Paul Bretl | 11/14/2024
GREEN BAY, Wis. — As the Packers search for more consistency in the second half of the season, a key component to achieving that on the offensive side of the football will start with improved play and efficiency in the red zone.
As dynamic as this Packers’ offense is, ranking ninth in points per game scored and entering Week 11 with the most explosive plays generated, their red zone woes have proven difficult to overcome. Now 10 games into the season, the sample size is large enough for us to say that the Packers haven’t been a good red zone offense. Their success rate in converting red zone visits to touchdowns sits at 47.1 percent, the fourth-lowest mark in the league.
“You look at everything,” said Jordan Love of the team’s red zone woes. “You look at the plays we’re running, and then obviously execution of the plays we’re running. Both of those things are things we’re going to have to clean up and be better going forward but I definitely think looking back on it there’s plays to be had down there, it just comes down to going out there and making those plays.”
Moving the ball in the red zone can already be an innately more difficult task given that it is a condensed part of the field and there is less space to operate in. Then in some instances, you tip your cap to the defense for dialing up the right play.
However, the Packers also aren’t doing themselves any favors in that part of the field either. The same self-inflicted pre-snap penalties, off-target throws, dropped passes, and even turnovers that have plagued this offense for much of the season, are also happening in the red zone–putting themselves in a hole that they just can’t consistently dig themselves out of, and truthfully, not many offenses can.
In the past, when discussing red zone success, we’ve heard Matt LaFleur highlight the importance of having a good run game to lean on inside the opponent’s 20 yard line. Well, the Packers have that with Josh Jacobs. As a team, Green Bay is averaging 5.0 yards per rush, the fourth-best mark this season, while individually, Jacobs ranks fourth in rushing yards at an efficient 4.8 yards per attempt.
But the trickle-down effect of a pre-snap penalty or an incomplete pass is that the run game–even if effective overall–then has to take a back seat. When facing a second or third-and-long situation, offenses often have to abandon the run in an effort to get back on track and make up for the lost yardage on early downs.
“I certainly think there’s some things that we can improve upon,” said LaFleur on Wednesday. “I think the other thing that we’ve kind of have done to ourselves is we’ve put ourselves in some unfavorable situations with penalties, that’s not just back, in, and usually it’s harder to run it down there.
“But when you’re in those get back on track situations, you know, you’re generally you’re going to pass it more you most often I would tell you, just to try to get yourself either to stay out of third down or to get yourself in a more manageable third down because if, if you get to third and 7, 8, 9, 10 in the red area, I mean that is, that’s tough sledding.”
Turning things around this week won’t be an easy task either. Although the Chicago Bears are certainly struggling on the offensive side of the ball, their defense has proven to be a stout and difficult matchup this season. The Bears are responsible for forcing 16 takeaways, tied for the seventh-most, while their pass rush ranks fourth in pressure rate.
In the red zone specifically, Chicago has been the best in football, with opposing offenses finding the end zone on only 37 percent of their visits inside the 20-yard line–although, of note given our previous discussion, the Bears are allowing 4.8 yards per rush as a team, ranking 29th in that category.
With that said, any sort of red zone success and improved efficiency begins with the Packers, to a degree, getting out of their own way and minimizing the self-inflicted errors. It sounds simple: eliminate the flags, etc., but obviously, it’s not. These are issues that have been persistent since Week 1, and they were again on display in Green Bay’s most recent game against Detroit.
“It’s just consistency,” said Christian Watson of improved red zone play. “We’re just getting ourselves there and then backing ourselves up or just having negative plays. We just gotta find a way to be more consistent when we get down there. I mean we get ourselves down there and then we take a step back.
“We know if we want to get where we want to go we can’t shoot ourselves in the foot. So obviously it sounds simple and really the problems themselves are simple, but we haven’t found a solution yet. So clearly we gotta do a little bit more of a deep dive into it and just find a way to be more consistent.”