Before Davante Adams, there was Jordy Nelson. Before that, there was Greg Jennings, Donald Driver, Antonio Freeman, and Sterling Sharpe. The Green Bay Packers have had a clear WR1 for the last 30 years, basically. That makes it especially tough to predict exactly how this season will unfold.
Unless one of the receivers makes a huge leap in production, the assumption is that there will be a balanced distribution of targets, receptions, and yardage. The new group includes veterans like Allen Lazard, Randall Cobb, and Sammy Watkins and young players like Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, and Amari Rodgers.
But there is one season that will be instructive for the 2022 Packers.
In 2015, Jordy Nelson was the clear WR1 and was coming off a great season in 2014. He suffered an ACL injury during the preseason and left Green Bay without a primary receiver. The situation was worse than now in many respects.
The injury occurred right before the season, so there was no obvious avenue to get much better. Moreover, head coach Mike McCarthy had entered the final part of his stint as the Packers head coach. His system had gotten stale, and assistant head coach Tom Clements started calling plays for the first time.
But the experience of not having a top receiver could teach something to the current version of the Packers.
It’s okay to have balanced productivity
The Packers didn’t have any player with at least 1,000 yards in 2015. But that doesn’t necessarily mean something went wrong. There were two receivers with over 800 yards (James Jones and Randall Cobb), plus Richard Rodgers, Davante Adams, and James Starks with at least 390 yards each. The 2015 offense had schematic and execution problems, but yardage distribution wasn’t one of them.
For comparison, Davante Adams had 1,553 yards last year, but Allen Lazard had the second-highest total with 513. While it’s good to have a great player like Adams, Green Bay’s lack of distribution cost the Packers efficiency in their playoff loss. Why? The San Francisco 49ers’ defense was able to minimize Adams’ production.
We might see something similar to what happened seven years ago in 2022. Lazard’s career highs are 513 yards and eight touchdowns (both achieved last season), so it’s hard to predict that he will double his yardage, even with more volume. Sammy Watkins hasn’t had a 1,000-yard season since 2015, and Cobb since 2014. The thinking is that multiple players will have between 400 and 800 yards, and weekly gameplans will dictate which player will have more targets on a given day.
Prepare for man-to-man coverage
In 2015, the Packers started the season with six wins in their first six games, beating the Chicago Bears, Seattle Seahawks, Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers, St. Louis Rams, and San Diego Chargers. But the Denver Broncos exposed Green Bay’s offense with sticky man coverage following the bye.
It quickly became clear that Green Bay’s receivers could not generate separation, and Aaron Rodgers suffered with pressures at a higher volume. It’s fair to argue that it was near impossible to produce against that insane 2015 Broncos defense. However, other teams followed the blueprint, and the Packers had four more games under 20 points until the end of the season.
“Schematically, we need to do some different things, and, execution-wise, we need to get open and complete passes,” Rodgers said after the 29–10 loss to Denver, Green Bay’s first of the season. “When you are playing a good cover team like that, we had some ideas, and we didn’t convert them.”
Use running backs and tight ends
It’s obvious that the receiver group is not as talented as it was last year. Not only was Davante Adams traded, but Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Equanimeous St. Brown left in free agency. Even though the Packers have added some options, nobody knows who will play well among them. Therefore, it’s imperative to have options elsewhere — as McCarthy had in 2015.
There were two tight ends (Richard Rodgers and Justin Perillo) and two running backs (James Starks and Eddie Lacy) among the nine players with at least 100 yards in 2015. Rodgers and Starks, especially, were significant parts of the passing offense. This year, we might see a similar impact from players like Aaron Jones, Robert Tonyan, and Tyler Davis.
But the scheme has to help in that regard. In 2015, the Packers used 11 personnel (three wide receivers, one running back, and one tight end), almost three out of every four plays, while the league average was 55% at that time. As I discussed earlier in the offseason, personnel alignments with two running backs have been successful for the Packers under Matt LaFleur. It will be decisive to use them more frequently with Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon together on the field in 2022. The main idea is to use the best players as much as possible.
Follow the plan
The 2015 season was the worst statistical year of Aaron Rodgers‘ career as a starter in the NFL. He had his worst passer rating (92.7), worst average yards per attempt (6.7), and tied for the highest number of interceptions since 2010 (eight). He also frequently fell into bad habits, like throw-aways and unnecessary scrambles.
“I’ve never gone into a game with a goal of calling 30, 35 plays, and six plays we relied on production from the scramble phase,” McCarthy said in 2015. “The scramble phase is really a reaction to what’s going on between the offense and defense. We don’t call plays and say, ‘OK, let’s just hold it for 2.5 seconds and then turn it into a scramble.’ That’s not the way we operate.”
Now Rodgers has a significantly better relationship with Matt LaFleur and seems to trust the scheme much more. The offensive success is dependent on the quarterback using those tools to respect the plan, follow the flow of plays and pass in rhythm as much as possible. Rodgers’ ability to extend plays is a plus, for sure, but just when used sparsely. His highlight plays frequently originated from the pocket, respecting the timing of the plays.
The 2022 season will present different challenges for the Packers’ offense. Matt LaFleur and Aaron Rodgers must think and act together for the team to overcome it and be as successful as they have been for the last three years.
