As we do every week in this space, we’re looking at some stats from the Green Bay Packers’ most recent game, courtesy of SumerSports. Today we’re looking at the 23-13 victory over the Dallas Cowboys in Week 6.
Offense
The Packers have switching up their personnel groupings quite a bit on a game-by-game basis, which I always like to see. Stay unpredictable. Become ungovernable. Against the Bears in Week 5, we saw the Packers dial back their usage of 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) quite a bit. In that game they
were out of 11 personnel 54.2% of the time. This week they dialed that up:
It was a good attack plan, as that personnel grouping was their best group while passing…
…and while running.
It’d be nice to get a rushing attack that could actually be decent, but the passing game has really improved as the offensive line has solidified. Who knew?! In this game, Jordan Love averaged 2.7 seconds to throw and had an ADOT (Average Depth of Target) of 9.7 yards. That’s a good, functional passing offense. That felt impossible only a few weeks ago.
The Cowboys played primarily Cover 3 in this game, and Love shredded that coverage, going 10/14 for 142 yards (+0.38 EPA per Play). He also shredded the blitz, going 8/12 for 100 yards (+0.52 EPA per Play) when blitzed.
The Packers pass rate of 62.9% feels about right. They would have been over 65% for the game if they didn’t take the air out of the ball in the 4th quarter (46.7% pass rate in the 4th). With as inept as the run game has looked this year I’d like to see that pass rate up just a bit, but hovering around 65% feels right with where this team currently is.
Sure would be nice if Matthew Golden got his hands figured out (which is baffling, considering that seemed to be one of the stronger points in his game), but he still turned in a nice game. He notched 6 catches on 13 targets for 104 yards and a TD (+1.74 EPA per Reception). His average depth of target of 15.62 yards was 4.9 yards above the NFL average. Just imagine what his numbers would have looked like if he didn’t drop two TD passes.
They continue to switch up their run attack depending on the opponent. They went about 50/50 this week, with 46.1% of their run game fitting into zone buckets and the rest into man/gap buckets.
Did it work? Man, not really, but I like their attack plan. They’ve shown some improvement up front in terms of blocking, but the run game just hasn’t been good this year.
Defense
The Packers defense did a great job keeping the Cowboys offense off-balance all game, and they did that by generating pressure on Dak Prescott. Gannon has done a nice job at switching up defensive tendencies each week. This week the Packers blitzed on 35.71% of snaps, and generated pressure on 41.07% of dropbacks. Beyond blitzes, the stacked front looks bothered Prescott whether the Packers brought pressure or not. On the game, Prescott wasn’t good whether he was blitzed (-0.16 EPA per Play) or not blitzed (-0.24 EPA per Play).
Those numbers would look even better for the Packers defense if they didn’t get hit with a couple pretty ticky-tack roughing the passer calls.
In terms of passing zones, Prescott had a couple underneath zones he had success throwing to, but there’s a lot of red in this chart.
Dani Dennis-Sutton continues to show up every week. This week he had a pressure rate of 22.7% (8.56% above NFL average), with an average time to pressure of 2.67 seconds.
Albums listened to: Eels – Cookie Happened
