Winning a Super Bowl — heck, even just getting to it — obviously depends on getting the big things right: Having a top tier quarterback, strong coaching, intelligent roster building, etc etc. But what makes pro football so compelling is how many smaller things can add up to thedifference between going to the dance and getting stood up.
As we move to OTAs, mini-camp and training camp, watching for these elements is far more interesting to me than seeing an iPhone video of a DB drafted in the middle rounds making a nice play on a deep pass to a veteran receiver. So here are five things I hope the Packers will focus on improving over the next few months, so they can fulfill our lofty expectations for the upcoming season.
1. Get better in short-yard situations — This applies to both the offense and the defense, though I’m more likely to throw things at the TV watching the Packers fail to convert when they have the ball on third or fourth down with less than two or three yards to go. It’s a particularly important metric given the analytics-driven adoption of going for it on fourth down. This issue has bedeviled the Packers for seemingly so long that I was surprised to see stats showing that Green Bay made some strides last season. According to the geeky, single proprietor site NFL Lines, the Packers ranked second only to Philadelphia in 3rd and 4th down conversion rates in short yardage situations. The data appears to have been compiled in early December, so the last couple of weeks of the regular season aren’t included. Interestingly, Green Bay had a nearly 50-50 split between running and passing, whereas Philadelphia ran the ball two-thirds of the time, because, well, tush push. (The Ravens, with Lamar Jackson, rushed nearly 75% of the time.)
All things being equal, I have to believe running the ball is the preferred option, but the Packers have never prioritized run-blocking O-linemen, they don’t want Jordan Love taking more punishment than necessary, and AJ Dillon struggled all year to grind it out. So perhaps, in the absence of a tush-push equivalent of their own, the Packers can solidify a consistently successfulpassing scheme in short yardage situations that gives defenses trouble. I’d prefer to see LaFleur go into the lab and cook up a lower risk run option (for the goal line, too) for the new running back tandem, but either way, there needs to be a creative advance so that this is an ongoing strength and not a nail-biter each time.Conquering this is an important mark of a successful team.
Defending in these situations is harder. The Packers were 22nd in preventing conversion in 3rd and 4th down short-yardage situations, while Philadelphia ended up dead last after its defense imploded in the second half of the season. I’m gonna chalk up Green Bay’s rank to Joe Barry’s soft scheme and presume that Jeff Hafley will move this needle just by not being Joe Barry.
2. Tackle better — The Packers are already miles ahead simply replacing Darnell Savage with Xavier McKinney. There are a lot of statistical proxies out there for missed tackles (without premium subscriptions) but it’s noisy data: Some just count all tackles and expect you to look at the teams with the lowest totals and assume they are bad at it, which is silly. Others don’t account for circ*mstantial differences. So I’m relying on what I see watching games, looking at the team’s overall defensive performance and inferring that poor tackling has something to do with it. The Packers were 27th in defensive DVOA.Tackling is the one item on my list that is overwhelmingly based onindividual performance. If teams have big tackling issues, there are problems with both player evaluation and coaching. I’m optimistic that this is an area Jeff Hafley will be focused on with intensity.
3. Punt returns —The Packers continue to struggle with special teams overall, and Rich Bisaccia needs to prove himself or go. I don’t care that he’s a good motivator; Green Bay finished 31st in special teams DVOA, despite having the league’s leading kickoff returner. Some of that grade is a result of Anders Carlson’s inconsistency, but still. The team’s inability to get solidperformance returning punts is particularly maddening, and it needs to get fixed. I also wonder if Bisaccia has the creative chops to exploit the new kickoff rules, rather than be victimized by them. The changes are going to open up new opportunities for invention in both returning kicks and covering them, and one can imagine the most creative coaches coming up with some game tilting plans.
4. Make trickeration part of the scheme — Last year was a tale of two seasons, with first half struggles as Jordan Love was finding his groove, players were learning a new, Rodgers-free offensive scheme and rookies were settling in. It meant a big focus on fundamentals, repetition and consistency. When things gelled, the offense blossomed and opponents grappled with things they hadn’t seen before. The tape is out now, so it’s incumbent on LaFleur and his staff to keep innovating, to keep the opposition off-balance, to never let last week’s tape give your next opponent the information they need. This is what successful teams — with coaches like Reid, Shanahan and McVay — do as part of their routine. Trickeration becomes part of their teams’ identities, not just one-off plays here and there. Making opposing coaches ask themselves, ‘what will they throw at us this week’ is a path Green Bay should follow. Which means …
5. Deploy more single-game installation — Mike McCarthy’s aversion (and possibly Aaron Rodgers’ as well) to the idea of opponent-specific play installation and game-by-game scheme tweaks was the biggest reason I wanted him gone. LaFleur has shown some spark in this area, but there is room for more. Just pop in the tape of Bill Belichick, who made a career of week-to-week and in-game adjustments that were both reactive and proactive, putting the opposition on their heels. Reid even allows his players to come up with new plays. The beauty part is LaFleur’s offense is now stacked with varied and versatile skill sets to enable any number of unique and even wacky plays, including for short-yardage conversions!
Improving their basic statistical rankings by 10-15 spots — especially on defense and special teams — is how the Packers can get to the dance, assuming the offense continues to cook. Moving these needles might seem obvious, but they require laser focus and commitment. GPG.
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Jonathan Krim grew up in New York but got hooked on the Packers — and on hating the Cowboys — watching the Ice Bowl as a young child.He blames bouts of unhappiness in his late teens on Dan Devine. A journalist for several decades who now lives in California, he enjoys trafficking in obscure cultural references, lame dad jokes and occasionally preposterous takes. Jonathan is a Packers shareholder, and insists on kraut with his brats. You can follow Jonathan on twitter at @Jkrim.
