The season may be over, but Love’s three interceptions reveal very important context for the immediate future.
The Green Bay Packers‘ season ended in the wildcard round, and the offense could only muster up 10 points in a 22-10 loss to the Eagles. This was a rematch of the Week 1 game that started the season. The Packers entered the game as the seventh seed with a chance to make some noise against a strong Eagles defense, but that didn’t quite happen. But this is old news.
At the center of the loss are Jordan Love’s three interceptions and what that means for him as an NFL quarterback. What began as a promising start to a hopefully long Packers career when he signed a new four-year, $220 million deal ended with a performance that will give his critics plenty of ammo.
Earlier in the regular season, I wrote about how his three-interception performance versus Minnesota deserved further discussion in how we talk about quarterback turnovers and why context matters. The wildcard game interceptions are no exception here, especially after getting some insight and details about what head coach Matt LaFleur and Jordan Love both saw on the turnovers.
As fans, our first instinct is to analyze the result and work backward to the conclusion, without really considering what else is going on in the play, the other non-quarterback player responsibilities, or the coaching points. None of us are privy to that last point unless the coach or player clues us in. Three turnovers? He must have been AWFUL. But that’s not always the case. At least not how the Packers view it.
First interception
Love’s first interception came early in the 2nd quarter on a go route to Dontayvion Wicks on the outside. He was 1-on-1 versus Darius Slay on the right as the Packers motioned to a 4-strong ballon swing concept.
The play call is a 4×1 dagger/balloon concept. The progression on all of these is single receiver side to 4-strong side. The receiver/tight end combination route on the left is a dagger/thru route concept with a balloon swing behind it as the late checkdown. The quarterback checks the single-receiver matchup and progresses from there.
The Eagles’ defense was in a base 3-4 structure playing cover-6 coverage with safety rotation to the designated receiver (cover-2 bracket to Romeo Doubs).
In the video, it looks as if Love under-threw the pass and let it hang too far inside. Slay sling-shotted inside of Wicks with a nice move and undercut the pass.
Was this a bad throw? Perhaps. But Love isn’t totally at fault here. At least according to LaFleur, it wasn’t entirely his fault.
In his post-game comments, LaFleur referenced “stacking” the receiver. Stacking occurs as soon as the receiver beats the cornerback and is when the receiver steals back leverage by placing the defender directly behind him. This makes it easier for the quarterback to hit his landmark in front of the receiver and makes it easier for the receiver to track in flight. It also makes it less likely to be broken up.
Could Love have adjusted his throw and thrown it back shoulder? Maybe. But Love releases the ball as Wicks is still racing to get to his landmark in front of the defender. If Love has to wait to see where Wicks ends up, he should instead just progress through the rest of the concept. But he had Wicks singled up and that was the trigger for the throw.
Interception credit: Wicks
Second interception
Love’s second interception was a pass intended for Malik Heath on a dig route and at first glance it appears to be a bad read where Love didn’t see the Zack Baun, the hook defender in quarters, sink under the throw over the middle.
The play call is two vertical routes on the left from a trips formation with an inline tight end. On the backside, Heath is running a deep dig route.
The Eagles are playing quarters with what Vic Fangio calls a “trix” check where the safety away from the trips will “key 3 to X” where “key #3” is a match call if the #3 receiver goes deep and across. “To X” means the safety will play inside out on the backside receiver if the #3 from trips is not in his zone.
Love drops back and fires a bullet over the middle but it’s too far inside and he’s unable to get the ball past the linebacker.
Baun picks it off and returns it for 15 yards. Was this really a bad read? Not necessarily.
In the same post-game press conference, LaFleur harped on the details. They had a void in the defense created by the route concept on the back side and the trips side. The quarter flat defender to the dig side, the offense’s right, was chasing the running back to the flat with the dig behind it in the void. Tucker Kraft, on the trips side, fell down on his chip block and never threatened Baun over the middle. Baun was free to read Love’s eyes and flow to the pass.
The critical detail here is Heath should’ve started rounding his route off at 15 yards and ended up over the middle at 20 yards. Instead, he rounded at 10 yards and ended up 15 yards deep, a full five yards shallow. The result was the ball placement being too far inside to compensate for the wrong depth.
Love’s dropback is a five-step drop plus a hitch, which is the timing for a 20-yard dig route. What ends up happening is Love still aimed at where the receiver ends up and as a result, the pass is too far inside.
What could Love have done differently here? Not much. The credit for this interception is receiver error primarily.
Interception credit: Heath
Third interception
The 3rd interception is fully on Love as it was just generally a bad throw but one that was thrown in desperation. It was still underthrown and never even gave the receiver a chance. But did it really matter at that point?
Love is trying to hit Bo Melton on a deep crossing route into the end zone.
The Eagles are playing cover-3 strong buzz rotation with the safety rotating down to the strong hook zone over the trips. With safety rotation to the trips side, the linebacker has to run with the final #3 up across the middle of the field.
Love rolls right at the snap and heaves the pass back to his left. Melton is nearly tackled but the ball is also short and intercepted by Quinyon Mitchell.
Interception credit: Love
With two minutes left, it didn’t matter at that point if the pass was intercepted or not. It was a desperation heave they needed to score on due to their field position and how much time was left. Although one could argue a score here and there is still a fighting chance. Love didn’t give them that opportunity though.
Outlook
As the Packers head into the new league year, receiver might be a position they want to address perhaps in free agency vice the draft. The receiver corps needs an infusion of veteran talent to complement the young guys. Tee Higgins, Chris Godwin, and Amari Cooper are some of the more notable free agent names they could look to add.
And the Packers need to assess the position as now three years into most of their careers, they’re still making mistakes they made as rookies and second-year players. This isn’t to absolve Love of all responsibility, and we’ve covered some bad decisions from the signal caller, but a lot of these plays do deserve to be looked at in their overall context.