Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Packer Plus
TOM SILVERSTEIN
Offense needs to adjust to defensive changes
Green Bay — Chalk another one up for Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur vs. the NFC North.
He’s 2-0 lifetime.
On Sunday, he won his first home game, beating defensive wiz Mike Zimmer’s Minnesota Vikings, 21-16, in front of an announced crowd of 78,416.
If this were a four-round boxing match, you’d score LaFleur vs. Zimmer in the Packers coach’s win column, a near knockout 15 minutes, 44 seconds into the game, which is when running back Aaron Jones ran for a 2-yard touchdown that made it 21-0.
The Vikings should have been counted out, just as the Atlanta Falcons were when the Vikings jumped out to a 28-0 lead at home last week. But as you’d expect with a Zimmer team, they got off the mat and nearly won the match on points, dominating the Packers’ offense for the final 44 minutes of the game.
“A really quality opponent,” LaFleur said afterward. “Got a lot respect for Mike Zimmer and the players they have on that roster on the defensive side of the ball.”
There will be a rematch: Dec. 23 at U.S. Bank Stadium.
For the time being, analysts can praise LaFleur for the 15-play script he drew up that made the Vikings wish they could have a restart. It was textbook Sean McVay-Kyle Shanahan football with varied formations, quick tempo and some passing wrinkles that took advantage of defensive tendencies.
During the week, LaFleur convinced quarterback Aaron Rodgers that they could move the football a lot better if he’d run the plays that were called and stay away from running the play clock down under 5 seconds.
The offense that came out against the Vikings resembled nothing of the one that played four quarters against the Chicago Bears the week before.
“I just felt Aaron Rodgers was trying to get the ball out of his hands quick,” Vikings defensive tackle Linval Joseph said. “At the beginning of the game, they used the running backs more as swing backs and just spread us out and made us run around a bit.
“That was new.”
On the very first play, Rodgers hit receiver Davante Adams on a corner route for 39 yards, the result it appeared of ace cornerback Xavier Rhodes playing the wrong coverage and failing to get deep enough along the sideline.
A play later, running backs Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams lined up in the backfield together. Jones went in motion and caught a swing pass from Rodgers that gained 15 yards (it was later ruled a run because the pass went backward).
On the very next play, Jones did the same thing out of the same formation, only this time Rodgers threw a screen the opposite direction to Williams, who rambled 15 yards for a touchdown.
On the second possession, Rodgers completed five straight passes for 53 yards to get the ball down to the 12. After an incompletion, LaFleur lined up Adams in the backfield and three receivers to the left, forcing man-to-man coverage on two of them.
Rodgers picked on cornerback Nate Meadows, who was only playing because both of the Vikings’ top two slot corners were inactive, connecting with Geronimo Allison for a touchdown.
On 15 plays, the Packers had gained 138 yards and two touchdowns.
“They didn’t start fast last week so we figured they would,” Zimmer said of the tempo the Packers showed. “They caught us on a couple things and we’re a little banged up in the secondary, so we had to make some adjustments.”
The Packers scored once more on a short drive off a turnover, 22 of the yards on completions to Adams and Jones. At that point, Rodgers was 10 of 11 for 141 yards and three touchdowns and the Packers were ahead, 21-0.
“They had a couple of things that were different early,” linebacker Anthony Barr said. “But it wasn’t anything we weren’t capable of stopping. They definitely had a couple of different things. But I still think we have to play better in those situations.”
At that point, the Packers had gained 171 yards and 10 first downs. They had eight carries for 35 yards (4.4 average) on the ground. They were 3-for-3 on third-down conversions.
Compare that to the minus-12 yards they had gained in their first three series against Chicago and you can see there was a major difference. The most noticeable was how Rodgers was not waiting for the play clock to wind down and was throwing on rhythm instead of holding the ball.
“It felt crisp,” LaFleur said. “It felt clean. We were getting chunk plays both in the run game and in the pass game. I thought our operation was good. We were converting on third down. The operation felt smooth.”
As one would expect, Zimmer had an answer.
He started taking less chances with his safeties in the box and putting more coverage on Adams. When Jones and Williams came into the game together, he treated Jones like a wide receiver and added a defensive back to the personnel package.
Anytime Rodgers went back to throw there wasn’t a lot open way down the field, so he either had to hold the ball waiting for someone to come free or deliver it short of the first down. He wound up holding it a lot and when he threw it underneath, the Vikings defensive backs — particularly safety Harrison Smith — were on them before they could get to the sticks.
“I think after you get into the flow of the game as players and coaches you start to get a feel and people make adjustments,” safety Anthony Harris said. “Sometimes there aren’t adjustments, it’s just the player who needs to make an adjustment.
“We didn’t start the game fast enough, we didn’t execute well enough, we gave up some plays. The one positive is how we were able to get it corrected.”
LaFleur’s reaction to Zimmer’s adjustments weren’t good.
Three of the Packers’ next five series ended after three plays. The two that didn’t featured just one first down. The only series the Packers had the rest of the game with more than one first down resulted in punts.
In the second half, they gained 105 yards on 29 plays.
The Packers are going to face Zimmer again and they won’t have as big an element of surprise given the Packers will have played 14 games by then. The more LaFleur shows with his offense, the more teams will be able to adjust and then the onus will be on him to find a way to score again after taking a 21-0 lead.
“I think we’ve had a couple of good quarters out of eight,” Rodgers said. “So, we’ve got a lot of work to do. The fun thing about it is we have moved the ball at times very easily. I think we made improvements from Week 1 to Week 2.”
Time to start planning for Week 3.