Crossing Broad
Weird game from Nick Sirianni and Kevin Patullo on Monday night. It was reminiscent of early 2024, when the feel for decision making and offensive play calling was all over the place. They didn’t seem to know when to be aggressive and when to be conservative, an issue highlighted by several Will Shipley “give up” plays and then a fourth-down shot to A.J. Brown in a failed attempt to ice the game:
Not sure what Sirianni is doing in that clip, other than plating a word salad, but the correct call was to take a delay of game and then punt the ball.
To recap, the situation was 4th and 6 at the Green Bay 35 with 33 seconds on the clock. Packers had zero timeouts left. If you pin them back inside the 20, they have to go 50+ yards in about 27 seconds with no timeouts just to try a long, outdoor field goal. And if the punt goes into the end zone, they still have to go 40 yards in the same amount of time, again with no timeouts. Getting a +15 yard field flip doesn’t seem like much, and it isn’t, typically, but when you consider the clock and timeout situation, those 15 yards can go a long way at the very end of the game.
My sense is that they made this decision based on the success of the A.J. Brown sluggo against Isaiah Rodgers a few weeks ago in Minnesota. That was gutsy and worked well. You throw A.J. a 50/50 ball in single coverage and more often than not he’s catching it. I just think the situation called for something different this time around. A.J. was barely involved in this game and Jalen Hurts didn’t have his best passing day. Instead, they went aggressive when conservative was probably the call.
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