The bye week came at a good time for the Green Bay Packers, who haven’t had the best injury luck this season. Jordan Love opened his career as a starting quarterback on hard mode, with his WR1, RB1, LT, and LG all missing significant time. While not the only issue, these injuries have certainly kept Green Bay’s offense from operating the way it wanted to.
David Bakhtiari is out for the season, but Love should have his full arsenal available against the Denver Broncos. An awful Broncos team against Green Bay’s fully operational offense is a recipe to get the offense back on track.
Having a healthy Christian Watson back should help give Love a focal point and smooth out some of the deep-ball woes. His presence also unlocks the rest of the passing offense. With Watson’s full speed and ability to draw in defenders, his return should make life easier for rookie tight end Luke Musgrave. Despite a decent start for a rookie tight end, Musgrave hasn’t been quite been able to break out yet. Watson should make the rookie’s life much easier.
Tight ends notoriously have a difficult time transitioning from college to the pros because they need to learn route trees, build chemistry with the quarterback, and learn blocking schemes.
We’ve seen some of those growing pains early with Musgrave. He and Love haven’t always been on the same page, and both parties are at fault. At least once per game, they miss a potentially big opportunity, like Musgrave’s drop on the final offensive drive against the Las Vegas Raiders. Players have run the wrong routes, misjudged distance, and missed blocks. And sometimes Love has badly missed his top tight end.
But Musgrave has been a big part of the offense so far and is impressive by rookie tight end standards. On 23 targets, he’s caught 18 passes for 159 yards and 8.8 YPC. His yards, receptions, and targets are second for all rookie tight ends — behind only Detroit’s Sam LaPorta. In a deep tight end draft class, Musgrave is getting opportunities and outplaying a lot of guys drafted ahead of him.
But despite his progress and getting close a few times, Musgrave hasn’t had a true breakout. After averaging 15 yards per catch in the first two games of the season, his efficiency has declined with the offense. Against the Raiders, Musgrave caught six of his seven targets but only totaled 34 yards.
Obviously, the offense has been disjointed. With the offensive line struggling and the deep ball not working, Musgrave has mostly been a check-down option, usually catching the ball near the line of scrimmage. While he has generated some yards after the catch, the starting point doesn’t do him many favors.
If the Packers can better utilize Musgrave in the middle of the field, and Musgrave can clean up his route running, he can be a focal point of the offense, like we often saw this off-season. And having Watson is the key to unlocking that.
Watson didn’t look completely back to his old self against Vegas. However, it took a dirty play to bring him down in space. The extra two weeks should have him back to his speedy self against Denver. Watson’s impact goes beyond his own abilities. His sheer speed means he can break out at any time with the ball in his hands. Defenses have to account for his raw speed, and he’ll see more double coverage as he works his way back to the passing game’s focal point.
That means more opportunities for Musgrave. If Watson is drawing defenders deep, Musgrave can do damage on intermediate routes in the middle of the field.
Musgrave is built a lot like Watson — an athletic monster who’s a bit raw in mechanics and route ability. We saw what Watson could do last season. Now imagine there’s a tight end version! It forces defensive coordinators to pick their poison. Too much focus on Watson leaves Musgrave open, and vice versa. And while this dilemma occurs, Aaron Jones can take advantage of the chaos.
Love and Musgrave need to clean up their mechanics and better build chemistry to make this work, of course. Athletic ability is great, but players need to utilize it properly. However, the coaching staff likes the direction Musgrave is trending.
“You can see them taking steps forward, especially in the run game. So I’m excited about those guys and how they’ve progressed so far. Obviously is they just keep going we’ll have a pretty good unit eventually,” offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said of Musgrave and Tucker Kraft.
The Vikings offense is searching for an identity. A pretty good way to get there would be to better utilize Musgrave and Watson and let them unlock chances for one another. With Watson back in the lineup, Musgrave’s life should get much easier.
