Green Bay Packers Offense Shines in Red Zone Under Matt LaFleur
By Paul Bretl
It’s a simple concept; touchdowns will always beat field goals in the game of football. While there is always a number of contributors to a team’s success, one big reason that the Green Bay Packers have gone 26-6 during the regular season and reached two NFC Championship Games during the Matt LaFleur era is because of how efficient the offense has been in the red zone the last two years.
During LaFleur’s first season as head coach in 2019, it’s not as if this offense was the juggernaut that we saw in 2020. Still adjusting to the new system, Green Bay ranked 16th in points per game scored and 18th in total yards. However, when the Packers made it to the red zone, they were able to punch it in 67.8 percent of the time, according to Team Rankings, the second-highest rate in football.
Football Outsiders uses points per red zone trip and touchdowns per red zone trip to measure red zone success. Again, the Green Bay Packers were among the best in football, ranking fourth in each category that season.
In 2020, as the offense took that big step forward in Year 2 of the LaFleur offense, finishing first in points per game and also ranking first by DVOA–their success in the red zone sky-rocketed as well. Green Bay would lead the NFL in red zone efficiency, scoring a touchdown on 76.8 percent of their possessions inside the 20–an impressive nine percent increase from 2019. The team’s 5.92 points per red zone trip and 0.80 touchdowns per red zone possession both ranked first as well.
For some added context, during the final three years of the Mike McCarthy era in Green Bay, the Packers were still relatively successful in the red zone, finishing in the top-10 in touchdown scoring percentage in both the 2016 and 2017 seasons. However, their overall success rate is where the real difference lies. The Packers would leave the red zone with a touchdown 64.5 percent of the time in 2016, 61.9 percent in 2017, and 61.7 percent in 2018.
As I mentioned above, when it comes to football, there is no one reason behind any success or failure. The Green Bay Packers’ efficiency in the red zone is a culmination of LaFleur’s ability as a play-caller and the way he is able to scheme guys open. It also certainly helps to have Aaron Rodgers under center and Davante Adams as a wide receiver target–duh. On the ground, Aaron Jones has a nose for the end zone behind one of the best offensive line units in football, and we saw the emergence of Robert Tonyan last season, who caught 7 of his 11 touchdowns inside the 20.
Unfortunately, it was Green Bay’s struggles in the red zone against Tampa Bay in the NFC Championship that contributed to their loss. On four red zone trips, the Packers left with a touchdown on only two of those possessions. Obviously, one more touchdown, which would have put them close to their season average success rate of 75 percent, would have made a huge difference.
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Red zone success is known as a statistical category that can fluctuate from year to year. However, as Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders mentions in an article of his, teams may regress to the mean, but according to his research, the mean is “that specific team’s overall quality rather than the league average.” Meaning, even if Green Bay regresses in the red zone in 2021, overall, they should still be quite good.