Acme Packing Company
During the season, I like to look around the league and see what other teams are doing in the passing game. It’s a good way to get familiar with other offenses around the league, but it also works as a bit of a thought experiment when it comes to the Green Bay Packers’ offense. When I see something cool, I immediately start thinking about how the Packers could steal that play and work it into their offense.
The playoffs are a lot of fun for this kind of thing. There are fewer plays (which means I can watch a higher percentage of them), but you can also get some truly imaginative designs.
Today, we are here to steal a couple of those designs. Today, we’re stealing a couple plays from the Bills.
The Bills are in 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR). Before the snap, they fast motion (Packers legend) Mecole Hardman [16] into the formation. The Broncos anticipate Hardman to shoot out the other side, so they bump coverage to accommodate for that.
At the snap, Hardman reverses back to the right. With tight ends Dawson Knox [88] and Jackson Hawes [85] releasing inside at the snap and Ray Davis [22] looking like he’s releasing to the right, Hardman gets lost in the wash.
Josh Allen [17] finds Hardman wide open in the flat for a touchdown.
If we’re stealing this for the Packers, we could go a couple different directions. Down in the low red zone, I think I like this to go with the 6OL package. So we’re running this out of 611 personnel, with Darian Kinnard [70] as the inside man in the YY Wing look. Since we’re stealing for 2026, Tucker Kraft [85] is back in the mix, so he’s the outside man in the YY Wing. Josh Jacobs is our RB, although I could easily be convinced for this to be Chris Brooks. Christian Watson [9] is our wide man on the left and Matthew Golden [0] is our motion man. I originally had Jayden Reed in this role, but, since Hardman is starting by being split wide, I felt Golden was the better option.
Since this is a Mesh concept, a nice variation to this would be Mesh Traffic, with Golden releasing through the opposite B gap on a Slither route. So as not to muck up the spacing, Kinnard will stay back to block while Jacobs will release to the right flat.
This has been a staple in the Bills playbook for a while. Really, it’s a Joe Brady staple, which means it was also a staple for Joe Burrow at LSU. The play itself is pretty simple: this is an RPO (Run Pass Option). It’s an inside run with a Slant passing tag for Keon Coleman [0] on the outside.
This is typically a post-snap...
