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Are Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers going to miss the playoffs?
The NFL Up Vote crew debates if Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady will miss the playoffs this season.
USA TODAY
GREEN BAY, Wis. — When he first got to the league, Aaron Jones relied on nothing more than raw speed as a route runner. There was no downfield tree in his first two seasons. He simply toed the line of scrimmage and sprinted as fast as he could.
That changed when the Green Bay Packers hired Matt LaFleur in 2019. Jones’ role in the Packers passing game grew overnight. Starting that offseason, he was introduced to vertical routes. Deep corners. Slant-and-goes. Jones became one of the few NFL running backs able to do what wide receivers are required, stretching the field deep.
“You always love to turn into a receiver as a back,” Jones says, “and get an opportunity to make a play downfield.”
The Packers got a reminder of what Jones can do as a deep threat two weeks ago against the New York Jets. On third-and-6 in the first quarter, Jones split wide right. Jets linebacker Quincy Williams followed him. Tucked against the sideline, there was no cornerback to help.
Jones read the single coverage and knew he had a big play even before the snap.
“I’m like, ‘This ball is probably coming to me,’” Jones says. “If I win my route, it’s definitely coming to me.”
Jones attacked the 5-foot-11, 225-pound linebacker like a receiver. He had the speed to overwhelm Williams, but the Packers had run a handful of shallow slant routes with Jones split wide early in the season. They broke their tendency with a slant-and-go, calling for Jones to fake a route inside before bending up the sideline.
Three yards downfield, Jones cut his fourth step to the middle. When his fifth step was back toward the sideline, Williams was toast. “I definitely could have run past him,” Jones says, “just beat him with speed, but that slant-and-go gives you more separation.” Jones was wide open behind the Jets defense, and the football was coming to him. When he searched for it, Jones saw Rodgers’ pass was underthrown instead of leading him to the end zone.
Rodgers’ pass was also about six inches wide, by Jones’ estimation, guiding him toward the sideline. By the time the football fell into his hands, Jones had decelerated enough for Williams to close the 2-yard gap. Jones’ left foot landed inbounds, but Williams arrived before the second foot dropped. He knocked Jones on his butt out of bounds.
“As soon as I landed,” Jones says, “I looked down where was I was at, and I was like, ‘Damn.’ That’s what the margin of error is in this league.”
Six inches, and the Packers had a 75-yard touchdown.
They punted instead.
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‘I love a good deep shot’
It’s a play the Packers built their offense on for a generation. The deep shot has been as much a staple of this franchise as cheeseheads and Lambeau Leaps, striking fear in opposing defenses since Aaron Rodgers became a presumptive first-ballot Hall of Famer.
The Packers have been spoiled over the years, knowing Rodgers’ cannon, right arm could uncork throws few quarterbacks dared. At its best, their deep shot is clockwork. Rodgers hits the back of his drop usually around 11 yards behind the line of scrimmage. He hops forward a step or two to carry momentum, often launching about 8 yards behind the line, a clean pocket around him.
If an offensive lineman’s favorite play is the downhill run, allowing them to dig in their heels and attack defensive linemen off the ball, the deep shot could be their least. It’s a grueling play, requiring a unique blend of endurance and patience. Linemen are taught to block to infinity. Enough time for receivers to run 30, 40 yards downfield.
Guard Jon Runyan says nothing in the Packers playbook brings more joy to the offense.
“I love a good deep shot,” Runyan says, “especially when they’re completed. I always look forward to those plays. It’s always fun looking back to Aaron once we complete one down the field, seeing his little fist pump, and then we all jog downfield. It’s always a good time. Everybody is laughing and smiling. That’s some of the best moments in football.”
That, then, might explain why this Packers offense hasn’t been much fun to watch.
There’s seemingly an endless list of issues plaguing the offense as it nears the season’s midway point, a smorgasbord of problems that has made this unit unrecognizable to the past. Atop the list is a lack of explosiveness when the Packers throw the ball. Through the season’s first seven games, the deep shot has gone AWOL. If Rodgers still has a cannon, he’s fired with wet gunpowder.
The quarterback has completed just 9-of-33 passes targeted at least 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage for 265 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, a 68.12 rating. Another downfield pick against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers didn’t count because it was a free play. Rodgers had Randall Cobb wide open 45 yards down the middle of the field, behind the secondary. His pass was badly underthrown, preventing a potential touchdown.
When Rodgers was at his apex in 2020, resurrecting his best-quarterback-in-the-game status with his third MVP, the deep shot was the backbone of the Packers offense. Through the first seven games that season, Rodgers completed 18-of-42 passes targeted at least 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage for 648 yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions and a 126.24 rating.
The disparity widens the further Rodgers has thrown. At this point in 2020, Rodgers was 13-for-32 with 502 yards and three touchdowns when his pass traveled at least 30 yards from his hand to the receiver, a 119.27 rating. This season, he’s 4-for-26 with 197 yards, one touchdown, an interception and a 55.45 rating.
“We just want to be efficient,” Rodgers says. “Whenever we’re getting the ball down the field, this is how we’re going to do it. We’d obviously love to hit some of those chunk plays. A lot of them have been off-schedule stuff, second-, third-window stuff. On-the-move stuff. We’ve got to start hitting some of those in-the-pocket things when we get opportunities.
“A lot of it has just been the little details on some of the routes, and me and the receivers not being on the same page.”
Rodgers’ average pass completion has traveled 3.7 yards in the air this season, ranking dead last among 38 qualified quarterbacks, according to the NFL’s NextGen statistics. He’s the only quarterback averaging fewer than 4 yards in the air on completions. In 2020, Rodgers’ average completion traveled 5.5 yards in the air.
The futility was addressed in a team meeting a couple weeks ago. Rodgers had the Packers’ video staff compile clips mostly of Davante Adams and Jordy Nelson, teaching points for rookies Romeo Doubs and Christian Watson to better understand the timing required to go deep in the NFL.
The problem is Doubs and Watson are not Adams and Nelson.
They haven’t been Adams and Marquez Valdes-Scantling either.
‘We expect to hit them’
From their first snap this season, the Packers wanted to establish the deep shot. Watson lined up across Minnesota Vikings cornerback Patrick Peterson, ready to introduce himself to the NFL. The 4.3 speedster set up Peterson with an inside route before bending toward the sideline 10 yards up field.
Peterson was cooked. The veteran trailed by 3 yards when Rodgers’ pass fell into Watson’s hands, a perfect throw for what would have been a 75-yard touchdown. The fist pump and laughs and downfield celebration never happened. Watson dropped the football, and a season of empty deep shots began.
The downfield passing game hasn’t met LaFleur’s admittedly lofty expectations. LaFleur says he wants “every one of them” to yield a big play.
“We’re not just calling it to just throw the ball away,” LaFleur says. “When we take them, we expect to hit them. Yeah, I think there are some benefits to just throwing it down the field, in terms of showing that, hey, we’re willing to do this. But the goal on every play is to have a positive play.
“I just don’t know how to think of it any other way. I know that’s unrealistic. I realize that. It’s unrealistic that you’re going to go out and complete 100% of your passes, but any time you don’t, you’re always coaching up the reason why.”
Rodgers, a bit more realistic, says he ideally wants to complete half his downfield passes. He hasn’t been close to that rate this season, but a review of Rodgers’ shots downfield shows the blame is hardly on him alone. Rodgers’ efficiency throwing 20 yards downfield or more this season aren’t much behind the first seven games last year, when he completed 12-of-32 passes for 425 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions, a 69.6 rating.
It’s easy to find the lost yardage. Adams effectively was the Packers’ deep passing game early last fall. In the first seven games of 2021, Adams caught 5-of-10 targets at least 20 yards downfield for 199 yards, almost matching the receptions and yardage Packers receivers have combined this season.
The Packers deep passing game wasn’t equipped to fill Adams’ void. No other Packers receiver had more than two catches or 47 yards on passes at least 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage through the first seven games of 2021. Even Valdes-Scantling caught just one of his seven deep targets in the first seven games, a 47 yarder.
“I think his speed,” Rodgers says, “was always one of the least talked about things. He was always able to get on top of guys, or be ready for a back shoulder down the field.”
In Adams’ absence, Allen Lazard emerged as the Packers one viable deep threat. Rodgers’ best passes this season, those throws few other quarterbacks dare, have all been to his new top receiver.
On a second-and-4 late in the fourth quarter at Tampa Bay, Rodgers stared down a blitzing safety and dropped a fade to tightly covered Lazard for 26 yards. A week later, Rodgers threw a perfect pass to Lazard for 32 yards up the right sideline. Lazard was blanketed against New England Patriots cornerback Jonathan Jones, but Rodgers’ pass was in a place only his receiver could reach it.
Rodgers’ best throw this season might have come to Lazard against the New York Jets. Lazard ran a fade to the left sideline on third-and-7 with cornerback D.J. Reed trailing his hip. Rodgers hit Lazard in stride before safety Lamarcus Joyner could arrive in double coverage.
Lazard has caught four of his 10 targets at least 20 yards downfield for 118 yards, including a 25-yard touchdown against the Jets. No other Packers receiver has more than two deep receptions.
At 6-5, 227 pounds, Lazard isn’t the prototypical deep threat. His 4.55 40 prevented him from being drafted in 2018. Lazard’s ability to track the deep ball has been evident since the Packers claimed him after being released by the Jacksonville Jaguars late in his rookie season. His first career touchdown at the New York Giants in 2019 was 37 yards. He had a 43-yard reception earlier in that game.
A year later, Lazard’s 58-yard touchdown midway through the fourth quarter, on a pass that traveled 32 yards past the line of scrimmage, broke open the Packers divisional round playoff win against the Los Angeles Rams.
A baseball centerfielder as a kid, Lazard says his ability to track Rodgers’ passes comes from how he used to chase down fly balls.
“I’ve always had a gift,” Lazard says, “to understand the flight and trajectory of the ball, whether it’s a football, basketball, baseball. I think a lot of it is just staying calm and collected. Because there’s obviously a lot of time from when you first track the ball to when you catch it. There’s a lot of time and space between, so just understanding the position you’re trying to catch the ball – whether it’s high or low – where the defender is and everything.
“It’s different because in baseball you’re not thinking about any exterior things but the ball. Maybe the wall, but even then there’s always a warning track to kind of let you know. Football, there’s times when I’m running across the field about to catch the ball, and I get smacked because I don’t see the DB fall off.”
Without Adams and MVS, Lazard says defenses are playing the Packers “much more aggressively” in coverage this season. Cornerbacks are playing more man-to-man defense in 2022, unafraid to match up with the Packers’ receivers. Rodgers had a gluttony of open targets deep in 2020. Of his 42 downfield passes, 26 were thrown to open receivers. He had 15 open targets and 15 covered at this point in 2021.
This season, Rodgers has targeted 13 open receivers and 17 covered.
It’s taken time for Rodgers to connect with the rookies. Doubs has not caught any of his five targets at least 20 yards downfield, though one play resulted in an illegal-contact penalty on the defense. The fourth-round pick was open for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter against the Patriots, but the football jarred loose when he hit the ground in the end zone.
After his drop in Minnesota, Watson said it was a play he’d make 99 times out of 100. He’s yet to catch a deep pass this season. Watson was open down the right sideline against the Patriots for what could have been a 40-yard reception, but when he turned to find the football over his inside shoulder, the throw was sailing outside.
Watson says the wind, often a variable on deep shots, carried Rodgers’ pass closer to the sideline than expected.
“I probably could have tracked it a little better,” Watson says. “Kind of hold my line toward the sideline a little bit more. I think that’s something we’ll hit more on as I gain confidence from 12, and just run some more of those.”
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‘Threaten them at all levels of the defense’
After weeks of disconnect, the Packers almost ditched the deep shot against Washington.
They threw downfield only once in the first half, a feeble attempt to Sammy Watkins inside the 2-minute warning. Rodgers’ pass was overthrown by 6 yards, voiding a defensive pass interference because it was deemed uncatchable.
He didn’t throw downfield again until five minutes left in the fourth quarter, a potential touchdown Amari Rodgers dropped.
The Packers had forced their deep shots before Washington, wanting to avoid predictability. Even now, Rodgers has thrown one more pass at least 20 yards downfield this season than last.
“You always want to threaten them at all the levels of the defense,” offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich says. “Anytime you can take shots, you want to take shots.”
Rodgers says the Packers offense historically likes to try one deep shot each quarter, a mark it’s hit through seven games. Without the threat of throwing deep, an offense becomes one-dimensional. Washington played mostly with two safeties deep, one reason the Packers threw less downfield. Other defenses have loaded the box, knowing Jones is the star they must stop in the Packers offense.
Stenavich calls it “softening a defense” when Rodgers throws downfield. If the deep shots stop, the Packers run game will suffer. One solution to unclog the vertical passing game might be Jones. His slant-and-go against the Jets was the first time Jones had been targeted deep all season. Jones crunched the film that following Monday, searching for any way he could have finished the catch.
“Even if it’s not possible,” Jones says, “I want to find a way. How can I get this done? Could I have stayed inbounds? What could I have done? Sometimes it takes a coach telling me, ‘Hey, you couldn’t have done anything about that.’
“I still could have made that play. Taking your game from good to great to elite, that’s what the elite do. They find a way to get those two feet in. So my next step is finding a way to get those two feet in.”
A week later, against Washington, he got another chance. Jones started from the backfield, a traditional tailback running his route like a receiver. Safety Kamren Curl tracked him down the left sideline, tight coverage, but Rodgers’ pass was on the spot.
Jones leaped at the 4-yard line. Caught the football over Curl’s helmet at the 2. Landed in the end zone for a touchdown.
This time, he got two feet inbounds.
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