Acme Packing Company
I tell you, I’ve seen more frustrating games, but I really can’t remember when (Week 3 of this year, actually). Watching live, this felt like a game where the Green Bay Packers just kept shooting themselves in the foot, and I haven’t seen many stats since then that have suggested otherwise. Looking at this drive chart and it’s insane to think that the Packers only scored 13 points.
In this space, we’re focusing on the performance of the passing game, so let’s get to it.
That deep interception looms large in the outcome of the game (and we’ll get to it shortly), as does the lack of a touchdown pass. But, overall, it’s not a bad-looking chart. A lot of attempts between 0-10 yards, a decent peppering at 11-20 and a handful of deep shots. On the day, Jordan Love’s ADOT (Average Depth of Target) was 8.8 yards, his highest since the Week 2 game against the Commanders (per NFL Pro). Man, Week 2 feels like a lifetime ago.
You can go down the list of the numbers from the game – as well as the film – and they all tell some version of the same story: down-to-down, the passing game functioned well. They moved the ball well all day through the air, but they just didn’t finish with points.
Love completed 70.3% of his passes for 7.4 YPA (adjusted completion% of 74.3%, per RBSDM). His EPA Per Dropback of +0.14 was behind his league-leading +0.26 EPA Per Dropback, but it still ranked 10th in the league this week.
The Packers only used play action on 18.4% of their dropbacks this week, their lowest mark of the year (they’re at 29.6% on the season, the 4th highest rate in the league). That wasn’t a mistake: the Panthers are the 4th best defense in the league this year against play action, sporting an EPA Per Dropback of -0.12 against play action attempts this year. Not to step on my Eagles preview, but I would imagine we’ll see the play-action rate shoot up this week.
It certainly was not a fun watch – two turnovers and a 20% TD rate in the red zone will do that to you – but, on a windy day, the passing game operated pretty well. The Packers ended the day with 265 net passing yards, which equaled the total yards generated by the Panthers. Obviously, you need to finish drives and score points, but after going through the game, I have far fewer issues with the passing game than I thought I would.
Alright, let’s take a look at a couple of plays. Today we’re looking at a couple of big plays: one good, one bad.
The game was scoreless at this point, with Xavier McKinney intercepting Bryce Young in the end zone to end the Panthers’ drive. The Packers started this drive with a 2-yard loss by Josh Jacobs, then an incomplete...
