During the season, I like to look around the league and see what other teams are doing in the passing game. It’s a good way to get familiar with other offenses around the league, but it also works as a bit of a thought experiment when it comes to the Green Bay Packers’ offense. When I see something cool, I immediately start thinking about how the Packers could steal that play and work it into their offense.
The playoffs are a lot of fun for this kind of thing. There are fewer plays (which means I
can watch a higher percentage of them), but you can also get some truly imaginative designs.
Today, we are here to steal a couple of those designs. Today, we’re stealing a couple plays from the Bills.
Play 1: 2nd & 4, 00:10 remaining in the 1st quarter
The Bills are in 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR). Before the snap, they fast motion (Packers legend) Mecole Hardman [16] into the formation. The Broncos anticipate Hardman to shoot out the other side, so they bump coverage to accommodate for that.
At the snap, Hardman reverses back to the right. With tight ends Dawson Knox [88] and Jackson Hawes [85] releasing inside at the snap and Ray Davis [22] looking like he’s releasing to the right, Hardman gets lost in the wash.
Josh Allen [17] finds Hardman wide open in the flat for a touchdown.
If we’re stealing this for the Packers, we could go a couple different directions. Down in the low red zone, I think I like this to go with the 6OL package. So we’re running this out of 611 personnel, with Darian Kinnard [70] as the inside man in the YY Wing look. Since we’re stealing for 2026, Tucker Kraft [85] is back in the mix, so he’s the outside man in the YY Wing. Josh Jacobs is our RB, although I could easily be convinced for this to be Chris Brooks. Christian Watson [9] is our wide man on the left and Matthew Golden [0] is our motion man. I originally had Jayden Reed in this role, but, since Hardman is starting by being split wide, I felt Golden was the better option.
Since this is a Mesh concept, a nice variation to this would be Mesh Traffic, with Golden releasing through the opposite B gap on a Slither route. So as not to muck up the spacing, Kinnard will stay back to block while Jacobs will release to the right flat.
Play 2: 2nd & 1, 6:55 remaining in the 3rd quarter
This has been a staple in the Bills playbook for a while. Really, it’s a Joe Brady staple, which means it was also a staple for Joe Burrow at LSU. The play itself is pretty simple: this is an RPO (Run Pass Option). It’s an inside run with a Slant passing tag for Keon Coleman [0] on the outside.
This is typically a post-snap RPO but the personnel grouping and formation of the Bills (and the Broncos response to that) turns it into more of a pre-snap read. These vertical pass tags usually involve the QB needing to read a conflict defender post-snap, but there’s no need to do that here, because the Bills are overloaded on the right with some big dudes.
The Bills are in 13 personnel (1 RB, 3 TE, 1 WR), with all 3 of those TEs aligned on the right side in a tight split. They’re in a YY Wing look with Hawes on the inside and Knox on the outside, and they add Dalton Kincaid [86] as an insert blocker under the line.
On 2nd & 1 they’re looking to run power up the middle, but they have Coleman on the slant as an easy answer if it’s there, and it’s there. With all the beef on the right side of the offense, the Broncos are loading up at the line, leaving Coleman alone with Riley Moss [21] and no one to the inside.
Moss is giving 6 yards of cushion, so Coleman gets free release on a Now slant. With a nice patch of green where a conflict defender typically is, Allen simply rises up and throws to Coleman.
Coleman ends up making the catch, reversing course and diving into the end zone for a touchdown.
Vertical RPOs are not necessarily something that are huge in this Packers offense, but we saw an uptick in use this season, so I’m stealing this one. They scored a huge TD on a vertical RPO this season, which makes me a little more confident about taking it.
Maybe it’s because of that play, but I’m putting Watson in as the receiver. I could be talked into either Golden or Dontayvion Wicks, but Watson’s size, speed & experience gives him the edge here.
On our heavy side, we’re rolling with our same YY Wing look that we did on the previous play (Kinnard inside, Kraft outside) and bringing in Luke Musgrave [88] as the insert. The Packers will often use receivers on that insert block, but since we’re in the business of moving bodies (and getting the defense to respect the movement of bodies), we’re keeping an extra TE over there (for the record, that puts the Packers in 612 personnel). The insert blocker doesn’t need to be a lockdown blocker, so Musgrave is perfectly fine there.
The other reason to leave Musgrave there is for a variation. Releasing insert blockers off heavy run looks was a nice way to generate explosives this year, so you could look to do something similar out of this same look.
Albums listened to: Constant Smiles – Moonflowers; Shallowater – God’s Gonna Give You A Million Dollars
