Green Bay Packers: 3 Possible Game Plan Adjustments for Love
By Kenny Jilek
As you may have heard from pretty much every sports news outlet, Aaron Rodgers won’t be playing this week. As unfortunate as this is for the Green Bay Packers, it is a great opportunity for Jordan Love to show what he has in a regular-season game.
It’s also a spectacular challenge for head coach Matt Lafleur and offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. Going from the cerebral Rodgers who can handle any complicated reads and concepts Lafleur wants to install to Love who hasn’t seen meaningful time in a game that counts for anything in the NFL is quite the difference and while Love has had a year and a half to study under Rodgers, there are some things that need to be learned on the field that can’t be easily learned from watching film and looking at the playbook.
If we know one thing about Lafluer, he’s always up to the challenge. He loves getting creative and has always responded to adversity like this with masterful schemes. Working without Davante Adams for a few weeks last season, he kept the offense clicking by featuring other players, and I have no doubts he’s cooking up something special for this week.
Green Bay Packers Adjustment 1 – Heavy run usage and designed QB runs
The first half of this one is somewhat obvious. You have a new quarterback that doesn’t do as much for the passing game as the reigning MVP, so just run it instead. This is something we saw last week with both running backs featured heavily and the running game taking center stage with Davante Adams and Allen Lazard out. We saw 16 carries for A.J. Dillon and 15 for Aaron Jones, and that could be very close to how the game will play out on Sunday.
So, that run the ball point is all great if it works, but the Chiefs coaches are well aware of what the Packers are up against this week and will likely load the box. This means Lafluer has to keep them on their toes and show them something they haven’t seen from Green Bay before. Enter the designed QB run. Now, Jordan Love is by no means a Lamar Jackson or Jalen Hurts, but for a few plays, he has the youth and athleticism to keep the Chiefs defense from crashing down on Dillon and Jones. He also did run the zone read (here’s an example at about 45 seconds into this video) in college, and simply putting in a read to the Packers basic inside zone play is an easy enough adjustment that could result in a big play or two.