In a 38-10 Week 6 loss to the Bucs, Rodgers completed 16 of 35 passes for 160 yards, no touchdowns, and two interceptions. Rodgers’ 35.4 quarterback rating was the third-worst of his career, and his Adjusted Yards Per Attempt was the worst he’d ever experienced in any game where he had at least 10 passing attempts.
How did this happen? Well, remember what Staley said about aligning pressure to coverage? Buccaneers defensive coordinator Todd Bowles had that on lock in perhaps the best single-game defensive game plan I saw this season.
Bowles disguised his gap responsibilities pre-snap, throwing off protection rules. This was most evident on Rodgers’ interception to cornerback Jamel Dean — which Dean returned 32 yards for a touchdown.
The first thing you should notice about this play is how the Buccaneers made the Packers wait to decipher which defensive linemen were standing up, and which had their hands on the ground. Bowles did a brilliant job from snap to snap switching this up, which made it very hard for Rodgers and his linemen to agree on protections. Rodgers was sacked five times and suffered 13 quarterback hits in this game, but it wasn’t just the pressure that was the problem — Rodgers was also confounded by dropping defenders and blitzing defenders from difficult angles. This caused Rodgers to doubt his short and intermediate reads as you will rarely see him do.
“We were able to get after Aaron,” head coach Bruce Arians said. “Once we got the running game shut down it was just a matter of getting after him, and Todd did a great job with multiple looks and coverages.”
On the interception in question, Dean said after the game that when receiver Davante Adams motioned from bunch right to stack left, he understood where Rodgers was likely to throw the ball — to his favorite receiver.
“When I saw the formation and then how everything started to develop, I’m like, ‘I have to make this play because I know what’s coming.’” Dean concluded. “Then, once I saw him throw it, I was like yeah, it’s mine.”
The Buccaneers had five defenders at the line of scrimmage pre-snap with what appeared to be Cover-0 behind — aggressive blitz coverage with no safety help to the deep third. It was a blitz, but not the one Rodgers expected. Safety Antoine Winfield Jr. and linebacker Lavonte David dropped into coverage from the line, and cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting blitzed from the defensive left side. Meanwhile, safeties Mike Edwards and Jordan Whitehead dropped from that alleged pre-snap Cover-0 look to two deep out of Bowles’ big nickel package, and Dean was more than ready to jump Adams’ route.
Fast-forward to that Panthers game, which the Packers did win by a 24-16 score, but Rodgers was anything but spectacular, completing 20 of 26 passes for 143 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions, and five sacks. His yards per attempt average of 4.93 was the eighth-lowest of his career in games where he attempts at least 20 passes. Factor in the 47 yards lost to sacks, and Rodgers’ net yards per attempt cratered to 3.69. The Rams’ passing game isnt’ exactly dynamic these days, but if Staley is able to create a clone of what the Panthers did, this could be a fairly major upset.
Like the Buccaneers, the Panthers showed three-lineman base looks and dropped into coverage with different converging defenders, and it had the same effect. Phil Snow, Carolina’s first-year defensive coordinator, was quite aware of the need to dial up what Rodgers called a “strange” defense.
“It’s a lot of principles you see at the college level — the 3-3-5 stuff, very strange alignments,” Rodgers said, per Joe Person of The Athletic. “They played very soft in the secondary with a lot of two-high and even some, I don’t even know what you call it, but it’s like five guys are high. The pressure package, I felt like we picked up pretty good. It was more of the four-man rush when we didn’t have guys open that gave us problems.”
Makes sense, as Snow came from Baylor, along with first-year head coach Matt Rhule. And how often do you see Rodgers refer to a defense as “strange” at this point in his career?
Rodgers’ sacks started when the Packers were already up, 21-3, and that started a series of five straight drives in which Green Bay punted, including two three-and-outs, after opening the game with three straight touchdown drives. Not unlike the ways in which the Buccaneers opened up a can on Rodgers when they were already down, 10-0. The third Panthers sack, which came with 9:58 left in the third quarter, was an excellent example of how the Panthers were able to blow Green Bay’s protection rules with front movement.
Pre-snap, the Panthers have what could be an nine-man box, with a four-man front and defensive back Myles Hartsfield (No. 38), linebacker Shaq Thompson (No. 54), cornerback Juston Burris (No. 31), safety Jeremy Chinn (No. 21), and safety Tre Boston (No. 33) near the line to confuse everything. Cornerback Rasul Douglas is the only obvious defender outside the paint, which should give Rodgers an indicator that at least one safety is going to spin out. Pre-snap, Burris is already doing just that, flying back to cover the deep third.
At the snap, Boston and Hartsfield drop into curl/flat responsibility, Thompson and Chinn move to hook/curl, and Douglas and Burris roll deep. Rodgers doesn’t have time to diagnose it, because the protection is an absolute mess, and the Panthers go into Shark Week mode.
If you can get pressure with your base down linemen and confuse an offensive line with who’s rushing and who’s covering, every week is Shark Week. Now, Aaron Rodgers has to deal with the NFL’s best aligner of fronts and coverages, and there’s proof enough on tape — even in his most remarkable season — that this is the one way to upend him.