Acme Packing Company
What a way to kick off the season. Matt LaFleur gets to open the season at home for the first time in his career and the Packers knock off the Lions 27-13, in a game that didn’t even feel that close.
In this space, we look at how the Packers passing game performed the previous week. So let’s start with the NFL Next Gen Passing Chart:
Love completed 72.7% of his passes for a QB Rating of 128.6 with an ADOT (Average Depth of Target) of 11.5 yards (per RBSDM). Per NFL Pro, Love EPA per Dropback of +0.42 in the game, 3rd highest in the league in Week 1. For reference, Lamar Jackson led the NFL in EPA per Play in 2024 with +0.29. NFL Pro points out that “Love was most successful attacking the intermediate area (10-19 air yards), completing 6 of 8 passes for 108 yards and two touchdowns.”
The Packers used play action on 30.4% of their pass attempts, up from 24.2% in 2024 and 25.7% in 2023. It’s tough to draw any long-term conclusions from a single game with 23 dropbacks, but this is certainly something to monitor as the season progresses.
The talk about this game will revolve around the defense – and rightly so – but Love played really well on a day when the run game didn’t really find its footing until late.
I mentioned the two touchdowns earlier, so let’s take a look at those today.
The Packers are in 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) in the High Red Zone (between the 11-20 yard line). They’re in a shotgun set, with Josh Jacobs [8] aligned to Jordan Love’s left. They’re in a 2×2 formation, with a two-man stack of Jayden Reed [11] and Matthew Golden [0] split wide on the right. Dontayvion Wicks [13] is in a tight split on the left, with Tucker Kraft [85] in-line.
The Lions are showing a two-high safety look pre-snap, and the two linebackers are shaded to the left (the strength of the formation). Before the snap, Jacobs goes in a quick-motion to the left and the linebackers bump over to that side. Jacobs then returns, but the Packers have picked up a nice little piece of information. It looks like Alex Anzalone [34] is going to be picking up Jacobs out of the backfield, leaving Jack Campbell [46] to take Kraft.
The Packers are looking to split the safeties, sending Jacobs, Wicks and Kraft vertical on the left and Golden vertical on the right. The Lions stay in their two-high look post-snap, and Brian Branch [32] – the safety over Wicks and Kraft – is put in a bind. With Campbell carrying Kraft up the middle and neither Wicks or Kraft declaring their breaks until late, Branch is held in place.
That helps keep the middle clean, giving Love enough room to hit Kraft over Campbell, before Branch can...
