There is this one Green Bay Packers sequence from last week that continues to piss me off, and I want to talk about it a little more. Specifically, this sequence is at the end of the first quarter.
Now,
it’s unfair to judge individual plays in a vacuum, especially in this offense, where giving certain looks now can open up huge splash plays later. But!
This sequence just makes no sense whatsoever. It’s ridiculous. The best thing I can say is they were maybe trying to take the Cardinals by surprise, because only a complete idiot would possibly call this. Let us count the sins before proceeding.
- This play came out of a timeout. They gave it a lot of thought!
- It’s third and four, and while you should occasionally run on third and four, you should run a “keep them honest amount” because picking up four yards on any given run play is hard!
- Emanuel Wilson (who is fine) is in the game for a high-leverage, crucial play, not Josh Jacobs.
- Here is Wilson’s RAS card.
5. Please note that he is Red (that’s bad) on agility, yellow (that’s “meh”) on speed, and Green (that’s good, or in this case, high) in being heavy.
6. Wilson, who is again, big, medium fast, and not agile, is running sideways.
7. This play takes forever to get going.
8. Had this been some trickeration where Love had kept to the ball and booted out, he would have died as the edge on that side kept contain.
9. This running play came from shotgun, which is almost always less effective than running under center, especially for horizontal running plays.
10. Had Matt LaFleur told all of us before the play that he was going to run Emanuel Wilson on a slow, horizontal play out of shotgun on third and four, everyone would have replied, “I bet that gets stuffed well short of the line.”
The Packers were apparently shopping around for speed backs this week, and they don’t really have one right now with Marshawn Lloyd perpetually out, but if the goal is to run this play, just don’t.
This was an extremely low success rate play. It was unlikely to pick up a first down. It was unlikely to result in a splash play because of Wilson’s limited speed. It was even pretty unlikely to pick up one or two and set up a fourth and short. It WAS likely to lose yards, which it did.
And to add injury to injury, the Packers then ran a bomb to Romeo Doubs on fourth down. Just like you should, sometimes run on third and four, you should also sometimes throw deep on fourth down, but it shouldn’t be the default! If you just complete a high percentage five-yard pass, you get four more downs. If you miss on the bomb, the other team gets the ball! This is not hard!
More than anything, I wanted to bring it up because this was hardly ex post facto commentary. I think everyone I follow on Bluesky in the moment predicted/dreaded a dumb shotgun run, and then also complained after the fact. This makes it the worst of all worlds: A predictable, stupid, high-leverage play.
The Packers are hardly unique in calling the occasional stinker, but I kind of thought we were past the dumb run/fourth down bomb combo in the post-Rodgers era, and we are very much not. They really do struggle with situational football.
