While the Green Bay Packers used play-action passes considerably more often under first-year coach Matt LaFleur, the uptick in frequency – and the reliance on deception within LaFleur’s offensive scheme – didn’t lead to a better season using play-action passes from quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
In fact, Rodgers finished the 2019 season as one of the NFL’s least efficient passers on play-action attempts.
According to Pro Football Focus, Rodgers used play-action on 26.1 percent of his attempts in 2019, up from 20.3 percent the 2018 season. However, the Packers lacked the production and incredible efficiency that play-action passes created for most of the NFL’s top offenses.
Remember, play-action generally makes throwing the football much easier. It helps create easy completions and explosive plays. LaFleur recently said the offense needs to create more explosives. How does this happen? The Packers must get better on play-action passes in 2020.
Consider these numbers from 2019, via PFF:
– Rodgers threw only three touchdown passes off of play-action, tied for the 27th most in the NFL. Other quarterbacks that threw three play-action touchdown passes in 2019: Mitchell Trubisky, rookies Drew Lock and Dwayne Haskins, and stop-gap veterans Eli Manning, Case Keenum and Matt Moore.
– Rodgers averaged 7.3 yards per attempt on play-action passes. A total of 31 qualifying quarterbacks averaged more. The only quarterbacks to trail Rodgers were Manning, Carson Wentz, Joe Flacco, Andy Dalton and Mason Rudolph.
– Rodgers had a passer rating of 91.3 on play-action passes, ranking 30th of 37 qualifying passers. A total of 22 quarterbacks had a passer rating over 100.0 on play-action passes. Rodgers’ passer rating without play-action was actually 5.6 points better, a statistical rarity in today’s game.
– Rodgers did complete a much higher percentage of throws off of play-action. His completion percentage without it was 60.8; with it, it was 65.8. He just didn’t have the explosive plays and touchdowns to match the uptick in completions, and yards per attempt and touchdown percentage are huge for determining passer rating.
– A total of 16 quarterbacks improved their yards per attempt average by 2.0 yards or more on play-action passes. Rodgers improved by just 0.4, ranking 29th.
| Aaron Rodgers on PA | 2018 | 2019 |
| PA % | 20.1 | 26.1 |
| Cmp % | 61.5 | 65.8 |
| YPA | 7.1 | 7.3 |
| TD/INT | 6/1 | 3/1 |
| Passer rating | 95.9 | 91.3 |
| Cmp % difference | -1.1 | +5.0 |
| YPA difference | -0.4 | +0.4 |
| Passer rating difference | -2.1 | -5.3 |
The side-by-side comparison of Rodgers’ 2018 season and 2019 season suggests he did improve in some meaningful areas, including completion percentage and yards per attempt. But the improvements weren’t all that significant and didn’t lead to better results. Overall, the Packers were one of the NFL’s worst teams in terms of success rate on play-action passes.
What could get better?
– Everyone gets more comfortable in the scheme in Year 2, including Rodgers. The change was a big one in 2019, especially for a quarterback who operated in one system his entire career as a starter. A big jump should be expected in Year 2.
– LaFleur imprints more of his preferred style on the scheme, including a greater emphasis on the play-action passing game. Year 1 was about building the foundation, now the Packers can dive deeper and deeper into the offense.
– The Packers find their core concepts in the play-action passing game and perfect those concepts while trashing the others that didn’t work in Year 1.
– The personnel is slightly better, and better at taking advantage of opportunities. Too many opportunities for big plays were missed in 2019.
– Deep threat Marquez Valdes-Scantling takes a step, stays healthy and provides a dangerous field-stretching weapon off of run fakes.
– The Packers are more deceptive pre-snap and are better throwing out of big personnel.
– The Packers simply use play-action more often. Generally speaking, the more the better.
So many of the league’s top quarterbacks are devastatingly effective on play-action passes. The Packers have the scheme, and they have the talent at quarterback. Putting the pieces together has to be a top priority in 2020. Getting better in the play-action passing game looks like one of the easiest pathways to improvement in the passing game overall for the Packers this season.