Who the heck is that guy wearing the No. 12 Green Bay Packers jersey?
It can’t be Aaron Rodgers. Is it that look-alike Brit who made a commercial with him? Even that guy might have more success throwing it than Rodgers has had this season and especially the past three games.
The Rodgers-led Packers offense we’ve come to expect -- the explosive, entertaining and, most importantly, winning offense -- hasn’t shown up much in 2015.
This version is a clunky, ugly, laborious offense that isn’t rolling up big numbers and didn’t win a division title for the first time since 2010. This offense can’t run it. The line can’t protect. The receivers don’t win. And Rodgers is a shell of himself -- or a shell-shocked version of himself.
Rodgers has been sacked 46 times, the second-highest total for any passer, five behind league-leader Blake Bortles. This is stunning for a team that had five returning offensive linemen back from 2014, and have a quarterback in Rodgers who is great escaping the rush and seeing the field.
Rodgers can still move away from pressure, but he’s held the ball longer this season in large part because the receivers can’t get open. When Rodgers hits the top of his drop, the ball has to be ready get out in the Green Bay system. Most of the time, when he’s ready to load, the receivers are plastered. That leads to his dropping his head to take a look at the pressure in front of him, and sometimes it leads to missed chances and him leaving clean pockets.
It’s hard to blame him when he’s taken a beating like he’s taken this season. The line has had its share of injuries, and veteran left tackle David Bakhtiari, who missed the past two weeks, wasn’t playing great when he was in the lineup. Right tackle Bryan Bulaga missed four games, and his play is down. And don’t even mention backup Don Barclay. The guy is like a turnstile when he plays.
In the past two games, against playoff teams in the Arizona Cardinals and Minnesota Vikings, Rodgers was sacked 13 times, lost three fumbles, two for touchdowns, and was picked off twice.
The Packers have four touchdowns in the past three games. That used to be a game’s worth when the offense was rolling.
Despite all the issues, they are still in the playoffs. The go to Washington this week to play the Redskins in an NFC wild-card game. If they are to win there, they need more from this offense, and more from Rodgers.
All year I’ve been waiting for him to turn it on and get back to being the Rodgers we’ve come to expect. It just hasn’t happened. Even when coach Mike McCarthy took back play-calling duties from Tom Clements, little changed. Sure, there have been moments where they’ve moved the football, but it just doesn’t look right.
Rodgers’ completion percentage is 60.7, which is the lowest since he became a starter in 2008. It’s nearly three percentage points lower than his number from his first season as a full-time starter. His completion percentage this season ranks him 26th in the league.
His per-attempt number is down to 6.7 yards per throw, which ranks 30th in the league. Since 2009, he’s been over 8.0 yards per attempt in every season and was at 9.2 in 2011 and 8.4 last season.
With Rodgers struggling, the offense finished 15th in scoring and 25th overall. Rodgers was 17th in the league in third-down passing. Seventeenth? This guy has been a third-down assassin in his career. In his career, Rodgers had a passer rating of over 100 in five seasons on third down. This season, it was 85.3 with a completion percentage of 51.9 percent.
As a team, the Packers converted 33.65 percent of their third downs this season, ranking 27th in the league, and 24.4 percent the past three weeks. They were at 46.67 percent in 2014.
The biggest issue is that the receivers aren’t fast and there is little creativity to help them get open. When Jordy Nelson went down, the Packers lost their best receiver and that led to teams playing a lot of man coverage against the Green Bay receivers and daring them to win.
They’ve loaded the box to stop the run, which slowed that part of the offense, and nobody can win outside. The Packers have a system that uses mostly isolation routes, which means the receivers have to beat their man coverage with their speed and their ability to run routes, rather than help from a pick or a rub or a bunch formation.
That’s all well and good when the line is good and Nelson is on the field, but it hasn’t worked this year.
Here’s a look at a play from last week’s loss to the Vikings that shows the problems the receivers are causing.
- Play: Third-and-8 at the Green Bay 29 with 13:35 left in the second quarter
- Offense: Posse (3WR, 1TE, 1RB) shotgun, offset back
- Defense: Nickel, man-free, safety blitz
On this play, as you can see, the Green Bay receivers didn’t win. When Rodgers was ready to throw, nobody was open. That allowed blitzing safety Harrison Smith to come off the edge and dump Rodgers.
Part of the problem here is that there are no quick, in-breaking routes to counter the blitz. That gives Smith enough time to come around the corner and dump Rodgers. The routes have to be adjusted for the blitz and the coverage. They were not.
What might help is changing the approach. Rarely do the Packers run crossing routes with picks or rubs or use bunch formations to free a receiver. They used one last week against the Vikings that had a big play written all over it, were it not for a great play by corner Xavier Rhodes.
Here’s a look:
What I liked about this was that they used a bunch formation to the right, rather than space their receivers out in isolation routes.
Cobb came out of the bunch on a cross and got a rub from tight end Richard Rodgers from the other side on a cross. That freed him up, and Rodgers hit him with the pass, but Rhodes kept it to a 4-yard gain. What you can see is that if Rhodes doesn’t make the play, this has big-gain potential. They need to do more of this.
I went back and watched some of the Green Bay tape from 2014. One of the games I watched was their victory over the eventual Super Bowl-champion Patriots. What I saw was creativity that hasn’t been used much this season, but needs to be used in the postseason.
They used Cobb in a variety of ways, including lining him up a bunch in the backfield. That helped create matchup problems for the New England secondary and linebackers. The Packers did it some late last week against the Vikings when they were playing catch up, and it seemed to work as well.
Here’s a look at a big play to Cobb in that New England game with him coming out of the backfield.
With Cobb in the backfield, the Packers again had a bunch formation to the right with three receivers. Two of those receivers ran hard inside routes, while the other ran up the seam. With New England in man coverage, it left linebacker Rob Ninkovich on Cobb in man coverage.
That’s a mismatch. Cobb ran a wheel route and Rodgers dropped the ball perfectly into his arms for a 33-yard gain.
Cobb has had one pass play over 33 yards this year. One.
The Packers need to do more of that. I know it’s not a big part of what McCarthy wants to do, but it’s time to make changes. Get creative. Try and get receivers who can’t win on their own open some other way.
All the problems have made Rodgers hesitant at times to make throws when they are there. Here’s a look at one of those against Arizona in Week 16.
Arizona came with a slot-corner blitz from Rodgers’ left and played a combo zone-man coverage scheme behind it.
Rodgers had a chance to hit Richard Rodgers when he cleared the linebacker, but even though he had a clear view of it, as you can see, he didn’t pull the trigger.
Instead he crouched down, far from being in a throwing position, and then retreated out. There was no need for that. He had time to stand in and make the throw.
But this is a passer who has been beaten up this season. When that happens the eyes comes down and they start looking at the rush -- sometimes even seeing ghosts. It happens to the greatest passers.
Is it fixable? The way the offense is being run now, it’s not with the personnel they have. The Packers lack outside speed with receivers who can win consistently, and opposing defenses know it.
The Packers came out in “22” personnel last week and tried to play power football with Lacy. He did some good things, but they still didn’t score points. There were no chunk plays. This is an offense that needs chunk plays.
My solution: Let Rodgers play more from the no-huddle and use picks and rubs and bunch formations to help compensate for the lack of quality receiving threats. Then as you play fast, get teams off-balance, and then come back to Lacy out of the spread, not the “22” personnel.
If they do that, we just might see the Aaron Rodgers we’ve come to expect, the NFL’s best passer.
If they don’t, the reigning MVP might be one-and-done in the playoffs and the heat will be on in Green Bay.
More observations from watching tape this week
The weekly Watt review: J.J. Watt had by far his best game of the season last week against the Jaguars. He had three sacks, but it was much more dominating than that. He spent the day in the backfield, abusing both tackles and was terrific in the run game.
He got his first sack by beating right tackle Sam Young, playing for the injured Jermey Parnell, with a speed move off the edge. Then he got left tackle Luke Joeckel twice with sacks. The second one he was able to hit the arm of quarterback Blake Bortles and knock the ball free, and Houston recovered.
Watt had been playing with a cast on a broken hand the past few weeks, but he wore just gloves in this game and was able to get back to using his hands more, which is a big part of his game.
Watt had several impressive plays in the run game as well. This was the Watt we saw for much of last season when he won the Defensive Player of the Year award. He’s been really good this season, but he was great on Sunday. That’s a good thing heading to the playoffs.
Wilfork is working it: I thought Texans nose tackle Vince Wilfork struggled early in the season. But in the past month his play has improved a lot and he’s a big part of the resurgence of the Houston defense.
Early in the season, Wilfork was moved in the run game too much, but he’s back to being a power player who is tough to move. That will be key this week against the Chiefs and their rookie center Mitch Morse, who is experiencing concussion issues. If he can’t go, it would be Zach Fulton.
More questions for the Jaguars? The Jaguars have to wonder if Joeckel, their first-round pick in 2013, and second overall, is the long-term answer at left tackle. He has been inconsistent so far, and he had his worst game last week against the Texans.
He isn’t strong enough and he seems to get overly concerned with the power moves of the pass rushers. He then has bad lapses with his technique, which leads to his dropping his head a lot. That’s when trouble happens.
He’s just turned 24 in November, so maybe another year in the weight room will help improve his strength and he will be able to hold up better in 2016.
