Packers gaining ground in picking up zone scheme
GREEN BAY - Elgton Jenkins and David Bakhtiari shot off the line of scrimmage and were on the edge of the defense in a blink – more than 600 pounds of protection in space and at full speed for Aaron Jones, who was running in synchronization right behind the left side of his offensive line on a padded practice rep that would have resulted in a big gain up the sideline.
In padded team drills over the last weeks, Jones, Jamaal Williams, AJ Dillon and Dexter Williams have seen creases and cutback lanes and moved upfield with decisive cuts.
And in a competitive period Tuesday inside Lambeau Field, Jones burst upfield with the crack of pads from his offensive line, resulting in exultations from the other offensive players standing who saw the combination of blocks that opened a seam. Throughout practices the rest of the week, Jones continued to find big gains.
With no preseason games it's harder to draw definitive conclusions about the efficacy of the Green Bay Packers' run game in Year 2 of head coach Matt LaFleur's offense, but it looks and sounds more cohesive than it did in training camp in 2019.
“It's different when you're planning against a team rather than just kind of running the plays you're running, and the defense is running their plays and there's no real – I'm sure there is some behind the scenes – but just in terms of the meeting room, we're not necessarily sitting there game-planning against our defense,” center Corey Linsley allowed. “We're kind of just coaching technique, assignments, adjustments and everything. Yeah, again, 100%, I think we're further along than last year but we're always striving to get better.”
It starts, of course, up front and aside from free-agent acquisition Rick Wagner, the grouping of Bakhtiari, Jenkins, Linsley and right guard Lane Taylor are in their second training camp running the blocking scheme.
Alex Light, John Leglue, Lucas Patrick, Yosh Nijman and Cody Conway also have experience in practicing the various schemes from a year ago, from power to inside to wide zone.
“Now that framework has been implemented and the guys know what's expected, things have come along faster – obviously faster than they did last year,” offensive line coach Adam Stenavich said. “So that's good because we have less practices and all that so we need to be on it. But yeah, I'm excited about where we are right now and what we can do up front.”
The next part of executing the staple of the offense – the wide-zone scheme – is having the running backs confidently track up behind the linemen and then decisively make a cut, especially when they get wide. There has been less overtly visible hesitancy on the part of ball carriers after the handoff.
“They've been doing a great job from that standpoint in comparison to last year,” running backs coach Ben Sirmans said. “There's a lot less com
ments I'm getting from Matt about their tracks in comparison to this time last year. I think having the opportunity to go through it during the year, watching tape and seeing what they did right and what they did wrong, how they can make improvements and then just focusing. We're spending a lot more time even so far this training camp in going through our tracks and featuring the outside zone steps, whereas in the past we did a lot of different type of steps, whatever the play was. We've really been focusing a lot more on our outside zone; not just the tracks, putting our foot in the ground. So there's a better comfort level that those guys feel.”
The comfort level extends to the offensive linemen, who admitted there was a learning curve in not just the playbook but how they're supposed to move in concert with it.
“We all know the plays a lot better than we did last year,” Linsley said. “We all know what we're trying to accomplish on our plays, not just our assignments but big picture-wise, and we can kind of anticipate the direction that we're going in games.”
The expectation of the greater understanding and anticipation would be cleaner practice sessions – which will produce more consistency once the 2020 regular season begins.
Last year, the Packers finished 13th in the league in total carries (411), 15th in yards (1,795) and 16th in yards per attempt (4.4). Jones had five 100-yard games on the ground and Jamaal Williams had one. But seven times the team rushed for fewer than 100 yards as a team, including 62 yards in the 3720 NFC Championship loss at San Francisco.
“We hit the ground running,” Bakhtiari said. “There's a little bit of a refreshing period of remembering how we do certain things but I can definitely say we're coming along pretty nice. It's going to continue just to climb.”