Last week, a few people pointed out a great answer from Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Drew Petzing about what makes Jared Goff special as a play-action quarterback. Here’s the transcript of Petzing’s answer below. I’m going to highlight the key points:
“One of the things that makes him so elite in that is his process. It’s uncomfortable and you don’t do it a ton in college anymore where you turn your back to the defense. And you have to take in a ton of information pre-snap, and you have to know
where your eyes need to go and who you need to locate on their side of the ball and on our side of the ball. And I think that’s a huge part of the action game. And it’s one of the reasons you see defenses try to disguise and try to show different looks so that when you do turn your back, you’re turning around and seeing a different picture. And he’s done it at such a high level that I think even when that happens, he’s able to calibrate quickly, figure out what’s going on and make the proper decision almost every time. And that’s really one of the main reasons I think he’s excelled in that area.”
Here’s the video:
In short, play-action can be really tough for quarterbacks, because in today’s NFL, defense’s are so good at disguising coverages that the look you see before you turn your head to fake the run could be completely different than the look you see when you turn back around to look at the defense.
The Green Bay Packers are one of those teams that have been expertly disguising coverages. With three stellar safeties at their disposal, there’s so much they can do. That’s why their pass defense was one of the best in the league going into Sunday’s matchup with the Lions. They ranked third in passer rating allowed (73.9), third in yards per attempt (5.9) and second in DVOA.
But Goff had no problem dissecting the defense, particularly early in the game, and a lot of that had to due with Goff’s elite ability to identify coverages both pre- and post-snap. On play-action passes, Goff went 8-of-11 for 140 yards against the Packers. His +0.55 EPA/dropback on play-action passes was third-best of the week, and his 145.1 passer rating was second.
One particular play shows exactly the skills Petzing was talking about.
It’s the tail end of the first quarter and the Lions are kicking off their second series of the game. As Goff is ready to snap the ball, the Packers are showing a pretty ordinary cover-2 look.
Both safeties are back pedaling at the snap, while the Packers are just widening their zones with Amon-Ra St. Brown’s motion—clear zone indicators.
However, at the snap—literally the moment Goff turns his back for play-action, the right side safety—All-Pro Xavier McKinney (#29)—aggressively runs toward the line of scrimmage to play a shallow zone, leaving the other safety, Evan Williams, as the single high.
So when Goff finally turns around, the coverage is MUCH different than it looked before the play-action. But Goff immediately clocks it, drawing his eyes to the safeties before even looking at his receivers:
So he knows that McKinney has vacated the left-middle part of the field, where Amon-Ra St. Brown’s leak route just so happens to be brilliantly designed to attack—while Jameson Williams takes the play-side cornerback out of the play.
Despite the Packers doing a great job not tipping their coverage design, Goff immediately identified it, found where the weakness was, and exploited it for a huge gain.
Here’s it all working together in harmony:
Aided by strong protection from the offensive line, this is Jared Goff making the remarkable look unremarkable. And against a team like the Minnesota Vikings who will do everything they can to disguise things and confuse Goff this upcoming Sunday, it’s when having someone like him at quarterback is also extremely valuable.
