Green Bay Packers: 3 Troubling Trends that Need to Stop

3-man rushes in the red zone

To his credit, Mike Pettine has played more aggressively the last few weeks, sending more blitzes and stunts than he had at the beginning of the season. With the Green Bay defensive front not winning their one-on-one matchups nearly as often in 2020, their pressure rate has plummeted to the bottom third of the NFL after finishing top-5 in 2019. This is why we’ve seen Pettine turn up the heat more as of late.

While I have to say that I’m certainly happy to see that, what I’m not thrilled about is the number of 3-man rushes we’ve seen in the red zone this season. With the Packers not generating pressure nearly as easily, opposing quarterbacks have all the time in the world to pick apart this Green Bay secondary when Pettine only rushes three. So as you can imagine, the results in the red zone haven’t been good:

In this condensed part of the field, passing the ball becomes more difficult because there is simply less room for receivers to work, and with there still being 22 players on the field, there is less space in a confined area. Meaning, this is when the Green Bay Packers should be sending blitzes and doing whatever they can to disrupt the quarterback. Not sitting back and waiting.

Last season, the Packers had one of the better red zone defenses in the NFL, and a big contributor to that was their ability to get after the quarterback. However, that hasn’t been the case in 2020, yet, we still see Pettine rolling out 3-man rushes.