Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur said a substitution mistake made on the opening drive of last Friday’s season opening loss to the Philadelphia Eagles cost the team a touchdown.
After a short second-down run by Josh Jacobs, the Packers tried to catch the Eagles substituting before a 3rd-and-6 play. Jordan Love got his team to the line of scrimmage and got the play off before the Eagles could finish the sub, creating a free play, which he used to hit Jayden Reed down the field for a 38-yard touchdown pass.
The problem? The Packers mistakenly tried substituting pre-snap, so offsetting penalties for 12 men on the field negated the touchdown.
LaFleur explained the mistake as part of a collection of mistakes made by the staff in terms of communication against the Eagles.
“It was evident on the first drive when we got called for 12 on the field when we tried to hurry up and catch them with 12 on the field. We can’t sub in that situation,” LaFleur said Monday. “We try to do a good job holding our subs. But we have to see the huddle. There was some communication (issues) on the headsets.”
By rule, the defense gets time to match a substitution if the offense changes personnel, so officials shouldn’t have even allowed the Packers to snap the ball. Had the Packers held their subs, the offense would have had 11 on the field and the touchdown on a free play would have counted.
The offsetting penalties negated what could have been a signature play early in the season for the Packers. Love caught the Eagles subbing into a different personnel group, got the snap off in time to create a free play and hit Reed on a vertical route, and Reed forced a missed tackle in the open field and scored a touchdown. The 38-yard score would have given the Packers a 7-0 lead with just under 12 minutes to go in the first quarter. Instead, Love and Christian Watson failed to connect on the play following the offsetting penalties and the Packers punted the ball away.
LaFleur also said the coaching message wasn’t properly communicated to Keisean Nixon to remain in the end zone on the final kickoff return. Nixon made an awkward catch roughly six yards deep in the end zone and still took the ball out, costing the Packers field position and time.
“Obviously it didn’t get clearly communicated what we wanted to get done in that situation. At no point do we ever want to, if the kick is seven yards deep and we have to jump to catch it…it’s the timing element. It’s, you get the ball at the 30-yard line. We were just trying to get into Hail Mary range, and those are valuable seconds. Obviously, I wasn’t clear with what we wanted, so that won’t happen again.”