Paul Bretl | 12/27/2024
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Led by Josh Jacobs, the run games has been a catalyst for the Packers’ success on offense over the last month-plus. However, this Sunday in Minnesota, it could be tough sledding for the Green Bay rushing attack.
The Vikings’ defense will enter Week 17 surrendering just 3.9 yards per rush, tied for the second-lowest average in football this season. By ESPN’s run-stop rate metric, Minnesota ranks fourth, and in expected points contributed, the Vikings’ run defense ranks second.
Individually, the Vikings have three defensive linemen who rank in the top 50 out of over 200 eligible edge rushers and defensive tackles in the total number of run stops.
Defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ willingness to blitz often helps to create some of those negative plays in the run game. But in addition to that, similarly to the pressure looks that the Vikings will give you, there is a lot of movement and disguising within the front seven that creates additional challenges for an offensive line.
“They have a lot of guys in the box and they kinda play from the front end to the back end as far as like they’ll still be in 2-high but they’ll have guys down at the line of scrimmage and then they’ll bail out, but in the run game they’ll be down there,” said offensive coordinator Adam Stenvich of the run defense.
“They do a good job moving up front. There’s a lot of movements that create advantageous looks for them or open guys and then the pressure, they bring guys from every direction so they can create a lot of negative plays if you’re mistargeted or if you don’t see a guy blitzing and you’re not ready for it.”
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For a Packers offense that struggled in the red zone and on third downs through the first half of the season, Jacobs and the run game has provided stability in those key facets of the game since the bye week as Matt LaFleur has leaned more heavily into that run game element.
Jacobs is currently fourth in the NFL in rush attempts this season and fourth in rushing yards. His ability to make defenders miss has made him one of the more elusive backs in football, which in turn, has led to him also being one of the best at generating big plays with the fifth-most rushes of 10-plus yards.
That ability to regularly move the ball on the ground does wonders for the rest of the offense. For starters, it keeps the offense ahead of the sticks and out of those pesky predictable long down-and-distance situations. Then when operating from those second and third-and-short situations, it opens up the entire playbook for Matt LaFleur, and opportunities in the passing game to be exploited with the defense having to defend the entire field and be ready for just about anything.
“That opens up just a lot of things that we can get to,” said Tucker Kraft of Jacobs and the run game. “We can get to play pass, and we got shots off the runs that we have. So just opens the playbook up even more. And we don’t even have to get to those plays. We just still rely on our backs.”
Particularly in the few games leading up to the most recent contest against New Orleans, we saw the Packers lean heavily on their gap blocking scheme, with Jacobs often being tasked with running between the tackles. While the offense found initial success doing that, with each passing week, opposing defenses seemed to respond more quickly and make the proper adjustments to slow Jacobs down.
Examples of this include the Detroit and Seattle games, where early success on the ground was met by some very tough sledding in the second halves of those games. This then had the opposite effect of what was described above with the offense more often operating from long down-and-distances and in obvious passing situations, where now the defense has the upper hand.
“There’s a few factors,” said Stenavich of the Packers’ second half struggles, “I think last game (vs. Seattle), it was just a matter of getting drives going. But yeah, that’s something we’ve got to make sure when we go out there we are still locked in, we don’t have those negative plays, and we’re doing a great job communicating. There’s a few busts, but that’s a focus thing we’ve just got to make sure we’re focused for four quarters, for sure.”
However, against the Saints, we saw the Green Bay offense showcase the versatility of their running game. Not only did nine different players carry the ball in that game, but we saw a heavier usage of outside zone rushing concepts, with the ball carriers getting outside the tackle box.
Putting those outside zone runs on film a week ago, could be something that also pays dividends this week against Minnesota. For starters, getting the receivers involved in the run game adds another wrinkle to the equation that defenders have to be mindful of.
These outside runs also serve as a reminder to defenses that while, yes, the Packers do want to run the ball, opponents have to be ready for both gap and outside zone blocking schemes. This is just another layer of unpredictability that’s then added to the Packers’ offense, with the defense having to be prepared for both running styles and forcing them to defend the entire field, helping to create space and potential running lanes to exploit.
“We wanted to run a little bit outside zone tonight and we did,” said Sean Rhyan after the Saints game. “That’s kind of our base, core O-line thing is we’re an outside zone team and we’ve been going to a little bit gap scheme these past few weeks. Tonight was really good because it let’s teams know that we still got outside. You can’t let those edges get soft now. It was real good.”
While it won’t come easy against this Vikings’ front seven, finding a way to lean on the run game, at least to some degree, will be important for the Packers’ offense, and accomplishing that could start and end with Green Bay’s ability to keep the Minnesota defense off-balanced, rushing both inside and out.
If that doesn’t happen, the alternative is becoming pass-heavy and one-dimensional, which plays right into the hands of this aggressive, blitz-heavy Minnesota defense.