The final score on Sunday, a game in which the Green Bay Packers lost 16-13 in the final seconds, hides the struggles the Green Bay defense had in containing the Carolina Panthers’ running game, including
on the final explosive play of the game just before the game-winning field goal. The Panthers averaged 4.96 yards per carry by the end of the game if we remove the quarterback scramble yardage.
At nearly five yards a pop, the defense struggled to contain the Panthers’ ground attack at various stages in the game.
The first big run the Packers gave up was a 29-yard toss play to running back Rico Dowdle to the right on the Panthers’ first scoring drive in the second quarter. The Panthers pin-and-pull toss cut off the defense on the perimeter with a combination of good scheme and bad assignment football.
The Panthers are going to crack block down on Rashan Garry and Javon Bullard with essentially two pin blocks to move the gaps over to the right. The Panthers get the favorable angles after the motion pushes the defense over a gap to the offense’s left.
As the perimeter defenders get pinned inside by the crack blocks, the next level defenders need to “crack replace” those initial blocks in the run fit. Safety Evan Williams should have replaced Gary on the edge, but instead, he started to leverage the run back inside, leaving a massive hole for Dowdle to scoot through.
Cornerback Keisean Nixon is out on the perimeter there as well and comes downhill to replace Bullard, who got pinned inside as well. Nixon turns the runner back inside, but there’s no alley support from Williams.
In fact, the defense struggled sorting out the motion the Panthers tagged in their play calls at the last, often pulling a defender out of the run fit and opening a crease for Dowdle and Hubbard.
On another Panthers scoring drive, the split flow action from the wing player after the snap pulled linebacker Edgerrin Cooper out of the gap on the play side into a fall-back run fit away from the play side.
With the Panthers running split zone, the receiver sifts back across the formation.
The defense bumps over to the play side with the pre-snap motion. This would put Cooper in the front side A-gap, which would allow them the plug up the running lanes.
But the split flow action to the backside pulls him out all the way to the backside C-gap. He still had a chance to make the play, but couldn’t.
Later on the same drive, the Panthers caught the defense again with another toss play with pre-snap motion messing with the run fit and defensive alignment.
The defense was caught out of position again when Evan Williams chased the motion. Instead of bumping over in his alignment with every other second-level defender, Williams chased the motion and took himself out of the play. Rashan Gary got crack blocked again, and had Williams just bumped over, he would’ve crack-replaced Gary on the edge to clog up the run.
On a drive later in the fourth quarter, although the Panthers didn’t score, the run defense surrendered 34 yards on two running plays back-to-back.
On the first play, the Panthers got into 13 personnel (1 running back, 3 tight ends) to run duo. The weak side of the defense put Xavier McKinney into a B-gap run fit, already a mismatch against a bigger offensive guard.
The defense had no one there to plug the gap. Asking a safety to fit the weakside B-gap against a guard is a tough ask.
On the very next play, the Packers actually had an equal number of defenders to the play side after the Panthers moved the gaps down by one with the puller on this edge run.
Quay Walker snuck through the open gap and had a chance to disrupt the play and make a tackle for a loss but couldn’t effectively wrap up from the downhill angle he was on. Dowdle easily beat him to the perimeter before getting upfield for a 21-yard gain.
The final Panthers drive got their offense into field goal range to put the game away. It came on a 19-yard run against the Packers, who were in a pass defense alignment with their wide front. The defense is showing 5-man pressure with man coverage, cover-1, behind it.
Up front on the defensive line, they’re playing an overload pass rush front with three pass rushers from the center over out past the left tackle, with Rashan Gary as the wide-9 pass rusher to the left of the defensive line. Parsons is off the ball but technically still a pass rusher on the overload side.
The Panthers run the split-flow inside zone action again, which pulls Williams out of the box and away from the point of attack. The result? There’s no one to plug the A-gap when Dowdle scoots through.
Williams isn’t the A-gap player, that should be Edgerrin Cooper because Williams has the tight end in man coverage, making him the C-gap run fitter. But it’s hard to fault Cooper here, too; the defense is playing pass-first and their alignment isn’t conducive to stopping the run. Sometimes the offense just makes a better play.
That run effectively sealed the game as the Panthers’ kicker hit a chip shot field goal as time expired.
