Acme Packing Company
Taking a play from the Divisional Round and giving it to Green Bay
As someone who likes to write about football from a film perspective, the offseason can be a tricky thing to navigate. The Green Bay Packers didn’t extend their season into the Divisional Round (which I find to be pretty inconsiderate of them), so their offseason has already started. What is a film watcher to do when there is no more film?
The answer, of course, is to watch the film of other teams. Because there is still football being played and there are good and fun ideas everywhere.
So today - and throughout this long, dark offseason - we’re going to be watching teams around the league (and perhaps dipping into the college ranks), finding cool ideas & seeing how the Packers can run them. We’re kicking things off with a play from a Divisional rival: the Lions running a pitch/shovel against the Commanders.
I know it can be hard to praise a rival but man that’s a cool play. It’s creative while also being something that fits into the run attack. Let’s get into it.
The Lions are in 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) in 2x2 formation. Jared Goff [16] is in shotgun with David Montgomery [5] set to his left. They’re in a tight formation, with Amon Ra St. Brown [14] attached to the formation (but off the ball) on the right.
At the snap, Montgomery flares out and Goff pitches him the ball. On the left, Tim Patrick [17] initially looks like he’s cracking down on the line before releasing up to the slot. On the right, Christian Mahogany [73] and St. Brown pull to the left. From the initial movement of the blocking - combined with the pitch to Montgomery - this looks like an outside run.
With the linebackers flowing to the outside, Montgomery then pitches to St. Brown, who follows Mahogany through the line for a 20-yard gain.
Beautiful play, man. Great misdirection then knifing the defense in the spot they’ve vacated.
Now to the part relevant for our purposes: How can the Packers steal this?
They need to run it off a pitch play, which means they need to have that in their bag. While not a huge part of their attack, it’s something they have shown enough to establish it as a tendency, which is what you need to run this pitch/shovel as a counter.
So let’s start here: if the Packers were stealing this as-is, how does it look?
The best I could figure based on this alignment, would be Tucker Kraft [85] taking it. While Dontayvion Wicks [13] is a good blocker, he’s never attached to the line without a TE covering him up like St. Brown is on this play. Unless they establish that as a tendency, having Wicks in the TE spot feels like a huge giveaway. So it has to be Kraft.
I think this could work. Kraft isn’t the fastest...
