Last night, we posted the raw snap counts for the Green Bay Packers in their Week 2 matchup against the Washington Commanders. In this piece, though, we’re going to dive into the nitty-gritty details about the Packers’ personnel, including where players actually lined up and how the team is using these players.
Let’s go position by position, including slot roles, for both the offense and defense.
The tables you see below show season-long snap counts and weekly snap counts. A cell highlighted in yellow
means that a player dropped out of action in that game due to injury. A cell highlighted in red means that a player was injured for that game and did not participate at all.
We’re excluding plays that featured pre-snap penalties and kneeldowns, but are including plays that had post-snap penalties.
Offensive Personnel
The Packers played a little more three-receiver sets this week, upping their percentage from 38 percent in Week 1 to 49 percent in Week 2. Still, they’re more likely to have two or fewer receivers on the field than not this year.
More interesting to me than raw personnel is that the Packers played a lot of YY and Trey Nub sets against the Commanders. What this means is that in multiple tight end looks, they got the receivers on the same side of the field.
Defensively, the Commanders had a couple of options for how to handle that:
- They could corner over, playing both cornerbacks on the same side of the field to match the receivers. This is a huge tell to the offense that it’s man coverage.
- They could keep their cornerbacks on opposite sides of the field. This is a huge tell to the offense that it’s zone coverage, and it’s a great way to get receivers on linebackers (versus two-high looks) or safeties (versus one-high looks).
Green Bay often got into these formations by way of motion. In Week 1, the Packers played 5 YY/Trey Nub sets out of their 21 12 personnel (one back, two receivers) sets (24 percent). That jumped to 15 of 26 (58 percent) this week. Matt LaFleur obviously liked that matchup against Dan Quinn’s easy-to-predict Cover 1 and Cover 3 heavy defense. Make them declare a coverage early and then shred it!
Yes, rookie receiver Savion Williams got a wildcat quarterback snap in Week 2.
Chris Brooks continues to get looks ahead of Emanuel Wilson as a single-back player on top of being on the field for two-back sets with the Packers. Green Bay also got out of using tight end John FitzPatrick in splitback gun looks this week and ended up using receivers Savion Williams and Dontayvion Wicks in those sets. None of the non-backs have ever lined up in the backfield as solo running backs in 2025.
As far as true outside receivers go, Romeo Doubs is running away as the WR1. As we mentioned earlier, the Packers played a lot of slot looks out of 12 personnel this week, meaning that there was only one outside receiver on the field at a healthy rate. Expect to see Malik Heath get an uptick in outside receiver reps, as Matthew Golden and Dontayvion Wicks are splitting time at slot receiver following Jayden Reed’s injury. He’s a big winner in Reed missing time.
The snaps that tight end Tucker Kraft and running back Josh Jacobs have played as outside receivers are mostly to get more slot receivers on the field in better matchups. By playing Kraft or Jacobs outside, the Packers drain an outside cornerback on defense (or make the defense declare man coverage) and allow their wide receivers to get matched up on slot defenders, safeties or linebackers. Quarterback Jordan Love lined up at receiver on the Savion Williams wildcat snap, where Love faked receiving a flea flicker.
As previously mentioned, Golden and Wicks are splitting time in the slot, for the most part, since Reed was injured. Doubs is really the only “outside only” receiver on the team at this point. Don’t be surprised if Heath ends up playing a slot of snaps in the slot if the Packers ever want to run a lot out of 11 personnel in a specific game.
Tight end positions are weird. Tucker Kraft is playing a ton of snaps, while Luke Musgrave (pass-catcher) and John FitzPatrick (blocking tight end) are basically splitting the TE2 role over different situations. The receivers here are mostly getting reps as insert players who motion into the formation. The backs are getting looks as walked up chip help for tackles on obvious passing downs.
And then there’s Anthony Belton.
On one play this week, Belton actually lined up as an eligible receiver in an unbalanced look where FitzPatrick ended up technically playing right tackle.
Rasheed Walker has taken every left tackle snap this year.
With Aaron Banks injured, Jordan Morgan took over as the left guard this week, after mostly playing right guard in a rotational role in Week 1.
Elgton Jenkins has taken every center snap this year.
With Morgan at left guard, Sean Rhyan played every snap of right guard this week.
Somewhat surprisingly, Anthony Belton got the starting right tackle looks this week after Darian Kinnard was the first to replace Zach Tom due to injury last week. Belton and Kinnard traded off offensive drives before the coaching staff eventually called it and just rolled with Belton for the remainder of the game. We already discussed how FitzPatrick got on the field for his right tackle snap in an unbalanced look.
Defensive Personnel
To combat the Commanders’ offense, which is a screen-heavy, hurry-up-based offense that plays more two-back looks than the Detroit Lions’ multiple tight end offense, the Packers played a lot more nickel (be it true nickel or their Cheetah package) this week. In total, they only played 9 percent of their snaps in their 4-3 base in Week 2, compared to 26 percent in Week 1. Half of their 4-3 snaps came in the first four plays of the game.
Green Bay also basically doubled its usage of its Cheetah package, which featured three defensive ends on the field at the same time, this week. They’re using it outside of just obvious passing-down situations now.
Bonus fun fact: The Lions were held to their lowest single-game explosive play rate in Week 1 since their 3-13-1 season in 2021. Against the Commanders, the Packers held Washington to the lowest single-game explosive play rate since the 2023 regular season.
The Micah Parsons snap reduction is over. He played just one rep fewer at defensive end than Rashan Gary this week, after only playing one snap in the first quarter last week. Rookie Barryn Sorrell didn’t get into the game until the final two drives against the Commanders, but he did record a half-sack in his first NFL drive. That’s neat.
Devonte Wyatt and Karl Brooks played a huge amount of snaps in Week 2, as Colby Wooden was reduced to more of a run-down nose tackle role for the Packers this week. Nazir Stackhouse is still only getting on the field in very limited sets and was actually out-snapped at defensive tackle by three different defensive ends, via the Cheetah package. Usually, Green Bay can depend on its fourth defensive tackle playing a lot more reps, which is why the snap counts for Wyatt and Brooks have been so high, on top of Wooden’s Week 1 reps.
Because the Packers played a lot more nickel this week, Isaiah McDuffie had a harder time getting on the field. Three of his seven snaps came in the first four plays of the game. The only anomaly here is that in one Cheetah snap, Edgerrin Cooper was actually subbed out for McDuffie, who blitzed on the play. Outside of that, neither Quay Walker nor Cooper missed a snap of defense.
Notably, the Packers haven’t ever used Micah Parsons as a stand-up off-ball linebacker, something he did in his time with the Dallas Cowboys and at the college level with Penn State. They seem more interested in getting defensive ends in at defensive tackle in pressure packages than letting Parsons play linebacker and blitzing from off the line of scrimmage in those looks.
Keisean Nixon was an every-down player at outside cornerback, while Carrington Valentine and Nate Hobbs rotated at outside cornerback on a drive-by-drive basis. Hobbs did get a few slot snaps, too.
For the most part, safety Javon Bullard was still the Packers’ slot defender against the Commanders, but Hobbs got five snaps there — four of which came in Cheetah packages. This is probably a hint that the coaching staff prefers Hobbs in pass coverage situations in the slot over Bullard. We’ll have to see how this unfolds as Hobbs gets healthier.
While Bullard outsnapped Evan Williams 12 to 5 in 4-3 safety looks last week, it was all Williams this week next to Xavier McKinney. Bullard was truly a slot-only player this game.
