Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur and quarterback Jordan Love helped describe what happened on the botched snap between Love and center Josh Myers that ended Green Bay’s first offensive possession on Saturday night against the New England Patriots.
In short, Myers believed the Patriots jumped offside, so he snapped the ball early thinking the Packers had a free play in store. The end result was the ball flying past Love, who wasn’t yet expecting the snap, and the Patriots recovering the fumble at the 18-yard line.
“On that play, we have what’s called a double cadence, and after the first cadence, it looked like the DE on the right side might have jumped, and that’s what Josh saw and felt, and that’s why he snapped it right there. My eyes weren’t ready, weren’t on the snap at that point,” Love said Saturday night. “Obviously, the ball went back behind me, something we never want to happen…just a miscommunication. Thinking we have a free play, jumping offsides. Something we have to clean up.”
The Patriots immediately scored a touchdown after recovering the fumble to take a 7-0 lead. After another empty possession, Love and the Packers got the ball for a third time and drove 93 yards to tie the game. But the turnover came on an unforced mistake, ended a promising opening drive and gave New England a golden opportunity to get on the scoreboard first.
LaFleur said the Packers teach Myers and the centers to snap the ball if a line-of-scrimmage player enters the neutral zone on the first “dummy” cadence from the quarterback. The problem? While the defensive end flinched, he wasn’t in the neutral zone, and Love wasn’t ready for the ball.
“Basically, we’re using a dummy cadence, and one of their d-linemen flinched, but he didn’t go into the neutral zone. When that happens, so we teach the centers to snap the ball if they cross into the neutral zone. It didn’t appear their d-lineman went into the neutral zone, and Jordan wasn’t ready for the ball.”
Bottom line: Myers misread the play, and Love wasn’t able to salvage the situation.
The preseason is the right time to make mistakes, learn from the issue and get better moving forward. Unforced turnovers — especially from a third-year center like Myers — can’t happen during the regular season, when the margin for error for Love and the Packers won’t be big and every mistake will be costly.