The current connection between Jordan Love and Christian Watson hasn’t been working as effectively as hoped. But as the Green Bay Packers offense hopefully continues to progress in other areas, Watson could benefit from more quality opportunities to get the ball in his hands.
In six games this season, Watson has caught only 14 of his 33 targets, including just two receptions of 20-plus yards. Of Love’s 10 interceptions thrown, five have come when targeting Watson. The good news is he’s averaging almost 17 yards per catch, but he and Love haven’t been anywhere near efficient enough for opponents to feel the true effect of what that connection can do.
When something isn’t working, it’s natural to want to find out what that one specific thing is that’s going wrong. However, in football, very rarely is it ever just one person or one thing contributing to an issue. Watson, by his own admission, needs to be more aggressive going for the ball. Matt LaFleur also mentioned wanting Watson to play fast, decisive, and confident on every snap.
There have also been times when Love could have been more accurate when throwing Watson’s way, and perhaps the coaching staff could have been more intentional about trying to create more manufactured opportunities for Watson to get the ball in space. To a degree, Watson is also feeling the effects of what has largely been an ineffective offense up for a large chunk of the season.
During the second half of the 2022 season, when Watson burst onto the scene, it was his vertical presence that stood out, but he was also able to generate explosive plays via slants, crossers, and even an end-around in the Chicago game. However, those opportunities haven’t been there very often in 2023.
“We hit one against Denver,” said offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich. “That was about the last one with Christian. I think some of them have just gone to other people as we’re going. We’re seeing a lot of differences in coverages. More shell where those crossing routes aren’t really that great, so we’ve kind of had to adjust a few things.
“As we keep going, those opportunities will present itself, especially if we keep running the ball well. Those single-high coverages will hopefully help us out with the crossing routes.”
As we all know, the game of football is incredibly interdependent. All 11 players have to be on the same page, and if one player doesn’t execute well, the entire play can be blown up. Each phase or element of the game has an impact on the others.
The Green Bay run game has been performing better as of late, but it is still not consistently where it needs to be and was non-existent for a large portion of the season up to this point. As Stenavich mentioned, the impact of this is that the Packers’ offense has seen a lot of shell coverage, which can make generating chunk plays through the passing game all the more difficult.
If Green Bay is able to continue to find some success on the ground moving forward, defenses will have to start committing an extra defender to the box, thus opening up opportunities for Watson and the other pass catchers, not only downfield but at other levels of the field as well.
Early on in the Pittsburgh game, when Green Bay was seeing more man coverage as Watson noted, he had two receptions, one on an out-route and another over the middle. However, when the Steelers switched to zone, moving the ball through the air became more challenging for the offense.
Although Watson hasn’t seen the production one would have hoped for, he still has a lot of gravity, drawing the attention of opposing defenses because of the big play potential he possesses. This, in turn, helps create for others in the offense by giving them more space to operate in or a one-on-one matchup to take advantage of.
With that said, as players like Luke Musgrave, Jayden Reed, and Dontayvion Wicks continue to generate explosive plays, which is becoming more of the norm as of late, defenses aren’t going to be able to key in on one specific player. Rather, when they have to account for several, that can take some of the eyes off Watson and generate more favorable situations for him to get the ball, and not only on vertical throws.
“It’s hard for a team to have one player that’s doing extremely well, and they’re only relying on that one person,” said Watson on Wednesday. “So the more that everyone else can make plays, the more plays we can make in the run game, the more it sets up everybody else in the other phases.”
Slowly, the Green Bay offense is beginning to find some sort of traction. However, it’s difficult to envision a scenario where this group finds consistency and reaches its potential without Watson being an important factor.
No, the season hasn’t gone as hoped for him, and there are definitely areas to be better in, but if the run game can keep progressing and other pass catchers continue to make big plays, it will help take some of that playmaking burden off of Watson’s shoulders.
“My message to Christian is to keep the confidence,” said Love on Wednesday. “Don’t let that other stuff ever let your confidence waver. I’ve got complete trust in Christian. I know he knows this. I trust all my receivers. The ball is going to come out regardless.
“I told him just keep that confidence up,” added Love. “Keep making plays and move on to the next one. A lot of it isn’t his fault. I can be better for him. Just keep his confidence. I trust these guys, and we are going to go up from here.”
