The Green Bay Packers defense generated three interceptions with sound coverage and defense in Week 9. None came with pressure on the quarterback. In fact, all three of the New England Patriots’ quarterback Drake Maye’s interceptions against Green Bay came from a clean pocket. The Packers never sent more than four rushers and never blitzed, yet Maye still threw three balls to a defender who was already waiting for them. What ties the picks together is what happened after the snap.
Each time, a Green
Bay safety ended up somewhere Maye didn’t expect, and Maye threw to the picture he had before the snap. On the first, the single-high safety didn’t bite on play action.
On the second, Evan Williams was rotating over the top of what looked like one-on-one coverage. On the third, a deep-quarter safety read Maye’s eyes and drove on the dig. Together, the three throws cost New England about 12.4 EPA, and two of them set up Packers touchdowns.
The first interception came on Maye’s first pass of the game, on 2nd and 9 from the New England 26 with 14:32 left in the first quarter. Xavier McKinney picked it off at the 50 and returned it 36 yards to the NE 14, and Jordan Love scrambled in for a touchdown two plays later.
At minus 5.90 EPA, it was the costliest of New England’s three interceptions. Green Bay was in a drop-8 Cover 3, rushing three with seven in the box. Before the snap, McKinney was the lone deep defender in the middle, about 12 yards off the ball, so the middle of the field was closed. New England ran play action from under center with a deep post and a deep crosser.
That combination is built to stress the post safety. If he carries the post, the crosser opens underneath him, and if he jumps the crosser, the post is open behind him. McKinney never took the fake. He kept his depth and stayed square in the middle third through Maye’s drop, so the play action never created the conflict it was designed to.
With eight defenders in coverage, the underneath zones were full, and neither deep route had an easy window. Maye’s eyes and shoulders stayed locked on the deep middle, McKinney read him the whole way, and when Maye threw the crosser 24 yards downfield, McKinney broke downhill and caught it in stride around the 50.
Play action against drop-8 Cover 3 only works if the post safety bites. McKinney didn’t, so the ball went straight to the defender the concept was meant to beat. With only three rushers and a clean pocket, Maye had time to come off the deep routes and check the ball down. Charting graded it interception-worthy, with a CPOE of minus 42.
The second interception came on 1st and 10 from the New England 40 with 12:54 left in the second quarter. Maye took a deep shot down the left sideline to Kyle Williams, 37 air yards, and Brandon Cisse batted it into the air for Evan Williams to catch at the Green Bay 23. It was the only one of the three the Packers didn’t score off, since they went three-and-out, and it cost minus 2.82 EPA.
Green Bay ran a WASP quads pressure with McKinney as the fourth rusher, rotating the coverage behind him. WASP usually puts a linebacker in as the 4th rusher while dropping a defensive end. On this play, McKinney is aligned more like that inside linebacker, so he’s the one tasked with adding to the rush.
New England lined up in a shotgun 3×1, with a dagger concept to the trips side and Kyle Williams isolated as the X to the boundary.
Dagger uses a clear-out seam from the inside receiver and a deep dig from the outside receiver into the space the seam vacates. Before the snap, the shell looked two-high, and McKinney gave no clear sign he was coming. At the snap, he rushed, and Evan Williams rotated toward the boundary and got depth over the top of the single-receiver side.
Instead of working the dagger to the trips side, Maye took the backside shot. Cisse was in phase on the go route and Williams was closing from above, so the ball landed between them. Cisse got a hand on it at the sideline, and Williams, already overhead, caught the tip. The backside go is usually a decision made before the snap: one-on-one to the X with no safety help is a throw you take.
Here, though, the safety help only appeared after the snap as Williams rotated over. With a safety rushing, there were also fewer defenders underneath, so the dagger dig and the vacated middle were the coverage’s weak spots. The Packers defense made it a contested catch because Maye put too much air under it when it should have been more on a line out to the sideline. Instead, he threw a 50/50 ball into a rotating safety.
The third interception came on 2nd and 7 from the Green Bay 44 with 5:47 left in the second quarter. Maye threw a backside dig to tight end Eli Raridon and McKinney undercut it at the Green Bay 29 and returned it for 2 yards. Christian Watson’s 43-yard catch and a Kaleb Johnson touchdown run followed, making it 24-7, and the play cost minus 3.68 EPA.
Green Bay was in Cover 4 “trix,” a quarters variation where the weak safety reads the inside receiver from the #3 in trips. The Packers rushed four with no blitz and six in the box, and both safeties sat 12 to 15 yards deep before the snap, with McKinney on the side the ball went to. At the snap, McKinney opened to his deep quarter, but with no vertical threat from any inside receiver, he was free to read the quarterback.
Maye finished his drop looking to the front side, then came back to the backside dig, with his head and shoulders turned before the ball came out. McKinney read the turn and drove downhill and inside, from deep-quarter depth to the spot where the dig would be caught, before Maye released it.
The throw was on time, but McKinney jumped into the throwing lane and caught it in front of Raridon at the 29. In quarters, a safety whose inside receiver doesn’t go vertical can become a robber on in-breaking routes. Throwing a dig that late at that safety without a vertical route to hold him is exactly the throw the coverage is built to take away.
Takeaways
On these interceptions, the Packers only rushed three, four and four, and didn’t get any pressure on Maye, who had time and threw every one of these picks from a clean pocket. Each pick came after the snap, when a Packers safety ended up somewhere Maye didn’t expect.
McKinney stayed in the middle instead of biting on play action, Evan Williams rotated over the top of a one-on-one that wasn’t, and McKinney turned a deep-quarter alignment into a robber on the dig. That’s Jonathan Gannon’s defense in a nutshell: show one picture, play another, and trust the safeties to beat the quarterback to the spot.
With Micah Parsons out and the injury list growing, Green Bay can’t count on getting home with four. It doesn’t have to when McKinney and Williams are this far ahead of the quarterback. Every passer left on the schedule will see the same disguises on film, and recognizing them on tape is a lot easier than beating them on Sunday.
