Divisional Preview @ Green Bay
targeting [Getty Images]
Opponent: Green Bay Packers
Date: Saturday, 1/22
Location: Lambeau Field, Green Bay, WI
Kickoff: 5:15PT
TV: FOX, or wherever you stream it illegally
Line: -5.5
The Niners’ Nineties Nostalgia Tour continues with a divisional-round matchup against the Packers—a squad we played four times in the playoffs during the Brett Favre/Steve Young era. While the Packers have won the last two overall matchups—one in week 3 of this year and the other on a Thursday night in 2020 when Richie James totaled 184 yards receiving because literally every other receiver was either injured or on the COVID list—the Niners have come out on top in the past three post-season meetings. We all remember the most recent of those games.
It was sick.
Since a Week 1 ass-beating at the hands of the then-relevant New Orleans Saints, the Packers have probably been the single most consistently good team in the NFL. At 13-4 and with the best record in the league, Green Bay has only lost two games in which Rodgers has started and finished: the week one debacle and—somehow—a mid-season shootout against the Vikings.
While it’s up for debate whether the Packers or the Bucs are the favorites to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, this is an excellent Green Bay squad that could be returning three of their five best players just in time for this matchup. Lucky us.
But like the game against the Cowboys last week, this is another matchup where what we can do well could align nicely with their weaknesses. And while no one will confuse our season’s roller-coaster ride with the consistent excellence of the Packers, at this point in the season those matchups are much more important than records.
PACKERS OFFENSE
BFFs [Jeff Hanisch/USA Today]
Head coach and play-caller Matt LaFleur is from the Sean McVay coaching tree, thus he runs an offensive scheme similar to ours and the Rams’. But while the Packers lean on zone and stretch, play-action passes off that running game, and pre-snap motion, LaFleur’s offense diverges from the norm in a handful of ways. Mostly because Aaron Rodgers—the Vegas favorite to win his second MVP in a row at age 38—is his quarterback.
If there’s something that this offense—and LaFleur—should be known for, it’s consistency and balance. While McVay can get pass-happy and Shanahan would go an entire game without passing if he thought he could get away with it, LaFleur and the Packers are adamant at staying balanced offensively. In 15 of 16 games since their week 1 stinker, they’ve rushed for 90 or more yards on the ground. In all but two of those same games (one being the game that Jordan Love started), they’ve thrown for 200+. That’s led to an offense that is ranked #2 in DVOA, #2 in passing, and #8 in rushing.
This offense can do it all, and they do so at an efficient clip.
It’s What’s For Dinner. While the Packers’ offensive scheme is closer to McVay’s than ours, their investment in numerous beefy skill guys reflects more of our commitment to physicality. While the Rams are famous for their steadfast commitment to 11 personnel—once again leading the league in its usage at 84% of their total snaps—the Packers run the second-most 12 personnel in the NFL (behind the Dolphins, who ran it a laughable 61% of the time).
With three tight ends who had over 28 targets on the season, the Packers use these big bodies in traditional in-line sets, out wide, or even in the backfield in a halfback/fullback-type role. Their most well-known TE is Robert Tonyan—he of an unrepeatable 2020 touchdown rate that foiled many a fantasy manager this year—but since he’s been limited to eight games this season, Mercedes Lewis has been their top dog this year. He’s filled in admirably, earning a top 10 position rating from PFF.
But the heft continues outside of simple personnel groupings. Davante Adams and Aaron Jones—the Packers’ top two offensive weapons—aren’t particularly big, but the supporting cast is XXL. The receiving corps is filled out by Allen Lazard and Marquez Valdes-Scantling—who, together, sound like a sketchy financial advisor driving his dad’s Audi and the oil freighter stuck in the Suez Canal that’s obliterating his portfolio. At a whopping 6-5 227 pounds, Lazard works mostly underneath, while the slightly smaller Valdes-Scantling (6-4, 206 lbs.) is their “fuck it, go deep” guy. Both are expected to block in the run game and beat press coverage for jump ball situations down the sideline. Those guys and their roles haven’t really changed over the years, but the biggest addition since we last saw them is also their biggest load to bring down in the open field.
At 6-0 247 pounds and with quads so massive they’ve gotten their own nicknames (“Quadzilla” and “The Quadfather”), sophomore back AJ Dillon has emerged in the second half of the season to create a timeshare in the Packers backfield. While Jones—with his superior explosiveness and skill in the passing game—continues to be their top dog, Dillon actually has had more carries and rushing yards this year. Granted, some of that is likely due to the Packers trying to preserve the oft-injured Jones for the post-season, but Dillon has made himself a major factor nonetheless. The two backs have considerably different styles, and the Packers use them both in the screen and passing game A LOT (a combined 100+ targets, 86 catches, 704 yards, and 8 scores on the year). Angles and tackling in the open field will be key.
Return of the Bak. 2020 All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari returned from a season-long injury last week against the Lions, and—after playing partial snaps in that warm-up game—is probably good to go for Saturday. Considering our best chance of pulling the upset is disrupting Rodgers via pass rush, Bakhtiari’s health—alongside that of Nick Bosa—will be worth monitoring up until kickoff. Last time we faced off, we recorded only two quarterback hits and one sack. Clearly, we’ll need to do better this time around.
Easy-ups. In addition to a heavy dose of diverse and well-designed screens to their backs and wideouts, LaFleur loves to combine alignments, motion, and Aaron Rodgers’ speedy release to get the ball out quick on the perimeter via leverage plays.
While far from the sexiest, most complex, or explosive of plays, LaFleur dials these up as rhythm starter—like a metronome before the orchestra kicks into full gear. In each of these plays, Rodgers is basically just looking for a slight numbers or leverage advantage (soft coverage, defender too far inside) then getting the ball out in a hurry. Since Rodgers can zip the ball out wide in a split second, the Packers use these throws almost as an extension of the run game. They’re like horizontal handoffs or variations of what a bubble screen can look like when you have a Hall of Fame quarterback throwing it.
As stated above, LaFleur’s calling card has been consistency, and by dialing up screens, play action, and these kinds of layups, he keeps the Packers’ offensive floor high while saving the more complex, higher-risk concepts for his shot plays.
Vulcan Mind-Meld. The other benefit of those easy completions to the boundary is that they often flood one side of the field, forcing defenses to make a choice. They can run with the motion man across, roll their safeties, or shift linebackers so that they don’t get out leveraged play-side, but all those solutions create more space and one-on-one matchups backside, where—you guessed it—they usually play Davante Adams.
Rodgers’ ability to read and diagnose coverages in the blink of an eye, paired with possibly the greatest arm talent the NFL has ever seen and seven years working alongside the best receiver in football, makes for the world’s deadliest game of pitch-and-catch.
One of the major differences between Green Bay’s offense and the other units from the Shanahan/McVay tree is that Rodgers is one of the best and most prolific matchup hunters in the NFL, so LaFleur gives him and Davante Adams great leeway to audible to a quick-hitting pass when they both see a matchup that they like. Namely, any time Davante is one-on-one against press-man.
It’s not out of the question that when Rodgers held up that one finger in the replay, he was telling Adams that they were in Cover 1 and that he was about to make a lot of fantasy owners happy.
Adams has the best release in football, so the Packers go out of their way to isolate him away from trips and empty formations in hopes that defenses give him a one-on-one look and play the math to the other side. When that happens, the Packers will feed Adams until you stop it. Which—in one-on-one coverage—is probably never.
Here’s an example in its most simplistic form. In this case, they don’t even bother isolating Adams. Rodgers just likes the look.
When Adams is lined up in the slot he can run a quick arrow route down the seam off an audible, but when he’s outside it’s typically a fade or a slant. Since he’s not isolated in this situation—and is lined up with plenty of outside space to work with—they’re looking fade.
Despite the corner lining up in press with outside leverage, Rodgers has faith that Adams will beat him outside. With the near safety lined up on the hash, both quarterback and receiver know this cornerback won’t get any help until the ball is already completed. They also know that—since they’re throwing this opposite a called run play—the safety may just stick inside for a second off the run-action look from the box.
Since the corner has lined up outside to begin with—and thus is unlikely to get beat over the top unless he just whiffs at the LOS—Rodgers and Adams expect to throw a back-shoulder fade.
Which they complete, rather easily.
Other times, there’s a bit more work involved to set things up. But not by much.
Pre-snap motion to the short side of the field makes the defense adjust. Rodgers sees the high safety move to mid-field where—once again—he can’t play over any fade route that’s thrown early enough. Rodgers takes one peek post-snap to make sure Adams has gained leverage, then drops it over the top for an easy 33-yard gain.
On slant routes, the set-up is a bit different, but it’s ultimately more of the same.
Pre-snap, Rodgers and Adams already feel like the near safety is deep enough and far-enough inside that he won’t be a hinderance. In this case, they’re more worried about the alignment of the nearest linebacker. As the running back motions to empty the other way, the linebackers slide over, giving enough room for Adams to work with.
For these two, it’s basically warm-up lines at practice. Davante feasts if given this look—like he feasted against Dontae Johnson and Deommodore Lenoir when they were thrown into play due to injury in week 3. If a defense chooses to keep safety help over Davante, the Packers will gladly chip away with a numbers advantage opposite him using quick game and the leverage plays mentioned above. If defenses go two-high and widen their safeties more to the boundaries, the Packers will pound them on the ground with their two talented running backs then hit them with a skinny post off play-action when they least expect it.
When it all comes together, you get an offense that is schematically sound and unquestionably dangerous but not entirely exciting from an X’s and O’s standpoint. While Shanahan may dial up an RPO slant with motion across and pulling guards to open up a running alley for Deebo or Aiyuk across the middle, Rodgers does a lot of his damage outside the hashes by immediately diagnosing flat defenders and out leveraging them and/or feasting on one-on-one coverage against Davante. Then, when you’ve adjusted your defense to stem the bleeding, Rodgers uncorks one of those wild, unearthly rockets over your defense for six.
If you had to choose one guy between McVay, Shanahan, and LaFleur to scheme someone open, it’s unlikely to be the Packers head coach, but he’s also the one with the winningest record and the highest rated offense. While there’s debate as to how much of that is LaFleur versus him having a significant quarterback advantage over his two colleagues, the Packers coach has done a great job of creating easy completions underneath to raise the floor of this offense. He knows that the Rodgers-Davante combo means a big play could happen at any moment. What differentiates the Packers now from the era of The Thumb is that when that big play is well-covered, they can still stay on track through a commitment to the run game and easy completions underneath.
DEFENSIVE KEYS
When seated, he can’t throw [Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
Dudes on Davante. In order to beat the Packers, you have to have a plan for how you’re gonna cover #17. Now it’s easy to yell at a bar to “double team him!” after he gets a clutch third-down reception—and double-coverage should 100% be a part of our plan—but you can’t do that all the time or they’ll just kill you with numbers elsewhere.
The key, as is often the case in NFL pass coverage in 2022, is mixing things up and confusing the pre-snap read. If done correctly, this can be especially effective against a tandem like Rodgers-Adams that relies so heavily on both of them seeing the same thing at the same time.
In week 10, Seattle’s defense did as good a job as any at bottling up the Packers’ full-strength offense, in part by giving Davante a lot of different looks. Here’s a snapshot of one coverage that they’d show pre-snap:
In this case, the safety (Jamal Adams) is CLEARLY in double coverage. So much so that his hips are literally turned away from the center of the field and towards the Packers wideout. While I wouldn’t necessarily support that kind of pre-snap commitment (because—like—what if they just run the ball behind you?) this at least makes it clear to Rodgers that—while the cornerback may be in press coverage on Davante—there’s another dude who is fully committed to denying him the ball.
As the game went on, Seattle would continue to show this look before the play, but instead of always sticking to it, they began to rotate into different coverages post-snap.
In this instance, the Packers are really forcing the issue. They’re in an empty set with four wideouts to the offensive right and just Davante to the left. Once again, Jamal Adams has widened out over Davante’s side, meaning any kind of “alert” passes that the Packers would throw to Davante based on a pre-snap look would be out the window. With a clear leverage and numbers advantage, the Packers CAN’T NOT throw to the four-receiver side.
Based on the called play to the offensive right and the defense lining up in what looks like split safeties with bracket coverage on Davante, Rodgers expects the safety to the top of the screen to widen, Jamal Adams (circled) to stay locked on Davante, and the arrow route (marked in red) to open up right down the seam of the vacating safeties.
But Jamal Adams creeps away from Davante leading up to the snap, and—once the play has begun—we can tell he never had any double team responsibilities based on how he’s turned his back entirely from Davante. Instead, the Seahawks safety is acting as the high wall to any third vertical route from the four-wideout side. He’s meant to block any crosser deeper than the linebackers, or carry any vertical route down the seam.
Rodgers looks to the arrow route that—if Jamal Adams had stayed on Davante—would have split the safeties easily down the middle, but since Jamal rotated to center field, that route is sufficiently smothered. With his timing off and no place to go in a collapsing pocket, Rodgers eventually scrambles for a first down. But it’s called back on holding.
Showing a double team and then rotating out of it doesn’t just force other receivers to make plays, but it also makes Rodgers get off of his #1 receiver earlier than he’d like to, which at times can be just as effective as an actual double team (but without losing the defender). Sure, the Packers could adjust away from their pre-snap “alert” plays and involve Davante more in traditional passing concepts. In that case, our double-team bluff would be outed within the play and Adams could still get his looks within Rodgers’ standard progression. But we’d still be bracketing Davante on some of those plays, and—even when we aren’t—we’d have taken away the easy pitch-and-catch completions that this offense makes into such a meal.
Mano-a-mano (on the D-Line). While Bakhtiari’s return certainly complicates things, I generally believe the Packers are weaker on the offensive line than many people think. To be clear, they operate very well as a unit, and that matters more. Their adjusted sack rates, adjusted line yards, pass block win rates are all ranked in the top 5. But if you can isolate their three interior linemen, I don’t think they hold up as well.
The Packers struggled to run against Seattle, but that’s because Seattle throws five men on the LOS, is one of the last defenses that is still built to stop the run, and gets heavy snap counts from nose tackles who are 336 pounds and 360(!) pounds. We haven’t really prioritized the same skill-set along our defensive interior, but DJ Jones and Arik Armstead—who rank first and third, respectively, in run stop rate—should be up for the challenge. Our run defense has had the league’s highest EPA/game average since the changes we made mid-season, and winning on the inside—in addition to tackling better than in our first matchup—will be key to setting up longer third downs. That’s where I think we can really take advantage of some mismatches.
In the passing game, the interior line should be our target. Whether that’s utilizing inside twists, presenting overload rushes that force one side to block man up (which can also include twists), sending blitzers up the middle, or showing mug looks by covering up a lineman with a linebacker before dropping him back into coverage, we should be doing everything we can on passing downs to force one-on-one matchups on the inside.
This is also a matchup where those inside blitzes and mug looks could be less likely to punish us. Yes, Rodgers sees and finds openings in zones in a hurry, but the drawback of the Packers’ super-sized skill players is that—other than Davante—you don’t really have anyone who excels at getting open early on the sort of slants, quick-ins, and option routes that can punish interior blitzing or linebackers who are late getting to their spots. If anything, Randall Cobb fits that mold the best, and—all due respect to him—you’d prefer five yard completions to Cobb over the middle versus most other things this Packers passing attack does. And while the threat of a dig getting to the vacated space in the middle of the field is always present—especially against a quarterback as talented as Rodgers—our linebackers are very fast in coverage, and if Rodgers is getting the time to complete that throw because we’re not getting home on a five+ man pressure then we’re probably screwed anyway.
We know—and have seen every year—how this style of offense helps offensive linemen by running the ball and putting them in advantageous positions in pass pro. But if we can force their hand into true dropback pass protection sets and target those interior linemen with our rushers, we can make them block us one-on-one, and that’s where I think we hold an advantage. Obviously, that advantage is exponentially greater if Nick Bosa plays. At the moment, the team seems optimistic, but you can never tell with concussions. That said, we still pressured Dak at a higher rate than he’d seen all year in the wild card matchup, and that was without Bosa for two quarters. Our line in the first matchup was Bosa and everyone else. Now it’s more of a cohesive unit, and one that will have to show up big on Saturday.
Fudge the Flat. Disguising coverages and showing multiple looks pre- and post-snap is absolutely crucial to slowing down Aaron Rodgers. If he knows what you’re in and you stay in it, he’s gonna kill you in the short game and—if they can protect it—beat your corpse again as they throw down the field. Against some quarterbacks, you can get away with rotating safeties and keeping them guessing on the back-end to slow them up, but against Rodgers—and his quick release and recognition skills—you really have to be able to muck up the works on his flat reads as well. Once again, Seattle had some success in hiding what they were doing in their last matchup.
Early in the first quarter, the Packers are in a typical empty spread set. With Davante in the slot to the weak side, they’re trying to work a two-man game for some easy yardage.
At the bottom of the screen, DJ Reed (ugh) does a great job of showing press-bail, keeping his hips open to the formation before the snap as if he’s going to turn and bail with the outside receiver as he runs down the field. Seeing this, Rodgers assumes Adams (in red)—who is matched up on a linebacker (teal)—will be open on the quick out.
But on the snap, Reed squares up his shoulders. While his pre-snap positioning alluded to him being a deep third or quarter defender, he’s actually pressing the outside receiver off the LOS and squatting in the flats. The Seahawks are in a funky variation of Cover 6 and Reed is on the “Cover 2” side. And while he shouldn’t be allowing the receiver an outside release, I’ll give Reed the benefit of the doubt and say that he wasn’t particularly worried about the fade and read Rodgers’ drop to know the ball was coming out quick.
Reed breaks on the ball, forcing an incomplete that just as easily could have been a pick six.
Say what you will about the Seapenises—like that they’ve benefited more from uncalled PI’s and overly-called roughing calls than anyone in the league, that their fans don’t act like they’ve been there before cause they haven’t been there enough, that their last good first-round pick is older than me, that their obsession with weird highlighter colors on their uniforms will be looked back upon as the jheri curl of this era of jerseys, that their backup quarterback had to spend six weeks sidelined cause he got punched in the face by his own teammate over $600, that their inability to invest in the offensive line is running an elite quarterback in his prime out of town, or that that same elite quarterback, when given the ability to sling it early and often, faltered so heavily down the stretch that they once again returned to an offense that hasn’t had a firmware update since the Bush administration—but… Pete Carroll knows how to coach DBs.
To be clear, some of these snaps—whether feigning double coverage or something else—wind up in press-man. They have to, otherwise, the bluff doesn’t work. It’s one thing to do that every once and a while with Moseley on Adams. With Ambry Thomas—or anyone else—that’s a tougher sell. Especially because Rodgers if you’re in it, Rodgers is bound to find out eventually. But when you’re disguising flat defenders you need to have the threat of the corner squatting and taking away that quick stuff, or they’ll just dink-and-dunk you to death. Sometimes, allowing shorter stuff and rallying up isn't the end of the world. Other times, it gasses your DL and neuters your defense’s ability to dictate game flow. It’ll be up to DeMeco Ryans—who has been DEALING—to keep his pulse on the defense and figure out exactly when and how to crank up the aggressiveness.
Whether it’s disguising blitzers or disguising coverages, the Packers offense is too strong, balanced, and well-coached—and Rodgers is too damn old and good—for us to get away with telegraphing where we’re gonna be. And the more aggressive you are at hiding coverages in the shallow zones and bluffing or delaying blitzers, the more of a shell game it becomes. Every once and a while you can get burned. But those are the risks you take when you’re going up against a HOF quarterback and the best receiver in football.
PACKERS DEFENSE
new blood [Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]
After the 2020 season, LaFleur replaced former DC Mike Pettine with Joe Barry, who must be a reasonably chill dude because the entire defensive staff—many of whom were Pettine’s guys to begin with—stuck around to coach under the new guy.
Barry, who had unsuccessful stints as a DC in both Detroit and Washington, spent the past four years working with the Rams—first under Wade Phillips, then for a year under Brandon Staley. In the same way that LaFleur and Shanahan are familiar with one another, Barry has butted heads with us plenty of times, with the Niners sending both his former bosses out with 0-2 records against us in their final seasons as DC.
Barry brings with him a two-high, odd-front base defense that looks to rotate coverages on the back end, prevent the big play, and focus on stopping the pass. While his new-look Packers defense started out hot, it’s cooled a bit in the past month or so. While still a top 10 unit in yardage allowed and a top 15 squad in points, analytics are a bit less friendly, with an overall DVOA of 22nd. Is it a unit that was coasting a bit as the Packers approached the post-season? Will it be rejuvenated to early-season levels (and beyond) with the potential return of a few superstars? Or was it simply a defense that was beginning to decline as it regressed to the mean? Hard to say, but I know which one I’m rooting for.
I feel like they should sit out one more week. To be fair to Barry, his first year running the defense has mostly been without the defense’s top two players—both of whom are questionable to play in Saturday’s game.
Our last matchup in week three was the last full game that star cornerback Jaire Alexander played in, as he went down with a shoulder injury the following week that kept him out the remainder of the regular season. He’s questionable to return to a unit that has fared well without him and is suddenly stacked if he’s back.
Meanwhile Za’Darius Smith—the Packers’ best edge rusher—has yet to play a snap all season while dealing with a back injury. Assuming he gets taken off IR at some point in the next 24 hours, he’s also questionable to play. As is the case with Bakhtiari on offense, potentially regaining another two All-Pros just in time for a playoff game is a big deal. If they play, it will be interesting to see what kind of snaps they can give—and at what level they can play—after such a long layoff.
Both men would return to units that have impressed in their absence. In the case of Smith, his absence has partially been offset by the breakthrough campaign of third-year size/speed freak Rashan Gary, who has paired with always-steady Preston Smith to lock down the two edges as stand-up defensive ends/linebackers. While Kenny Clark may be their most important defensive lineman, Smith and Gary are their best pass rushers, combining for 18.5 sacks and 45 QB hits this year.
Great linebacker, greatest chicken soup. De’Vondre Campbell, who the Packers signed to a one-year $2M deal in the off-season, absolutely exploded under the tutelage of Barry, who—as associate head coach and linebackers coach his last year with the Rams—is clearly a linebacker-friendly DC. A 2016 fourth-round pick by the Falcons, Campbell started for four years there before a one-year stint as a starter with the Cardinals—regularly ranking in the 60th-70th range in terms of PFF. This year he blew up in Barry’s scheme, ranking 2nd in PFF among all off-the-ball linebackers and getting a first-team All-Pro nod just last week.
It’s good for the Packers that Campbell has emerged into such a force because their preferred front requires a lot of their middle linebacker, and the other off-ball linebackers who have gotten regular snaps this season have been largely forgettable.
The Packers like to line up in a 5-1, muddy up the gaps, and present a light box. While the two tackles in this photo are in four techniques, the Packers also like the double 4i alignment—which was popularized in college ball to stop spread to run teams (coincidentally, one of the first teams to pioneer the double 4i alignment was Oregon, with their 4is being Arik Armstead and then DeForest Buckner). The thinking in this alignment is that the down linemen cover all the gaps, give the Packers five natural rush options, and prevent the offensive linemen from working up to the second level in the run game. This lets their linebacker run free and fast to the ball, which Campbell has done all year.
In some ways, it’s similar to the scheme that Vic Fangio drew up to halt the meteoric ascension of the Rams offense during their Super Bowl run in 2018. To stop an offense that relied heavily on the run, play-action, and deep shots, Fangio—then the DC of the Bears—loaded the line of scrimmage to prevent double teams and movement along the OL then played a deep two-high shell behind them. This forced the Rams to throw the ball underneath and in rhythm, which they weren’t able to do, and presented the blueprint to slow down their offense—a foundation that the Patriots would use to beat the Rams in that year’s Super Bowl.
But the front has its weaknesses, especially against us. Which we’ll get to in a second.
Trent Baalke would be proud. Like their jumbo wideouts, the Packers have invested in lengthy outside cornerbacks—with Rasul Douglas (6’2, 209 lbs.) and rookie Eric Stokes (6’1 185 lbs.) starting on the outsides with Jaire Alexander down with injury. While we all know how much Fangio’s scheme can help hide average cornerback play, both Douglas and Stokes have played well while stepping into unexpectedly larger roles.
At safety are Darnell Savage—proud owner of just an all-time classic football name—and Adrian Amos, the eraser of the back end. Amos—who likely had an easier transition than many to this defense given his experience in Fangio’s scheme while playing for the Bears—has been playing at a good-to-great level since he entered the league and can do a bit of everything well.
If there’s a weakness in the secondary, it’s starting nickel corner Chandon Sullivan. To be fair, the one linebacker alignments really put him out on an island in coverage, but that island has been visited routinely throughout the year. Additionally, according to PFF, Sullivan has the worst run defense grade of any Green Bay defender—regardless of snap count. As an alley player about to face a team that loves to attack the edge with power runs, you know Shanahan is well aware of this fact.
Special teams…advantage? Our much-maligned special teams unit is ranked 27th in DVOA. The Packers special teams are worst in the league. DVOA is expressed as a percentage, so a team that leads the league in overall DVOA—in this year, Dallas—has a percentage of 30.9%, meaning they are 30.9% better than an average NFL squad. Each unit (offense, defense, specials) contributes a negative or a positive percentage and the aggregate of those makes the overall DVOA.
This year’s top special teams unit—certainly buoyed by the unreal play of Justin Tucker—is the Baltimore Ravens, with a special teams DVOA of +5.3%. We come in at -2.4%. The Packers check in at -5.2%. Their worst-rated special teams area is field goal kicking, which is understandable because Mason Crosby is only hitting 73.5% of his field goals, which is ranked 31st out of 33 qualifiers.
OFFENSIVE KEYS
Not like this, but still run a lot [Kirby Lee/USA Today]
THAT SOFT(ER) NOUGAT INTERIOR. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know if they can stay in their preferred 5-1 defense against us and have any chance at stopping the run. This Packers team might be 11th in rushing yards allowed, but that’s more the product of game script and their stellar offense. Their defense is ranked #28 in run defense DVOA, has the third-worst yards/carry average in the league (4.7), and has a lot of tape of them being bullied on the ground. The last time we played them they mixed up 5-1 and 4-2 looks, leaning more towards the latter—but there’s a chance that preference was to put more underneath defenders in the middle of the field as we abandoned the run.
Not only did we get down 17-0 early in that game and have to pass, but—if you remember—that was the game where we only had one healthy running back on roster and it was Trey Sermon, who the coaching staff clearly didn’t trust. That led to Juice handling the majority of our snaps at tailback and even getting an inside zone carry on the first play of the game. Love Juice, but he’s not really the type of guy we want threatening the edge in our dynamic stretch game. We only rushed for 67 yards in that game—and that is certainly a data point worth referencing—but MAN there were a lot of extenuating circumstances.
Now that we’ve found our identity on offense and have Elijah Mitchell, Jeff Wilson, and Deebo all healthy and playing out of the backfield, the 5-1 seems like it’s a single missed read/tackle away from a potential house call. There’s a very real chance they show us something completely different than what they’ve been doing to this point. But… less than a month ago in Week 16, while playing a Browns team piloted by a one-armed Baker Mayfield that—as an offshoot of the Kubiak offense—runs a similar base scheme as us and is just as (if not more) run-heavy, the Packers trotted out the 5-1 regularly. And got absolutely shredded on the ground.
Obviously that 5-1 becomes a 5-2 and morphs and changes as we play more heavy personnel. When we grow the box, they will too. They aren’t going to just sit in a six-man box against 21 personnel and wave the white flag. But what happens when we call 11 personnel, split Kittle into the slot, and put Deebo Samuel in the backfield?
The Browns rushed for 219(!) yards in that game and only really lost because of four Baker Mayfield interceptions. So I don’t know, the Packers might have to do something different. If they don’t—or even if they do—we should be POUNDING IT on the ground in this matchup. As mentioned in the Dallas preview, teams that aren’t great at stopping the run can rise to the occasion based on hustle and adrenaline early in games, so it would be nice to start balanced and with plenty of misdirection to keep them off-guard. But this is the kind of prime “our strength vs. their weakness” matchup that could snowball in our favor if we can get some positive momentum (and a friendly game script) early. Let’s be diverse in our run game, mix in gap runs and pulling guards, and slowly drain them on defense while keeping their offense off the field.
If the Packers do stay in the 5-1, our goal should be to hammer those edges between the 4i down lineman and the wide standup ends—both play-side with gap schemes and back-side via split zone—and to free up our linemen with some pin and pull sweeps. If we block down on the two tackles with advantageous angles, we can let our interior linemen pull out into space where their athleticism and our team speed can shine. The Browns murdered the Packers with pin-and-pull sweeps and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to do the same if given the same look.
Digging for Gold. The other reason why I don’t think the Packers will sit in as much 5-1 as they typically do is because that alignment is made for winning upfront and taking away passes deep and outside the hashes. So, you know, everywhere we don’t throw the ball. And with only one second-level linebacker, it is inherently TERRIBLE at defending the short-to-intermediate passing game between the hashes. Which is… everything that we want to do through the air and Jimmy Garoppolo’s wheelhouse.
The idea of deep safeties taking away digs has always been a bit more of a fantasy than a reality. While a dig from the slot can technically be a safety’s responsibility on anything with a vertical stem, driving on digs typically means a safety is exposing the deep post area that they’re required to help the corners protect. And while talented linebackers or a lockdown nickel can help take away those inside routes, no single linebacker can cover that much ground, and the Packers’ nickel—as referenced earlier—is a bit of a weak link.
To be clear, this is less of a problem against slants. They’ll have alley runners and—when they don’t—their safeties do a great job of slipping off slot receivers and jumping the outside slant—something they did multiple times in our last matchup, which led to big collisions and dangerous passes. Digs and crossers—whether they’re coming from the outside receiver or the slot—and post-curls all take time to develop. Naturally, with their five-man front, the Packers are hoping to get home before teams can target that defensive weakness. It just so happens that said weakness—like their vulnerability to the running game—aligns well with our strength.
Contain Kenny. Kenny Clark is the engine that makes this defense go on the interior. He’s the only real inside lineman who makes much of an impact, and when he can shoot gaps and disrupt plays before they get started, the Packers defense typically thrives. Alex Mack had one of his worst games as a Niner in our earlier matchup, in large part due to Kenny Clark’s athleticism and burst at the nose. But if you can prevent him from messing up the rhythm of your plays before they get started, there’s lots of room to run (and pass) behind him.
As always, protect the ball. Yup. No need to bring up any more turnover stats. Or to harp on how Jimmy’s interception—and his torpedoed play afterward—kept a Dallas game close that we should have ran away with. While a turnover could happen at any moment (as we saw last week), it would be smart to watch out for creeping safeties who don’t feel threatened over top, Jaire Alexander if he plays, and any defenders dropping into the hole off the line of scrimmage. While I would LOVE if we could just repeat the run/pass ratio (and the success) of our last playoff matchup with the Packers, the most likely scenario is that we’ll need to complete (at least) some timely passes to win this game. That means protecting Jimmy (and his multiple injuries) and being careful with the ball.
CONCLUSION
victory fist pumps [Tom Lynn/AP Photo]
Once again, our commitment—on both offense and defense—to zagging when most others are zigging gives us a real shot at pulling off another playoff upset. Our run defense held the Cowboys to 77 rushing yards and kept them off balance until late—allowing our pass rush to tee-off on a talented offensive line—while our offense put up 169 on the ground against a top-ranked defense hell-bent built to stop the pass. This week, we’re faced with another situation in which our run defense needs to step up to make things easier on our pass defense and our rushing attack has to carry the load offensively. But Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams are not Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb. And we will not be able to win this game if we play as sloppy as we did down the stretch last week.
I really hope our poor week 3 performance in the run game will give Green Bay a false sense of confidence in how to approach our run game on Saturday. That they’ll just roll out what they’ve shown and we’ll dice it up like it’s 2019. But Matt LaFleur, who knows Shanahan well, is surely, SURELY remembering that NFC Championship Game in preparation for this game. He wants/needs some playoff success after three straight years of 13 wins and he knows we want to run the ball. Maybe that leads to some seriously weird stuff on defense—stuff that they haven’t put on film this year. In the past, due to the complexity of our rushing attack, that sort of strategy has led to some slow starts on the ground and uneven performances. Then again, getting away from what you’re used to doing on defense also leads to busts and breakdowns.
Regardless, this seems like a game where we have to score. That’s not to say I don’t have faith in our defense. I fully expect them to come out with a strong game plan ready to play. But the best way to minimize the impact of a Hall of Fame quarterback in 2022 is to minimize his looks at what you’re doing in coverage. There’s only so many coverages you can run and so many ways you can hide it that are structurally sound, and the more possessions a good quarterback and play-caller get to see those things, the more likely they’ll be able to diagnose what’s coming and target its weaknesses. That means running the ball, shortening the number of possessions on defense, and punching the ball into the endzone so the Packers must stray from their coveted offensive balance and get into true dropback passing situations.
While the faces have changed and the challenge is far greater this time around, the formula for winning this game remains the same. Hopefully, we come out ready to execute it.
Go Niners 🏈👍