I’ve been in a really interesting position this week. As someone who has been writing about the Packers offense for 10 years – and as someone who is currently doing the same for the Colts – I’ve been able to watch both teams offenses with the other defense in mind. What can the Colts do to attack the Packers defense and vice versa.
In this space, let’s just get into the Packers offense. What can we expect to see them do this weekend?
It’s a tricky question. If Jordan Love was under center, I’d have a pretty clear answer. With Malik Willis at the helm, there’s no way to no for sure. So let’s talk about how the Packers typically like to operate and what that could mean.
When the phrase “Shanahan Coaching Tree” is uttered, it tends to conjure up a specific image of an offense. A Wide Zone centered run-attack, countered by play action and bootlegs. Lots of horizontal movement up front and flood passing concepts behind it (sending 3-4 men into the same area of a field).
While there’s some truth in that, the offense as a whole has shifted away from some of that. You’ll certainly see some of that wide zone run game, but the Packers offense has been getting into more power concepts over the last few years. They’ll run a lot of Duo (an inside zone run that creates multiple double-teams that can be described as “power without pulling”), and they’ve also started running more power concepts with pullers. When they do that, you’ll often see a tight end pulling as well. That allows the Packers to get bodies at the point of attack while only having to pull one lineman. As the guy who seems to be TE1 this year, Tucker Kraft has been a big part of this part of their game. All 5 of their starting linemen can move well in space, so they will use all of them as pullers, making it hard to predict where they’ll attack.
In the passing game, they like to use play action and attack the middle of the field. On the play action front, they’re typically in the 26% range (they’ve average 26.4% play action since LaFleur became head coach, and they’ve typically stayed within about 1% of that each year, per NFL Pro). With Willis at the helm, I expect that number to spike this week.
As for attacking the middle of the field, I don’t think that’s going to be a huge part of their offense. Willis has been known to be a bit erratic with his accuracy, posting a career 52.2% completion percentage (across 67 attempts). That’s all well-and-good if you’re spraying balls toward the sideline, but a sailed throw in the middle of the field can spell doom, especially if a safety is lurking in the middle of the field. And, with as much as Gus Bradley loves his Cover 3, there will most certainly be a safety in the middle of the field.
Two of the Packers favorite passing concepts involve attacking the middle of the field: Strike and Dagger. Strike is a quick-hitting concept off of play action, designed to hit an in-cutter into the area that should be vacated by the linebackers.
Dagger is a two-man concept, with a clear-out route from the inside and an in-cutter working behind it. At the moment, the Packers seem to favor Cross-Country Dagger, which pairs an intermediate crossing route with an in-cutter. With Willis they may favor the more vertical Middle Read Dagger, which gives the inside man a vertical release and the option to either run a post vs. two-high coverage or break off on a deep in-cutter vs. single-high coverage.
As far as personnel usage, the Packers were one of the heaviest users of 12 personnel last year (1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR) at 31.8%, per SumerSports. They used 11 (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) personnel on 63.2% of their snaps. Though it’s only one game so far, we saw them lean heavier into 11 personnel in their Week 1 match-up against the Eagles. In that game, they ran 11 personnel on 74.6% of snaps and 12 personnel on 19.4% of snaps. I anticipate that higher usage of 11 to continue this week.
So what can you expect to see out of the Packers offense? With Willis at QB, I would expect to see the offense run predominantly out of 11 personnel, utilizing a lot of pre-snap motion and pulling offensive linemen. Sometimes the pullers will be to attack with the run game, and sometimes they will simply be a way to trigger the linebackers to play the run, then try to hit something behind it.
We’ll see a lot of moving pockets. I doubt we’ll see many straight dropback reps from Willis. Lots of play action (they’ll blow that 26.4% mark out of the way) and bootlegs. Lots of RPOs. I think the passing attack will be fairly scaled-back, with the majority of the targets coming outside the numbers, with a handful of throws to the middle off play action. We’ll see a couple of max-protect deep shots. It wouldn’t shock me in the slightest if they opened the game with a heavy play action shot. While accuracy is a question, his arm is not: dude can absolutely sling it. Not quite on the Anthony Richardson level, but Willis is not lacking in arm strength by any stretch of the imagination.
While they’ve never truly unleashed it, there have been enough zone read/triple option moments to know that the Packers have a package of those plays. With what is likely to be a run-heavy gameplan, this feels like the week we’ll see that. Over the course of his career, Willis has had 82 pass dropbacks and 32 rushing attempts. That’s a run rate of 28.1%. We’ll see some called QB runs with Willis, but we’ll also see some unplanned scrambles.
And, lastly, trick plays. The Packers haven’t been particularly successful with trick plays under LaFleur – they failed on a flea flicker in Week 1 – but if ever there was going to be a kitchen sink game from them, this feels like the time. I don’t know precisely how deep their bag of tricks runs, but we’ll likely see 2-3 trick plays this weekend.
For many reasons it’s a game I’m really excited about. There is certainly an element of the unknown involved with this QB situation, but there’s a heavy dose of known, as well. They’re not going to fully abandon their base offense just because someone new is under center.
Albums listened to: Nada Surf – Moon Mirror; Foxing – Foxing