The Green Bay Packers got back in the win column on Sunday against the New York Giants, and we’re here doing what we always do. Win or lose, rain or shine, we’re looking at the Packers’ passing game, and today
that includes some incredible performances by quarterback Jordan Love and receiver Christian Watson. So let’s get started.
The raw numbers are nothing to write home about — no one is getting hyped over a 54.2% completion rate — but there’s quite a bit of context missing from just the numbers. I charted Packers receivers with 6 drops, accounting for ~92 lost yards. Add in those drops and lost yardage (and remove the throwaway) and Love is sitting on a line that looks a little better. That adjusted line is 19/23 (82.6%), 266 yards (11.6 YPA) and 2 TDs (143.8 QB Rating). Adjusting numbers is tricky business on all sides (the 3rd down drops likely lead to more yardage & more TD opportunities, but the game flow would change, potentially leading to either more or fewer attempts), but it’s a fun thought experiment.
I bring up the adjusted stat line for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that drops were a huge story in this game, and I wanted to make sure I was accounting for them in some way. The other reason is that the adjusted stat line tells a more accurate story of how Love played this past weekend.
NFL Pro also liked his performance. His EPA per Dropback of +0.25 was the 5th-highest mark of the week. For the season, Love is tied with Josh Allen for best EPA Per Dropback in the league at +0.20 (Drake Maye is 1st at +0.21).
The Packers made a point to push the ball down the field in this game, with Love sporting an ADOT (Average Depth of Target) of 13.2 yards, his second-highest mark of the season (his top mark was 14.5 ADOT against the Commanders in Week 2) and the highest ADOT for any QB in Week 11.
After a couple of weeks of not leaning into play action, the Packers got back to making it a big part of their offense this week. Their 33.3% play action rate was the highest since the Week 6 game against the Bengals (40.6%), and Love performed well, if not exactly in the way it was drawn up. On play action snaps, Love was 4/8 for 71 yards, for an EPA Per Dropback of +0.35. (One of those incomplete passes was a 14-yard drop.)
Breaking away from the numbers, Love looked really good in the film. I wrote about the passing game last week and stripped some of the blame away from Love. I still feel that mainly to be true, but, after having rewatched all of Love’s dropbacks a few times after writing that piece, I changed my mind slightly. He was still far from the main issue against the Eagles, but there were moments where he was more hesitant to let it rip than I had originally thought. On a few of those moments, he immediately threw to the shortest possible option instead of reading out the concept.
That hesitance was gone in this game, so we were likely seeing the effects of the Eagles’ defense last week. Love did a great job seeing what the defense was doing, then finding the right answer within the concept. This was a much cleaner game from Love, which was certainly encouraging.
Before we get out of here, we’re going to take a look at the two TD passes to Christian Watson.
Play 1: 3rd & 1, 14:00 remaining in the 2nd quarter
The Packers were down 7-0 after the first Giants drive of the afternoon. On their second offensive drive, Jordan Love left with an injury after a scramble, putting Malik Willis at the helm, facing 2nd & 16 on the Giants’ 40-yard line. Some nice runs got the Packers down into the red zone. A completion to John FitzPatrick set them up with a 1st & goal at the 5. Two straight runs got them to the 1-yard line.
On 3rd & goal from the 1, the Packers came out in 611 personnel (6 OL, 1 RB, 1 TE, 2 WR). They set heavy to the right, with Darian Kinnard [70] and John FitzPatrick [86] in line on the right side. Romeo Doubs [87] is split wide to the left while Christian Watson [9] is split wide to the right. Josh Jacobs [8] is the single back.
At the snap, Malik Willis [2] fakes to Jacobs up the middle, then boots to the right. FitzPatrick initially blocks down before releasing to the flat, while Watson releases with an inside path before bending back outside to the back pylon.
With Brian Burns [0] crashing down on Willis and FitzPatrick not open in the flat, Willis throws back to Watson in the middle of the field. (With Doubs running a crossing route from the other side, I initially thought that Doubs could have possibly been the target here, but Willis is looking at Watson the entire way.)
Watson makes a tremendous adjustment to stop on his route, then catches the ball through the hands of Deonte Banks [2].
It’s a great play by Willis and an absurd catch from Watson.
Play 2: 2nd & 7, 4:07 remaining in the 4th quarter
The Giants had just scored a TD to take a 1-point lead with 7:22 left in the game. The Packers started the drive on their own 35 and made their way down the field, thanks in large part to a huge catch by Savion Williams on 3rd & 10.
After a 13-yard gain to Doubs on 1st & 20, the Packers now find themselves facing 2nd & 7, down 20-19.
They come out in 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) in a 2×2 shotgun spread look. On the right side, John FitzPatrick is on the outside while Christian Watson is in the slot. On the left, Doubs is the front man in a stack, with Matthew Golden [0] underneath.
On the left, they’re running a kind of pick play for Emanuel Wilson [23] out of the backfield and a delayed in-cutter from Doubs. On the right side, they’re running Smash Fade, with FitzPatrick running a quick hitch and Watson running a deep fade over the top.
The Giants are showing a single-high safety pre-snap. Given the fact that the Giants’ defense doesn’t disguise much of their defense, it’s a safe bet that they’re running a single-high defense post-snap. The fade route to Watson is a good answer to that coverage, so that’s likely what Love is thinking from the jump.
The snap is high and to Love’s left, which causes him to double-catch the snap. Between the single-high look, the high snap, and the pressure that has been in Love’s face all day (the 44.4% pressure rate was the second-highest pressure rate Love has faced all season), he decides to take the fade to Watson.
Watson goes up over two defenders to bring in the pass, giving the Packers the lead with 4:02 remaining in the game. A 2-point conversion gives the Packers a 7-point lead.
An interception by Evan Williams…
…and a sack by Micah Parsons…
…salts the game away.
For the day, Christian Watson had 4 catches on 5 targets (with that 5th target being a go route on 3rd down that glanced off his hands) for 46 yards and 2 TDs.
Coming into this game, the Packers were 11th in the league at scoring TDs in the red zone, scoring a TD on 63.9% of their red zone trips. If you watch the best red zone scoring offenses in the league, they have at least 1 of these 3 things:
- A good running game
- A QB who is good at scrambling
- A freak WR who you can just throw the ball up to
There’s obviously more to it than that, but if you have at least one of those things, you’re likely to have a pretty good red zone scoring offense.
This year the Packers don’t have #1 and don’t really have #2 (Love has been a more willing scrambler this year, but I don’t know that he has been a particularly good one). If Watson is once again emerging as the #3, maybe we’ll start seeing an improvement in the red zone offense.
Albums listened to: White Lies – Night Light; Swim School – Swim School; Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson – Summer of Fear; Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights; The Mynabirds – It’s Okay To Go Back If You Keep Moving Forward; Rosalía – LUX
