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The Green Bay Packers strolled to a win over the Minnesota Vikings that only saw their defense play a total of 44 plays, so the team should be relatively rested for their upcoming game against the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving. Let’s take you through all of the changes on the team’s depth chart, along with how the team responded to some injuries in the game.
As always, cells contain players’ weekly snap counts. These do not include spikes, kneels or plays with pre-snap penalties (like a false start) but do include plays with post-snap penalties (like holding). Cells in red mean that a player was unable to suit up for action due to injury. Cells in yellow mean that a player was unable to finish the game due to injury. Cells in black mean that a player was a healthy scratch for that week.
As we wrote about last week, the Packers’ post-Tucker Kraft plan to play lighter personnel ended with their loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Since then, the team has been playing much heavier personnel on offense.
For example, here’s the rate of Green Bay playing three wide receivers over the last three weeks:
If it’s up to Matt LaFleur, the Packers are going to be very heavy and run the football. Keep that in mind moving forward.
Jordan Love didn’t have to miss any snaps with his shoulder separation, but Malik Willis did get in against the Vikings in garbage time. I want to point something out here that I noticed on film. Because Love wasn’t able to hand off with both hands, the Packers weren’t able to throw some of the run alerts that they usually do during games. With Love only being able to hand off with his right hand, the way he’s having to have to turn to give the ball to his backs, at times, takes his eyes away from the read. There were some yards left on the field on Sunday, but there’s not much you can do about it until Love’s shoulder is fully healed.
Chris Brooks saw an uptick of snaps this week, compared to last week’s effort when Emanuel Wilson played 35 snaps to Brooks’ 5. There’s pretty huge run-pass splits between the two backs right now. Wilson ran the ball 28 times on 36 total snaps (78 percent) compared to Brooks running the ball just 8 times on 29 snaps (28 percent).
Maybe the team can live like that, but it’s a huge tell at the moment.
Beyond the tailbacks, it’s worth mentioning that tight end Josh Whyle played seven snaps as a fullback against the Vikings, more than any other player in any other week this season. The team seems to like him in that role.
With Jayden Reed and Matthew Golden out, Dontayvion Wicks was the primary slot receiver in this...
