In this world that can often be filled with pain, finding happiness and beauty is important. The quiet moment after you finish a good book. A first kiss. The smell of puppy breath. The sound of distant thunder. Basking in the glow of a sunset on the beach. Watching your team curb stomp a division opponent in their own house in a late-season game with playoff implications. 

It’s the little things. 

To the passing chart!

A beautiful chart. Some calculated shots downfield, a lot of quick game and some checkdowns to the middle when the defense left it vacated. I know the lack of targets to the middle of the field will cause some folks to wonder why Love didn’t go to that area very often, but it’s a pretty simple answer: this defense is insane. They’ll load up the line with bodies, then either bring them all or drop some into coverage. Against a defense like that, the middle of the field can get muddy in a hurry. Trying to figure out who is dropping from the middle of the line can cause hesitation in a QB, and hesitation equals death. The plan was to use quick-game concepts (Hank and Stick, mainly) to pepper the outside and stay away from the mud in the middle, but give Love options in the middle in cases where the defense fans out. 

Let’s talk about that blitzing defense, because they were blitzing out of their minds this week. The Vikings have been the most blitz-heavy defense in the league this year (per PFF), but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a defense blitz 75.8% of an opponent’s dropbacks, which is what the Vikings did to Love.

And how did Love do against the blitz? He was absolutely nails. Against the blitz, Love was 18/25 (72%) for 200 yards (8.0 YPA) and 2 TDs. Packers receivers had 2 drops on those blitzes, bringing his adjusted completion percentage to 83.3%.

One interesting thing to me about Love’s performance against the blitz this week was his ADOT (Average Depth Of Target). That’s something I’ve been talking about quite a bit this year, because Love’s performance against pressure was something that was in the forefront of my mind (and I know I’m not the only one). As the season has gone on, his ADOT when facing the blitz has been somewhere in the 5.5-6.0 yard range. Against the Vikings this week, his ADOT was 8.9 yards. That’s in stark contrast to the 4.7 ADOT he posted in his first meeting with the Vikings.

In this game, LaFleur did a great job at giving Love options against the blitz, and Love did a tremendous job sorting everything out. This Vikings defense under Brian Flores lives in the chaos. They’ll show 7 blitzers at the line and drop 4 of them into coverage. Or they’ll bring all 7. Or they’ll bring 6 with a Green Dog option on the 7th. All the while, they’ll be rotating coverage on the back end into a variety of looks. Facing this shifting monster, LaFleur crafted a gameplan with a lot of quick-game options paired with some deeper shot options if Love wanted them. He also pared down the RPO usage (RPOs made up ~18% of the Packers offense this week, as opposed to the high 20% we’ve been seeing lately). The idea seemed to be to simplify the offense a bit, while giving Love some really nice options. And Love excelled while running it.

We’re going to look at two plays today. And, since I just talked about some of those gameplanny moments I liked, I thought we’d see how that looked in practice. I never really tie the film stuff to the stuff I talk about above, so I thought I’d give it a shot and see how it works.

In both of these plays, we’ll be looking at the Packers pairing a quick-game concept (Hank) with a longer-developing concept (Cross-Country Dagger).

Hank is a quick-game staple that consists of the outside receiver running a hook route and the inside receiver running a flat route (with the flat route sometimes coming from the backfield). We’ve seen the Packers lean on that concept a little heavier this year than we’ve seen in the past. They’ve done some nice work with it when pairing it with the quick/cheat motion, but that isn’t present on either of the plays today.

Cross-Country Dagger is a variation of Dagger, which has been around for a very long time. Dagger consists of the inside receiver running a vertical “through” route and the outside receiver running a dig route behind it. Cross-Country Dagger takes that “through” route and converts it to a crosser. The idea is that if the crosser isn’t open, it will have cleared space in the middle for the dig. In both of the examples we’re looking at today, the dig on this concept comes off jet motion. That’s something we’ve seen the Packers do quite a bit this year with great success. It’s not really something you can do unless you have speed at the receiver position. Thankfully, the Packers have that.

Combining these two against this Vikings team worked really well. Hank gives you quick-game answers against pressure: a quick-hitter to the perimeter. Cross-Country Dagger puts the crossing route over the action of Hank, giving Love a nice option to move to if he doesn’t like what he’s seeing on Hank. The action of Hank also helps to draw up the deeper defenders, opening a window for the crosser.

Play 1: 1st & 10, 6:37 remaining in the 3rd quarter

The Packers are in 11 personnel, running Hank on the left and Cross-Country Dagger from the right. The Vikings are showing pressure off the left side, so Love is eyeing that and thinking about getting the ball out quickly if they bring that pressure.

At the snap, both men come rushing off the edge, leaving a huge vacant space for Tucker Kraft [85] on the flat. Love doesn’t waste any time: he gets the ball quickly to Kraft in space, who picks up 10 yards thanks to elbow grease, gumption and some nice contact balance.

Quick processing & release from Love and some nice running from Kraft. (A little side note: it’s hard not to be extremely hyped about Kraft’s future after what he’s been showing at the back half of the season. He seems like a dude.)

Play 2: 3rd & 1, 0:54 remaining in the 3rd quarter

The Packers are - once again - in 11 personnel. This time they're running Hank on the right and Cross-Country Dagger from the left. The Vikings are showing 6 men at the line and they end up bringing all 6. Love hits the back foot of his drop and is set to throw to the hook route in Hank, but the defense has seen this before and they’re collapsing on it. That tells Love that he has a window to hit Bo Melton [80] on the crosser. Melton is being picked up by the defender in the middle of the field, who is flat-footed as Melton crosses.

The boundary is pinned down by Hank and Melton has a clear path on the crosser. Love just needs to buy time.

The Packers full slide protection to the right, which leaves Patrick Taylor [27] on Jordan Hicks [58] on the left side. With the Vikings bringing all 6 defenders, the Packers have 6 back to block. The Vikings line is pushing on the Packers up front, but it holds up for just long enough. Love hops back and throws a fadeaway to Melton.

Beautifully done. Love does a nice job transitioning off the footwork from Hank to knowing exactly what he needed to do to create the time needed to hit the crosser. Great decision-making from Love and a great play to pull it off.

As I do every week, I got a chance to sit down and break down some plays with John Kuhn. John was really impressed with the protection calls as well as the Packers use of motion to keep the Vikings off-balance, so that’s where the bulk of our focus was.

Albums listened to: The Beatles - Love; Radiohead - OK Computer; Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream; Pixies - Doolittle; Nirvana - In Utero