After a sound performance from Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers offense on Wednesday, Thursday’s joint practice with the New England Patriots provided this young unit with a learning opportunity.
What was so promising about Love’s play on Wednesday was that he continued to go through his process and executed against a defense that threw realistic scenarios that he’s going to run into this season at him. The Patriots utilized a number of blitzes, changed up their personnel frequently, and did a really good job of disguising coverages–all things that most defenses will deploy against Green Bay early on in an effort to cause confusion and mistakes.
However, on Thursday, even though the Patriots didn’t really make any schematic adjustments from Day 1 to Day 2, they were more familiar with the concepts that the Packers were running and locked in.
“I wouldn’t say anything they did was different,” said Samori Toure after practice. “They seemed a lot more locked in than yesterday. They were doing a really good job of disguising coverage, I would say, but other than that, there wasn’t much difference. We just got to execute better.”
Just like Wednesday’s joint practice gave the Packers’ offense realistic situations that they will have to deal with in-season, so did Thursday’s. From week to week in the NFL, opponents are going to see on film what this Packers offense does well and what they struggle with and build their game plans around those components. For any first-time starting quarterback, one of the many hurdles that Love will have to overcome is countering the adjustments that the defense makes. Although the Patriots didn’t make any adjustments defensively on Thursday, there was an increased level of familiarity after spending the previous day competing against each other.
Now, credit where credit is due, the Patriots’ secondary also played very well. There were numerous pass breakups, and oftentimes not anywhere for Love to go with the ball, which did result in him trying to fit some passes into tight windows and an interception in the two-minute drill. We didn’t see any of that from Love on Wednesday, but with fewer opportunities, you could see him begin to press a little bit.
Outside of two red zone touchdown passes to Christian Watson, along with a pass to Watson over the middle in the two-minute drill followed by a deep crosser to Dontayvion Wicks, there were few positives for the offense. As Toure said, the overall execution from this unit wasn’t as crisp, with missed passes and dropped balls sprinkled in as well.
In the two-minute drill alone, Love missed a throw to Musgrave over the middle, leading him just a little too far. Musgrave also had a drop in the end zone that went through his hands, and while it was a difficult catch in the back right corner of the end zone, it’s one that you’d like to see Josiah Deguara come down with. By Bill Huber’s count, Love was 14-for-31 with two touchdowns and two interceptions overall.
However, this is why the Packers have these joint practices. They served their purpose by providing realistic situations and valuable learning opportunities for this young offense that one day found a lot of success and, on the other, well, not so much.
“Kind of the same thing as yesterday,” said receiver Christian Watson about what he saw from the New England defense via Bill Huber of SI. “There was some really good things and there were some things we’ve definitely got to work on.”
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