Jordan Love’s ability to spread the ball around to a bevy of targets is one of the big advantages that the Green Bay Packers offense has right now.
“Certainly, when you’re putting in these plays,” said coach Matt LaFleur, “you have an idea of where they could go based on the coverages. But you’ve got to hit on some of those coverages; everything needs to hit from a protection standpoint to the quarterback’s rhythm and timing, and decision-making, and it’s happened to work out that way. But all-in-all, it’s really good execution.”
On the team’s current three-game winning streak, against Los Angeles and Kansas City, 10 different Packers had at least one target in the passing game. For some context, in that Chiefs game with Josiah Deguara sidelined, Green Bay had 11 players active at the running back, wide receiver, and tight end positions. Nearly everyone was involved.
Against Detroit and Pittsburgh, eight different players were targeted at least once, and nine against the Los Angeles Rams. Over the last five games, this willingness to not only spread the ball around but any one of these players also being able to execute has become a part of the Packers’ identity.
“I think that’s a great sign,” said Jordan Love on Wednesday. “It puts a little bit of pressure on the defense, just when you’re able to get completions to a lot of different guys. They aren’t able to focus on who they want to cover and things like that.
“That’s just part of our offense. We’ve got so many weapons. Everybody is able to catch the ball and make a play once they get the ball. The more we can keep getting different guys open and getting different guys the ball, it puts a little bit more pressure on them.”
When this many players are involved in the offense, it accomplishes a few different things. One is that, as Love mentioned, it really stresses the defense. If the opponent isn’t able to key in on one or even two players in a specific situation, it forces them to defend the entire field, creating better spacing and opportunities for the offense.
Even in key situations, such as in the red zone or on third downs, while on paper, Christian Watson or Romeo Doubs may be the preferred targets, Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks, Malik Heath, and Tucker Kraft have all come through in those crucial moments over the last five games.
The other element that spreading the ball around adds is versatility to the offense, something that was on full display against Kansas City. When 8 to 10 players are active in the game plan, it adds a wide variety of skill sets that the defense has to account for. This versatility creates mismatches, keeps the defense off-balanced, and plays right into what LaFleur calls the ‘illusion of complexity,’ which in short, is running a variety of plays from just a couple personnel groupings or plays that begin similar but end up quite different.
“It’s hard for a team to have just one player that is doing extremely well and only rely on that one person,” said Christian Watson. “So the more that everyone else can make plays the more plays we can make plays in the run game, the more it sets up everybody else in the other phases.”
Both LaFleur and Love said this week that they don’t go into the game with the thought process being that they need to get X number of players involved. It’s just happened organically, which is a credit to the game-planning for having those opportunities available for so many and also to Love for his willingness to get the ball to whoever is open.
