LaFleur expects a ‘better plan’ in offseason
ORLANDO, Florida – Aaron Jones had barely left the building by the time Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur pulled his quarterback aside and made clear things were about to be different.
It was Jones who not only led the Packers offense last season, but paved the way for Jordan Love’s successful introduction as an NFL starter. When Aaron Rodgers was traded to the New York Jets last spring, Jones was left as the senior, available member on that side of the ball. He instantly supported his new quarterback, and carried that support throughout Love’s first season, down to the last five games with at least 100 rushing yards in each.
If the void left by Jones’ absence affected anyone, it hit Love hardest. As a playmaker in the backfield. As a leader shielding him in the locker room.
“He’s always been team first,” LaFleur said of Jones. “He walks the walk. He’s just such a pro. So I think that’s always tough to replace. Naturally, it’s going to happen. Somebody’s going to have to step up. I’ve talked to Jordan about this a little bit. He’s got a year under his belt as the starter. Now I expect more out of him. We all do. I think he expects it out of himself, which is great.
“Guys like him are going to have to shoulder some of that leadership moving forward.”
It starts with Love, because he’s the quarterback, and everything starts with the quarterback. But the Packers have a new crop of leaders sprouting in LaFleur’s offense. Rookies accumulated 2,914 snaps on offense last season, counting two playoff games. Add Love’s 1,203 snaps, and the Packers offense has a rare combination of youth and experience.
LaFleur should be bullish on what that blend could mean entering 2024, even without the running back general manager Brian Gutekunst called the “heart and soul” of his team last year. When LaFleur started building the blueprint for his offense in Love’s first season at the onset of last offseason, he didn’t know what tools would be available. Tight ends Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft, and receivers Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks were not even on the Packers roster then.
Now they’re integral pieces to LaFleur’s playbook.
“We were talking about this as an offensive staff the other day with (coordinator) Adam Stenavich,” LaFleur said. “Before the draft last year, we didn’t even know who was going to be on our team. So it’s hard to plan, really put together an offense, when you have no idea who the tight ends are necessarily going to be. You didn’t really know who your other wideouts are going to be. So there were some holes.
“To have a lot less, and have everything kind of in place, it allows you to plan a little bit better, I think, and be very intentional with your offseason. So I do think we’ll have a better plan in place when the guys come in terms of where we want to take our offense.”
The Packers filled that one glaring hole on their offense when Gutekunst signed running back Josh Jacobs to replace Jones. In Jacobs, the Packers have one of the NFL’s few modern workhorse tailbacks, though LaFleur said he still believes in a two-tailback system. It was Gutekunst’s decision to swap Jones for Jacobs, who is four years younger.
As soon as Jacobs signed, LaFleur met with him to discuss how they can expand his playmaking together, and with it the Packers offense’s potential. He views Jacobs as the complete package, not just as a running back who can excel in inside- and outside-zone concepts as well as receiving, but an added leader to the locker room. That’ll be especially important with Jones now playing for the Minnesota Vikings.
“The first thing that jumps off to me is just his play style,” LaFleur said. “He is a tough, hard-nosed, he can be a high-volume guy. Just studying him, I think there’s more out there with him in regards to the passing game, using him out of the backfield. He’s put some really good choice routes on tape, and that’s something we always try to get to. We’ve done it a little bit more down in the red area, but I just love the person.
“Just being around him in that brief time when he came into Green Bay, it’s not a shocker to me why he wore a (captain’s) C on his jersey. You can just see the type of person he is, and I’m really excited about his style of play.”
There are cornerstones of the Packers offense that are less certain than a 26-year-old tailback already with three 1,000-yard seasons in his first five years. LaFleur confirmed the Packers sent receiver Christian Watson to Badger Athletic Performance on the UWMadison campus to better understand how he can prevent injuries. Watson played only nine regular-season games last fall, an issue the Packers must correct. When Watson is healthy, he has the potential to be their most dynamic playmaker.
With a franchise quarterback behind center, the Packers also must determine what expectation is appropriate for their offensive line. The front five certainly were not a problem last season, improving through the year after a slow start. LaFleur’s passing playbook is predicated on timing, emphasizing a quick release from his quarterback. A quick release mitigates the offensive line’s value because pass rushers have less time to reach the quarterback on drop backs.
The Packers could be fine returning mostly the same starting offensive line from last season, with Sean Rhyan replacing departed Jon Runyan at right guard the lone exception. LaFleur said there’s “a lot of room for improvement” for former seventh-round pick Rasheed Walker at left tackle, but the team is confident in his continued development after 17 starts last season, many of them quality. He’s said the same about center Josh Myers in the past.
But the depth of this draft is the offensive line at all positions, and this offensive line is not deep. At a position known for attrition, adequate starters make good backups in this league. Given how the Packers got by at times with their protection last season, LaFleur sounded like a play caller who could benefit from upgrades on the offensive line.
“It’s all concept dependent,” LaFleur said regarding the value of pass protectors in his passing game. “We’re always going to coach the timing element of the passing game, but are you running quick game, are you running screens, are you running seven-step drops that are going to take a little bit longer. What we’ve transitioned to a little bit on some of those deeper-developing plays is making sure we use tight ends or receivers in some instances to help chip edges.”
In next month’s draft, Gutekunst can put the finishing touches on LaFleur’s offense. He’ll be starting much farther down the road than a year ago, when the Packers didn’t have a foundation to build on. There will be a transfer of power in leadership on the offense, more responsibility given to the quarterback, ideal since it’s the most important position on the field. But LaFleur knows his pieces.
He’s already begun preparing how to build.
“There’s certainly some things that we can do better in regards to both the run game and the pass game,” LaFleur said. “There’s some schemes that you can, you always go through it and try to be as aware as possible, but there’s so much volume of things. There’s certainly some things that we’re going to stop doing that weren’t very effective. So that’s always the concept of evolution in your offense.
“Things change each year. The offseason provides all of us a great opportunity to study other teams and see what they did effectively, and there’s some good stuff that we studied. We’ll try to implement some of that stuff in our offense.”