Paul Bretl | 10/14/2024
GREEN BAY, Wis. — In the Packers Week 6 win on Sunday over the Arizona Cardinals, we saw on display what at the pass-catcher positions can do for an offense.
Jordan Love finished the day completing 22-of-32 passes for 258 yards with four touchdowns and an interception. Of those 22 completions, nine different players had at least one reception and 10 different players had a target.
Obviously, when this many pass-catchers are getting involved the distribution goes beyond just the receiver position. In addition to five different wide outs having a target for the Packers, so did two running backs and three tight ends.
“That’s just the glory of our offense, man,” said Jayden Reed at his locker. “We’ve got a lot of different players that can make plays. We distribute here. Got a lot of different playmakers, and you’ve got to game plan for that.”
While Jayden Reed has emerged as the top target and playmaker for the Packers in the first six games, this is still a wide receiver unit where the strength is in its numbers. If defenses try to key in on Reed and limit his production, the trickle-down effect is that it’s going to leave them exposed elsewhere, putting players like Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs and Dontayvion Wicks in one-on-one matchups, which all will exploit.
Magnifying the impact of this depth is Love’s willingness to spread the ball around. In most instances, how the defense reacts to the play design and what the read dictates will determine where Love will go with the ball.
Production-wise, it was a fairly modest day for each of the Packers’ pass catchers. Reed’s six receptions were the most in this game, Christian Watson’s 68 receiving yards led the team, and Doubs led the way with two touchdowns. But you put all of that together and spread the production out over nine different players, and overall, you get a very good performance from Love and the offense.
“I think that we have guys in every position that can make the play at any moment,” said Christian Watson after the game. “So when we got that complimentary football just within our offense guys who can make plays at any depth of the field that’s hard to defend that.”
This ability to spread the ball around adds more pressure for the defense. Opponents are unable to key in on one or even two players pre-snap, almost regardless of the situation. This then forces them to defend the entire field, creating better spacing for the Packers’ offense to operate within, along with one-on-one matchups to take advantage of.
“I think the more that other people are making plays, we know that the more plays there are that’s going to be made going forward,” said Watson. “They can’t guard everybody, they can’t guard everybody perfectly, scheme everything up perfectly, so the more people that get their hands on the ball, the more people that can make plays, the better off we’re going to be as an offense.”
With a number of options in the passing game comes a variety of skill sets as well. Matt LaFleur can take an a la carte-like approach as he builds out the weekly game plan, mixing and matching formations and play designs that can very specifically attack an opponent’s weaknesses and create mismatches. This element can also make game-planning for this Packers offense quite difficult because they can hurt you in a number of ways.
Going back to Sunday’s game against the Cardinals, beyond just the sheer number of pass-catchers who had opportunities, Love was able to attack really all parts of the field and LaFleur helped facilitate that by scheming up different route combinations–again, something that can only be done when there are different skill sets to work with.
“Man, Christian’s fast,” said Bo Melton. “Not only fast, he’s elusive. He can make big plays. At the end of the day, when you have him out there, defenses tend to back up. We play a similar role. I’m a deep threat at well, but with Christian, he’s 6-4. Nobody wants a 6-4 big old gazelle running at them looking like that, running a post like he had today – he’s dangerous.
“I appreciate him, all our wide receivers. We have J-Reed. We have Wicks. We have Malik. We have Rome. Myself. Just everybody brings a special treat. That’s why we’re so special.”
Making matters even more difficult for the Cardinals defense was that the Packers were also finding success in the run game. Green Bay finished the game with 179 rushing yards as a team at an efficient 4.7 yards per attempt.
All week, the emphasis for the Packers was on complementary football in all three phases–which they accomplished. Specifically on the offensive side of the ball, the Packers checked the box there as well with the passing game distribution and the marrying of the run and passing games off each other.
When everything just described about the passing game can be coupled with an effective run game–look out.
“I think that’s always the goal is to be able to have a great run game and a great pass game, just play off each other with both of those,” said Jordan Love after the game.
“And then explosive plays, that’s our mindset. We try to get those explosive plays and then obviously try and take care of the ball, which I think we still (need to) do a better job, build on that next week. But explosives, take care of the ball and have a balanced game is definitely something we want to be on offense.”