Inside Slant: Green Bay's distinct, winning formula at wide receiver – ESPN (blog)
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GREEN BAY, Wis. — The fourth quarter loomed as the Green Bay Packers faced an eight-point deficit in last season’s divisional playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys.
It was third-and-15.
The Packers had four wide receivers and a tight end spread across the line of scrimmage. Their leading receivers, Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb, bookended the formation. As the play unfolded, however, Nelson cut off his route after five yards. Cobb broke to the sideline after six. If the Packers were to gain a first down, it was soon clear the play would target a gangly rookie who had caught but four passes over the final month of the regular season.
Lined up in the right slot, Davante Adams got a step on Cowboys nickelback Sterling Moore. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers delivered a strike that Adams caught exactly 15 yards downfield. Adams then swiveled and ran through the Cowboys’ defense for a crucial 46-yard touchdown.
The sequence was notable for Rodgers’ patience and Adams’ open-field moves, but close observers noted a cause-and-effect that illustrates how the Packers have long operated their offense. Even on third down in the playoffs, they relied on matchups and trusted their depth rather than force a play toward a more obvious target and a waiting defense.
“The way we’re set up, it gives us something a little extra,” Adams said last week after a training camp practice. “Teams can’t focus on just one guy. You have to worry about the weapons we’ve got. When they have to put their third-best guy on me or someone else, it’s going to be a tough matchup.”
The Packers’ team-building approach at the position stands in particular contrast to the franchise they defeated that cold day in January. The Packers have drafted nine receivers since Rodgers’ ascension to starter in 2008, the seventh-highest total in the NFL, but never have they sought a dominant No. 1 receiver such as Dez Bryant. Instead, they have collected upper-end volume — Nelson, Cobb and Adams were all second-round picks — to build their scheme and financial structure around the idea that a high-level whole will prove better than any one part.
“We bring in guys that can do all of it,” Rodgers said. “Last year, we had two guys with over 90 catches [Nelson and Cobb], but we haven’t had that one guy that maybe people give their respect to as a dominant receiver. When they talk about the top receivers, they talk about Calvin [Johnson] and Antonio Brown, Julio [Jones] and Dez and those guys. Well, I like our guys a lot. All of them. I love Jordy and Randall and Davante, and we’ve got a lot of depth beyond those guys. When you play teams and you watch the film, its hard not to see the production from those guys.”
Interviews with Rodgers, his receivers and coach Mike McCarthy revealed an approach that values football intelligence and requires wideouts to learn all four positions (outside and slot on both sides). It throws added complexity to the defense while maintaining an intuitive sensibility for the receivers.
McCarthy teaches the Packers’ passing offense based on concepts — how a play is designed and why it is supposed to work — rather than individual routes. Receivers are naturally exposed to every route assigned in a given play, and McCarthy wants them not just to understand each concept but to be prepared to execute any part of it in a game.
“We emphasize having a high football IQ and understanding why you’re doing what you’re doing,” Cobb said. “It’s not about what routes you’re running, but about the whole package, the progressions, understanding where you are in the progression and why.”
That set of values has informed the Packers’ player acquisition in the Rodgers era. Only two teams have drafted more receivers in the top two rounds than the Packers during this stretch, and this year they added a third-round pick (Stanford’s Ty Montgomery) to the mix. Montgomery is expected to be the Packers’ kickoff returner, but has drawn instant raves for his work in the classroom (Stanford, of course) and figures to see playing time on offense soon enough.
“If a receiver can’t play all four positions, I struggle with that,” McCarthy said. “It’s such a prominent position today compared to 10-15 years ago, because you’re playing every play with three and sometimes four on the field. You might have one great receiver, but if he can’t line up in all four spots, he’s easier to take away.”
Nelson, for example, is built like a classic outside receiver at 6-foot-3 and 217 pounds. You might be surprised to know he has appeared in the slot on 622 plays over the past two seasons, about a third of his total snaps. Cobb, presumed to be an ideal slot receiver at 5-10 and with elite quickness, played about 20 percent of his snaps on the outside in 2014. Adams saw 43 snaps in the slot during the regular season, enough to be trusted there for that third-down catch against the Cowboys.
“You learn the concept as one, so we can interchange the formation,” Cobb said. “We can move guys around the formation and run the same play but it looks different because maybe I’m lined up outside, and Jordy is maybe at [slot] and we have a tight end in between us, but it’s still the same play.”
When they combine that flexibility with a high-talent floor, the Packers routinely nail the kind of plays Adams made against the Cowboys. In that scenario, Nelson drew the Cowboys’ top cornerback in Brandon Carr. Putting Adams in the slot left him facing Moore, whom the Cowboys non-tendered this spring prior to free agency.
“Our best is always been when we’re changing things up a lot,” Nelson said. “Defenses can’t roll coverage to one guy, try to take him out and then leave us nowhere else to go. It makes it easier for Aaron. He doesn’t have to focus on one side. He can just throw the ball to the open guy.”
There is also, of course, a financial efficiency inherent in this approach. The going rate for a classic No. 1 receiver is five years and $70 million, with $45 million in guarantees. Bryant and the Denver Broncos‘ Demaryius Thomas signed similar deals last month. Jones and the Cincinnati Bengals‘ A.J. Green will use those deals — with an average annual salary (APY) of $14 million — as precedent for their negotiations.
The Packers, meanwhile, have signed Nelson and Cobb to four-year contracts within the past year that average about $10 million per year. The guarantees in their deals totaled $24.5 million combined.
None of this is to say that the Packers would, as a rule, turn down an opportunity to draft a more heralded receiver. (They did select offensive lineman Bryan Bulaga one spot above Bryant in the 2010 first round, however.) But there is more than one way to staff a passing offense, and the Packers’ approach in the Rodgers era has yielded arguably the most efficient attack in the NFL. In his seven seasons as a starter, the Packers have the league’s highest percentage of touchdown passes per attempt (6.3).
Plus, when the system trusts a rookie receiver in an unnatural position to convert a third down late in a playoff game, and he responds with a game-changing touchdown, who can argue?
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