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Earlier this week, the Green Bay Packers’ main website featured a story about the ways head coach Matt LaFleur and quarterback Jordan Love communicate about game planning both during the week leading up to the game and during the game. Specifically, the first part of the article centered around a play call from week six last season versus the Arizona Cardinals, and a simple route adjustment made later in the half that resulted in a 44-yard touchdown pass from Love to Christian Watson.
The play call and in-game adjustment gives us a small glimpse into the on-the-fly planning that occurs in-game based on what the players and coaches are seeing. It was a route adjustment on a play action concept that Love suggested in preparation for week four but they never got the coverage they wanted to test it out. From the article:
“Again, nothing exciting with it had happened right away, until Love and LaFleur were sitting on the sidelines between drives, looking at the pictures on the tablets with the other coaches and QBs.”
On the sideline, the players and coaches print out screen shots of the all-22 because they are not allowed to look at film from previous drives so they rely on static images of the coverages. That didn’t prevent them from running the adjustment in week six. They noticed the coverage right away.
“We saw the leverage on the No. 2 receiver (Watson),” LaFleur said. “The defender was so far outside leverage, we were like, ‘Holy cow, if we post him back, there’s literally nobody out there. He’s going to be running away from the guy.'”
With just over 6 minutes left in the first quarter, LaFleur deployed 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TE) on 1st-and-10. The Packers started in a YY closed formation before putting Tucker Kraft in motion from the right tight end spot to the left to create a closed 3×1.
The Packers would be running a play action 3×1 dagger concept from the trips on the left after the motion but made a crucial change when Christian Watson ran a deep-corner route instead of his usual thru/vertical route while tight end Tucker Kraft took the deep-over route. Typically on dagger, the two outside receivers run the deep over and dagger route.
The Cardinals used their base defense to match up against the Packers while their backside corner defended tight end Ben Sims. Their post-snap rotation shows quarters versus a 3×1 with a “poach” safety on the back side looking to play top-down over anything deep and over from the #3 receiver, Kraft.
The backside safety followed Kraft on his over-route which exposed the deep half of the field to an open pass.
Love eventually completed the pass to Romeo Doubs for a 19-yard gain. The defensive strategy against this play became a mental note for LaFleur.
What the article didn’t mention was that LaFleur probed the defense a second time...
