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The Packers push the ball down the field
Green Bay ranked dead last in neutral pass rate coming into Week 15. They have really leaned into their diverse and powerful run game led by Josh Jacobs.
That rushing attack was still a focal point in their road win over the Seahawks. Jacobs ran the ball 26 times to 27 pass attempts by Jordan Love and the backup backs had four rush attempts. Jayden Reed had three runs at nine yards per attempt. However, the passing game showed some dynamism with downfield passes, which needs to be part of the equation for the Packers to hit their ceiling.
Love threw deep at the second-highest rate in any game this season at 22.2%, per Next Gen Stats. He was extremely effective overall, with a top-10 yards per completion rate among quarterbacks this week and a 57.1% success rate, the fifth-best game of his career (NGS).
Love threw the ball on average under 2.1 seconds in Week 15. He had some layups behind the line of scrimmage but that also speaks to his shots downfield. Almost all of his vertical passes came on concepts that required him to hit the back foot and uncork the ball quickly to deep routes.
Seattle’s defense has been a strong unit in the second half of the year, particularly defending the run, as they were first in rushing success rate allowed since Week 10 prior to this game. They didn’t allow many explosive carries to the backs and held Jacobs to 3.9 yards per carry. However, they have a clear weakness at outside corner. Green Bay took advantage of that issue routinely with vertical shots to Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs. They also drew some critical pass interference plays and Love was decisive in hunting for those in tight coverage, even if the throw wasn’t always open.
Given how Green Bay has shied away from having the passing game be the leading actor at times this season, I wasn’t sure if they were going to take advantage of those issues in the Seahawks defense. The fact that they did is a…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/week-15-caredont-care-without-geno-smith-seahawks-offense-and-fantasy-football-outlook-paints-bleak-picture-045251498.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2024-12-16 04:52:00
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