Jordan Love and the Packers beat the Lions’ blitz plan through the air

As we do every week, we’re looking at how the Green Bay Packers’ passing game performed the previous week, so let’s fire up the analysis from the Detroit Lions’ Thanksgiving Day loss.

Now that’s a pretty chart. Coming into this game, one of the questions was how much the Lions would blitz. The Lions blitzed Love on 43.5% of his dropbacks in Week 1, and he excelled against it, going 6/10 for 122 yards and 1 TD (+0.58 EPA per Dropback per NFL Pro). On the season, the Lions blitz 31.1%, the 10th highest rate in the league, but they are gameplan specific in terms of its usage. Some weeks, they’re blitzing on nearly 50% of dropbacks, while other games will see them much lower. They only blitzed Jake Browning on 11.1% of his dropbacks and Patrick Mahomes on 5.1% of his dropbacks. So, with what Love did in Week 1, how would that approach change?

Not much, as it turns out. The Lions blitzed Love on 43.8% of his dropbacks, the 5th highest mark of the year for Love. Against those blitzes, Love went 7/14 for 70 yards & 2 TDs, good for a QB Rating of 104.2 and EPA Per Dropback of +0.32. Love’s ADOT (Average Depth of Target) when blitzed was 10.3 yards, up from his season ADOT of 8.7 when blitzed.

Of course, his numbers when not blitzed were even better. When not blitzed, Love was 11/16 for 164 yards and 2 TDs, good for a QB Rating of 141.7 and EPA Per Dropback of +0.59. When not blitzed, Love had an ADOT of 12.5 yards. In technical terms, Love was chucking that thing.

On the day, Love had an ADOT of 11.4 yards, his 3rd highest mark of the year. He also turned in an EPA per Dropback of +0.47. That’s the same mark he put up against the Cowboys in Week 4. All-in-all, a good day for Love, no matter if they sent extra bodies at him or not.

The Packers leaned heavily into the play-action game, going play-action on 40.6% of their dropbacks. That ties their highest mark of the season (they were also at 40.6% against the Bengals in Week 6). On those play-action dropbacks, Love was 6/11 for 62 yards and 1 TD (101.3 QB Rating, +0.17 EPA per Dropback, 11.4 ADOT).

As far as what the Packers were running in their passing offense, it was about exactly as you would expect when facing a heavy Man Free/Cover 1 team. Lots of Smash Fade & Verts, Mesh and High Cross. Concepts designed to either isolate coverage or create conflicts by running defenders through congested areas. All season, I’ve talked about how gameplan-specific LaFleur has been this year (since last year, really), and nowhere is that more evident than in games like this.

Before we get out of here, we’re going to take a look at a big play from Wicks. We already broke down his 4th down receptions, but today we’re going to break down my favorite passing concept of the day. The core play is called Arches, and it’s a great way to pick up an easy completion in short yardage. We’ve seen a fair bit of this in Green Bay on 3rd down over the last couple of years.

Arches is a two-man concept, with the inside man running a shallow drag (Eliminator) and the outside man pushing out initially, then cutting back to the middle (Arches).

The Packers had run this concept earlier in the game, but it wasn’t a clean throwing lane, so Love moved off of it and eventually threw it away.

Now, with 5:56 remaining in the 3rd quarter, they come back to something that looks an awful lot like Arches, but out of a different formation. They’re in 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) in a 3×1 bunch look. Luke Musgrave [88] is in the front of the bunch, with Dontayvion Wicks [13] on the inside and Malik Heath [18] on the outside. Christian Watson [9] is isolated on the other side of the field.

At the snap, Musgrave releases inside on the Eliminator route, while Wicks initially bends slightly to the outside. On its face, this looks like Arches, but Wicks is running a Sluggo (Slant-and-Go), releasing vertically up the seam. It’s a really cool wrinkle to throw into a concept you are known to run.

The Lions are in zone, and Wicks just kind of slips through the cracks. The defender over Wicks widens at the snap, but when Wicks goes vertical, that defender settles in to cover the flat. The inside zone man is looking at Musgrave, and the outside zone man is widening with Heath, so the seam just parts like the Red Sea. With a single-high safety on the other side of the field, there’s nothing but grass and sunshine.

Love hits Wicks up the seam for a 30-yard gain

That was the 4th play in a 9-play, 72-yard drive that would ultimately end with a TD to Dontayvion Wicks, pushing the Packers’ lead to 31-21 in the waning moments of the 3rd quarter.

If you want to read more about how Wicks looked during the game, make sure you read Tyler Brooke’s terrific analysis.

Albums listened to: Grouper – Way Their Crept; Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell; Margo Guryan – Take a Picture, Tom Waits – Heartattack and Vine