the Packers defense thrives.
This season, Hafley has called cover-2 at the 2nd highest rate in the NFL at 25.5%. It is an especially efficient coverage scheme for them in third down passing situations. The preferred coverage call is a disguised Tampa-2 coverage from a pressure or simulated pressure front.
This season, Hafley combined a common zone coverage, Tampa-2, with a simulated pressure front. On a simulated pressure, the line of scrimmage is clogged with defenders up on the line with or sometimes seven defenders and the rest of the coverage aligned in cover-0. Pressure can come from anywhere (blitz) or nowhere (technically a 4-man rush). It is still considered a pressure situation because that fourth rusher can come from anywhere.
The point of the simulated pressure is getting a favorable pass rush from rushers that can come from anywhere. The pre-snap pressure alignment is used to manipulate the offensive line’s slide in one direction that usually frees up the pass rushers away from it with a stunt or twist while rushing just four and dropping the rest into zone coverages.
On the first third down in the third quarter of the week four game against the Vikings, Hafley called a Tampa-2 sim pressure.
The above diagram illustrates the concept and outlines the zone coverage responsibilities for each defender.
Here, Quay Walker is the fourth pass rusher. He’s mugged up in the A-gap with Isaiah McDuffie. McDuffie ends up as the middle zone runner and Preston Smith as the hook/curl zone dropper.
The Vikings half slid their protection away from the rush because the most dangerous rushers were to the offense’s right. The Packers instead sent three of their rushers to the offense’s left. Devonte Wyatt looped around to the inside as Walker spiked the A-gap. The rush created a 3-on-2 for the Vikings and Walker finished with the sack.
Hafley called this coverage a variety of ways and one other way he did so was by having the corners bail to the deep half.
This is another wrinkle in Hafley’s arsenal, sending a 4th rusher from the linebacker position, dropping to the two defenders on the line of scrimmage to the right to underneath zones in Tampa-2, and having the corners bail to the deep half.
Above are the post-snap zone drops from the defense. Safety Xavier McKinney becomes the Tampa-2 deep middle zone pole runner.
The play call was actually a good play call. 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan had anticipated getting a heavy dose of Tampa-2 in this game and had play designs throughout to beat it. But the 49ers quarterback this particular week, Brandon Allen, was slow to recognize the rotation on this play and ended up fumbling the ball.
Allen drops back but the coverage rotation speeds up his processing just a bit too much and he doesn’t take the throw to Pearsall. He tries to reset and looks to Deebo Samuel on the outside curl to the left but there’s no window.
Now he has pressure off the right edge of the offensive line and tries to scramble around to buy time for a throw but defensive end Rashan Gary hit Allen’s arm and he lost control of the ball but recovered it.
Outlook
I wrote about all the ways Hafley deployed these coverages throughout the season. This season, the Packers defense was 5th overall in the use of simulated pressures. This might be the key to success versus Jalen Hurts if they can limit the impact of Barkley. Hurts does not see the field well and does not quickly process coverages when he has to.
Unfortunately in week one, they did not run this coverage scheme but in 16 other games this season, they generated multiple turnovers and sacks using this pressure front and it may come in handy versus the Eagles the second time around.