Acme Packing Company
It’s a short week and I’ve been busy, so let’s skip the preamble and just dive in. In this space, we take a look at what the Green Bay Packers’ passing game did in the last game. Let’s get to the breakdown of Monday night’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
From a numbers perspective, this was not a great game from QB1. It was Jordan Love’s worst game of the season by completion% (55.6%), yards per attempt (4.9), QB Rating (68.8), EPA per Dropback (-0.24) and Completion Over Expecation (-1.9%). (All numbers per NFL Pro.)
As is generally the case, I don’t think he looked quite as bad as the numbers make it appear. He had 1 throwaway and, by my charting, 6 drops (2 of the drops were on 3rd down, 1 was on 4th down, and the combined for ~130 lost yards). If we doctor the numbers a little (take away the throwaway from the attempts, add in the drops as completions and lost yardage as passing yardage), the line looks like this: 26/35 (74.3%), 306 yards (11.8 YPA). Looking at the numbers in that way is not always the best way to look at it (the game changes if the drops are completions, so there’s no guarantee all the drops are in the same location on the same drives, etc.), but, since I charted it, I’m making you look at it. It’s a fun little thought experiment if nothing else.
For the game, Love was under pressure on 40.5% of his dropbacks (his 2nd-highest pressure rate this year) despite only being blitzed on 9.5% of his dropbacks. His average time to throw was 2.85 seconds, which was 12th in the league this week. For the season, Love has an average time to throw of 2.84 seconds.
That combination of numbers paints a picture of a QB who was being consistently pressured — without being blitzed — but not holding onto the ball. That marries up pretty well with what the film showed. Love didn’t put together a defensive-shredding performance, but I thought he played well enough to win and operated the passing offense much better than I thought after watching it live.
Maybe Love could stop throwing balls that hit receivers in the back of the head…
…or perfectly-placed in-cutters on 3rd down…
…or passes that hit a player in the numbers on 4th down…
…or passes that hit a player in the hands with less than 2 minutes to go in a 3 point game…
…maybe then the passing numbers would look a little better.
Really, LaFleur should just call more “players catch the ball” plays. Then it would all be sunshine and roses.
I am, of course, being facetious. But there’s also some truth in it. My problem has been less about what LaFleur is calling or how Love is operating and more with some of the finer details. Too many dropped passes. Too many players running the wrong routes. Too many miscommunications.
And it’s...
