Packers offense finds success with balanced attack
By Paul Bretl
As Aaron Rodgers said following the Green Bay Packers Week 2 win over Chicago, long gone are the days of one player getting 15 targets. Instead, it’s going to take a more balanced attack and a group effort.
This approach is certainly different than what we are accustomed to seeing in Green Bay the last several years, but different doesn’t necessarily mean bad—it’s just different.
A balanced Packers offense leads to early success against Chicago
After really struggling Week 1 against Minnesota, behind an improved offensive line with the return of Elgton Jenkins, we saw a much more balanced Packers offense, and it resulted in an impressive first-half performance that put the Packers up multiple scores.
Many have spent the last few months wondering what this Packers offense would look like without Adams or how they’d overcome his absence. And while in the grand scheme of an NFL season, Sunday night’s game is only one of 17 and against a rebuilding Bears team, it looked like Green Bay found their offensive identify through a balanced run-pass mix.
Rodgers would finish the game with 25 pass attempts, completing 19 of them for 234 yards and a pair of touchdowns. The Packers’ offense also did an excellent job of rotating the receivers in and out.
Sammy Watkins, Allen Lazard, Randall Cobb, Christian Watson, and Romeo Doubs all saw their fair share of snaps — with Cobb taking the fewest at 20 — each with their own specific play packages in an effort to maximize what each player can do by putting them in the best position to be successful.
Of Rodgers’ 25 pass attempts, nine different Green Bay pass-catchers had at least one target, with no player having more than four. There is certainly no replacing Adams, but opposing defenses not knowing where Rodgers is going with the football comes with its own challenges.
Meanwhile, Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon, both of whom needed more touches, which Rodgers and Matt LaFleur were very open about during the week, combined for 33 carries and 193 rushing yards at over 5.0 yards per clip.
The balance between the running and passing games played off each other well. Early on, with the Bears still concerned about Rodgers in the passing game, they played a lot of 2-high looks, which opened things up for Jones and Dillon on the ground. Then late in the game, play-action caught the Chicago safeties looking in the backfield, which allowed Watkins to get behind them for a 55-yard gain.
Rodgers also admitted after the game that he didn’t play all that well, so having the run game to lean on was very helpful. Also, this balance allows LaFleur a lot more flexibility as a play-caller, which we saw on display.
The challenge for the Packers moving forward will be sticking with this approach, especially if they fall behind early or the run game is bottled up. We’ve seen on several occasions that Rodgers and LaFleur can become impatient and pass-happy relatively quickly. The Packers will also face a much more challenging opponent in Week 3, going up against the talented Tampa Bay front seven.
Only time will tell, and to a degree, the Packers’ game plan is going to change week to week, depending on the opponent, but on Sunday night against the Bears, it looked like this offense found who they need to be this season, with a heavily involved Jones and Dillon, a good run-pass mix, and the ball being spread around in the passing game.