Acme Packing Company
The Green Bay Packers got back in the win column on Sunday against the New York Giants, and we’re here doing what we always do. Win or lose, rain or shine, we’re looking at the Packers’ passing game, and today that includes some incredible performances by quarterback Jordan Love and receiver Christian Watson. So let’s get started.
The raw numbers are nothing to write home about — no one is getting hyped over a 54.2% completion rate — but there’s quite a bit of context missing from just the numbers. I charted Packers receivers with 6 drops, accounting for ~92 lost yards. Add in those drops and lost yardage (and remove the throwaway) and Love is sitting on a line that looks a little better. That adjusted line is 19/23 (82.6%), 266 yards (11.6 YPA) and 2 TDs (143.8 QB Rating). Adjusting numbers is tricky business on all sides (the 3rd down drops likely lead to more yardage & more TD opportunities, but the game flow would change, potentially leading to either more or fewer attempts), but it’s a fun thought experiment.
I bring up the adjusted stat line for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that drops were a huge story in this game, and I wanted to make sure I was accounting for them in some way. The other reason is that the adjusted stat line tells a more accurate story of how Love played this past weekend.
NFL Pro also liked his performance. His EPA per Dropback of +0.25 was the 5th-highest mark of the week. For the season, Love is tied with Josh Allen for best EPA Per Dropback in the league at +0.20 (Drake Maye is 1st at +0.21).
The Packers made a point to push the ball down the field in this game, with Love sporting an ADOT (Average Depth of Target) of 13.2 yards, his second-highest mark of the season (his top mark was 14.5 ADOT against the Commanders in Week 2) and the highest ADOT for any QB in Week 11.
After a couple of weeks of not leaning into play action, the Packers got back to making it a big part of their offense this week. Their 33.3% play action rate was the highest since the Week 6 game against the Bengals (40.6%), and Love performed well, if not exactly in the way it was drawn up. On play action snaps, Love was 4/8 for 71 yards, for an EPA Per Dropback of +0.35. (One of those incomplete passes was a 14-yard drop.)
Breaking away from the numbers, Love looked really good in the film. I wrote about the passing game last week and stripped some of the blame away from Love. I still feel that mainly to be true, but, after having rewatched all of Love’s dropbacks a few times after writing that piece, I changed my mind slightly. He was still far from the main issue against the Eagles, but there were moments where he was more...
