Acme Packing Company
The Green Bay Packers, quarterback Jordan Love, and head coach Matt LaFleur seemed to have all the answers they needed on Sunday to carve up the Chicago Bears and defensive coordinator Dennis Allen’s scheme.
However, this week’s contest against the Denver Broncos will feature a similar scheme with significantly better personnel for the Packers to try to beat.
Both Allen and Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph like to lean on aggressive, man coverage principles to shut passing games down, but Denver is having significantly more success doing so. According to FTN Fantasy, the Broncos rank eighth in the NFL in pass defense by DVOA, while the Bears rank 24th.
There are some slight differences to Chicago and Denver’s usage rates for Man coverage and blitzes, but it’s not by that wide of a margin. Denver runs the third-highest Man coverage in the league at 33.2 percent, while Chicago is a few ticks behind the Broncos at 30.6 percent.
According to Pro Football Reference, the Bears blitz slightly more than the Broncos, 28 percent to 26.7 percent, but Denver generates more consistent pressure on opposing quarterbacks. NFL Pro has the Broncos with the fourth-best pressure rate in the NFL at 39.5 percent, while the Bears are the fifth-worst team at 28.9 percent.
All of that is to say that the Broncos’ defense is a more dominant version of what the Packers faced last week, and that brings a unique test for this offense that’s getting its receivers back and healthy at exactly the right time.
Love seems particularly well equipped to handle this kind of defense in 2025, at least from what we’ve seen so far this season. According to Sumer Sports, Love has completed 68-of-116 passes (58.6 percent) for 927 yards, 16 touchdowns, and just one interception against Man coverage this season, chucking it downfield with an average depth of target of 10.3 yards downfield.
That shouldn’t be a surprise considering how Love carved up Chicago’s secondary last week.
The returns of Christian Watson and Jayden Reed should continue to give the Packers some answers against Man coverage, but Denver’s defense is still a brutal test for any passing game. Pat Surtain II is the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, and while he doesn’t have an interception this year, he’s allowing a passer rating of just 75.5 when targeted, allowing only one touchdown all year.
Denver’s defense also features waves of effective pass rushers, led by a likely All-Pro in Nik Bonitto, who has 12.5 sacks and 57 pressures this season. Between Bonitto, Zach Allen, and Jonathon Cooper, Denver’s top three pass rushers have a combined 150 pressures on the season.
This is a legitimate defense that will help gauge how far Green Bay’s offense has come over the course of the season, but the good news is that they at least come into this contest having found success against a similar one in a win last week.
