Among many issues that the Green Bay Packers’ offense had in 2022, one glaring problem was a league-worst finish in finding the end zone in goal-to-go situations.
According to Sharp Football, the Packers’ 50% touchdown rate in these scenarios ranked 32nd in the NFL. The next closest to Green Bay was Washington at 56%, followed by Chicago, scoring 60% of the time when faced with a goal-to-go situation. Conversely, Tennesse’s 94% success rate was the best in football.
As is the case with just about anything in football, it’s difficult to boil down the reasoning behind any result to just one or two things, but in short, the Packers’ inability to find the end zone when inside the 10-yard line was a microcosm of the issues the offense as a whole experienced last season.
For much of the year, opponents did not fear the Green Bay passing game and knew that if they could take away the run game and make the Packers’ offense one-dimensional, moving the ball primarily through the air was going to be quite difficult. This same concept applied inside the red zone, and the results were even magnified given the short field.
Defenses often would crowd the line of scrimmage last season when in those goal-to-go situations, essentially daring the Packers to throw the football, which they often did. To a degree, the injuries and movement that Green Bay experienced early on in the season along the offensive line may have played a factor in that decision-making as well.
Unfortunately, however, with Aaron Rodgers not playing at a high level, along with young receivers and injuries at the position, the passing game simply wasn’t good enough to shoulder that burden, especially in a condensed part of the field where passing the ball is already more difficult with there being less space to work with.
“There is a lot we have to study this offseason. Whether it was poor play design, or lack of execution or all of the above, it wasn’t good enough. We did a piss poor job in the red zone,” LaFleur said following the Packers’ Week 18 loss to Detroit. “I’ve said it before, sometimes you kick enough field goals, and you’ll get yourself beat. That’s kinda what happened (vs. Lions).”
Perhaps, technically, passing the ball rather than repeatedly running into loaded boxes is the correct decision on paper, but as already mentioned, this offense wasn’t equipped to be a pass-heavy and, at times, predictable unit. The Packers also have a power back in AJ Dillon and a playmaker in Aaron Jones, who has a nose for the end zone, totaling 40 touchdowns between 2019 and 2021. Not to mention that, at the very least, running the ball somewhat consistently will at least keep the defense honest and know that they have to be ready to defend it.
As we look for ways that the Packers can bounce back in this area in 2023 without Rodgers, it starts with – you guessed it – running the ball, specifically, getting Jones enough red zone touches. It will also require Matt LaFleur’s play-calling and game plan to help get his pass catchers into space rather than expecting them to win their one-on-one matchups regularly. With such a diverse skill set amongst the skill position players, LaFleur should be able to open up his playbook and keep the concepts simple while still stressing defenses through, what he calls, the ‘illusion of complexity.’
Until proven otherwise, most likely, the Packers’ margin for error this upcoming season is going to be small. This means, for one, we don’t know how often they’ll get into these goal-to-go situations, so that already could put a premium on those visits, but also, settling for a field goal versus finding the end zone could be the difference between a win and a loss.
