Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers adjusted Matt LaFleur’s playcall on the opening touchdown of Sunday’s 21-13 win over the Chicago Bears.
According to LaFleur, Rodgers checked out of the original play, which called for a combination of short routes designed to gain the four yards required on fourth down from the 29-yard line. But Rodgers saw something in the coverage and changed the individual route of Davante Adams, who went on to beat cornerback Buster Skrine with a vertical release from the slot and catch the touchdown pass from Rodgers.
Rodgers said the pre-snap look from the Bears and the Packers’ own tendencies moved him to adjust Adams’ route. Right before the snap, Rodgers hand-signaled to Adams the adjustment.
“A lot of times, on those three-receiver sides, we’ll run three in-breakers,” Rodgers explained. “Based on that, I decided to take a chance and adjust the route and Tay got a great release. And sure enough, at the snap, Buster jumped inside, so it was a really clean release for Davante and I tried to get it up and down before the safety could get there. And he made a really nice catch and run.”
Adams won his release to the outside of Skrine, who was shaded inside, and stacked the veteran cornerback vertically, giving Rodgers a window to make the throw over the top for the score.
LaFleur said Rodgers had mentioned attacking vertically while they were discussing the playcall during a timeout before the fourth down.
“You’ve got to give credit to Aaron on that one, on the fourth down. I called a play and he saw something different and he checked to that play,” LaFleur said. “That was a great job by him of getting us into a great play. Matter of fact, he came over to me during that timeout and said, ‘hey, let’s take a shot here.’ I called a quick gain just trying to move the chains, but he saw bump coverage with inside leverage and he checked it to the shot to Davante. That’s awesome when you have a quarterback that has that capability. That was just a great job by those guys on the field at that time.”