Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports
The Packers had answers for every question Dallas’ defense threw at them
You could see the light go on for Packers QB Jordan Love and the young Packers’ core.
Around Thanksgiving, the Packers went into Ford Field and took down the Detroit Lions 29-22, and Love was masterful, going 22/32 for 268 yards and three touchdowns. The arm talent and angles were on full display, and he became the QB that the Packers were promised after drafting him in 2020.
Since that game on Thanksgiving Day, let’s just say the Packers’ signal caller has been pretty darn good. Among all QBs since Week 12, Love is third in the NFL in Adjusted EPA per play and third in Success Rate, and showed off the full arsenal of tools in the Packers 48-32 upset over the Dallas Cowboys. What stood out the most about how Love and the Packers’ offense performed in Dallas was how often they had answers for anything Dallas threw at them. Packers’ head coach Matt LaFleur had a phenomenal gameplan using misdirection and motion to punish Dallas for playing light boxes in the run game, and then using play action to throw off the pass rush.
The Cowboys had a great defense this year, but the linebacker group was the obvious weak link. They played light up front, and for that, the Packers crushed them in the run game. This was one of the first big Aaron Jones run, and it started a trend for the Packers. Green Bay held the backside linebacker with the boot action by Love, and forced the linebacker to be slow to the cutback lane. Jones finds it first and takes it for a plus gain.
This play was something that popped up on Dallas’ defensive tape against the Buffalo Bills is how the Cowboys responded to orbit motion. You can either bump defenders in and out of the box, or just have a guy travel with the motion. It’s sometimes a man or zone tell, but how you play it dictates how you fit the run. On this play, Green Bay runs orbit motion, and Dallas bumps a player into the box. However, as the receiver returns to where he started, they have to bump back out of the box. In this case, LB Markquese Bell is the guy bumping in and out of the box. Once he goes out, the only second level box defenders are S Jayron Kearse and CB Stephon Gilmore.
You tell me which side is gonna win.
In the passing game, LaFleur has helped harness Love’s aggression and arm talent with scheming up passes off play action for him to attack downfield. Dallas is an aggressive team, but LaFleur helped turn that aggression against them.
Dallas loves running Tampa 2 with their defense, with one of their DBs as the middle runner. Green Bay knows that, and attacked the middle of the field with Dagger concepts all game. They tagged that with play action as well, in order to slow down the most fearsome part of the Cowboys, which is the pass rush. This gave Love a clean-ish pocket, and with the Packers having every answer vs. Dallas’ Tampa 2, it made generating explosives easy.
LaFleur and the Packers made everything look similar to the Dallas second level, and it helped create some explosives where Packers receivers were running WIDE OPEN. Watch these two plays. The first one is simple: Green Bay motions TE Luke Musgrave back to the line of scrimmage, and the Packers run split zone with TE Tucker Kraft going the other way. Dallas gets caught up on the split zone motion and Jones takes off for a massive 27 yard gain.
THE VERY NEXT PLAY, Green Bay runs the same motion into the same look, with the same personnel. Only this time, the Packers run Leak with Musgrave, and watch how the run action moves every single second level defender. That is masterful by LaFleur and the Packers’ offense.
Now, this doesn’t mean Jordan Love didn’t call iso and get a bucket when he had to. In terms of process and then execution, this might be one of my favorite plays from the Wild Card round. The Packers are in empty, and Love does a dummy count to see what Dallas is doing. Dallas shows blitz so Love adjusts the play at the line of scrimmage. He brings WR Jayden Reed in motion and then the ball is snapped. Dallas does, in fact, bring the blitz, but it doesn’t faze Love, who fires a pass off his back foot into the waiting hands of WR Dontayvion Wicks for the TD. Absolutely masterful.
The growth that both Love and this young Packers core have shown this season has been extremely cool to watch. From the trust LaFleur showed in Love and the young guys while they were struggling to scoring 48 points in Dallas, the youngest team in the NFL showed some bite. Now, they go to San Francisco to take on the Niners’ death machine. With the confidence Green Bay is playing with right now, it’s not exactly a pushover game.
