Matt LaFleur, Aaron Rodgers should take cue from ex-Packers guard and just run the ball | Opinion
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Maybe the Green Bay Packers need to bring back T.J. Lang to get their priorities straight on offense.
If anyone could say what is needed it is Lang, the salty guard who was the heart and soul of the offensive line for much of his tenure. He spoke his mind several times in his eight-year career with the Packers, most notably the time he was caught on camera after a failed pass attempt near the goal-line.
“Run the (expletive) ball,” Lang was seen mouthing to Aaron Rodgers on television replays after the quarterback abandoned the called run play.
Somehow, he forgot he had Eddie Lacy in the backfield, just like he and coach Matt LaFleur forgot they had Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon during their 27-22 loss to the New York Giants on Sunday in London.
Countless articles are written about receivers needing to gain Rodgers’ trust, perpetuating the narrative that Rodgers decides where the ball goes and to whom, and it’s up to everybody else to get on the same page. It’s convenient for those who think it's always the receiver's fault when things go wrong.
But it’s time Rodgers – and LaFleur, for that matter – start trusting their running game, which was the theme of Lang’s comments several years back.
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Lining up and pounding two talented backs against a team trying to wage a comeback sends a message to your offensive line that you believe it can respond with the same force the opponent had just used against your defense. The Packers were playing a finesse game against a team that wanted to rumble and it was why the game swung so dramatically in the second half.
"When the outcome isn't what you want and Aaron Jones has 13 carries (for 63 yards) or whatever, and AJ has six (for 34 yards), yeah, it's hard to sit up here and justify that to everybody – to our team," LaFleur said of the use of his running backs. "We’ve got to be – I’m talking myself – more disciplined in our approach in terms of making sure they get the necessary touches."
The problem is the coach and quarterback are so enamored with Rodgers’ ability to get them into favorable positions based on how the defense lines up that they forget that the strength of their team is their running backs and not their wide receivers. They have some offensive linemen who are better run blockers than pass blockers, too, so it's possible to run the ball even when the defense knows you want to run it.
You can’t blame LaFleur and Rodgers for wanting to pick on the Giants secondary, which was missing a starting cornerback (Aaron Robinson) and a key backup (Cordale Flott), lost a starting cornerback (Adoree Jackson) and late in the game another backup (Fabian Moreau). They were also missing their best interior pass rusher (Leonard Williams) and their best outside pass rusher (Azeez Ojulari).
But that’s exactly what the Giants wanted them to do, forget about Jones and Dillon and try to win the game with Allen Lazard, Randall Cobb, Romeo Doubs and Christian Watson. They knew Rodgers was going to change plays at the line of scrimmage if they beefed up their numbers in the box, but at the least they knew what was coming.
Rather than trust that their offensive line can carve out some holes for Jones and Dillon, the way they did the prior week against New England (33 carries for 183 yards), the Packers took the bait and didn’t score a single offensive point in the second half. They finished with 41 passing plays and 20 rushing plays (for 94 yards).
"We had a lot of runs called where we were throwing those 'run solutions,' " LaFleur said of the plays where Rodgers changed from run to pass at the line of scrimmage. "It’s kind of a double-edged sword because the run solutions were being pretty effective. If you look at the win-loss of how we chart those, basically we treated it no different than the run.
"So, on first-and-10, we were getting gains of 4 or more and that’s an efficient play."
But here’s the rub: they had some pretty good runs against eight-man boxes Sunday.
On their opening series, Dillon had consecutive gains of 7 and 5 yards against a heavy box.
On the first drive of the second half, Dillon gained 11 yards with eight players around the line of scrimmage. There were others, too, but their rules kept telling them to pass the ball against the defensive looks they were receiving, and so they did.
It was a sucker’s bet because they kept missing on pass plays when they needed to put together an effective drive.
The three-and-out in the fourth quarter that consisted of three deep balls did nothing for a tired defense that just came off an 8-minute possession and did just as little toward flipping field position and making it so the Giants would have to go a long way if they did get the ball back.
Then there’s the final two plays when the Packers were at the 6-yard line and a yard away from a first down. The Giants sent everyone but their cornerbacks up to the line of scrimmage and dared the Packers to throw the ball.
Rodgers obliged and checked to a pass both times.
Replays showed on the second one that Dillon would have scored had he been given the ball because the bulk of the Giants’ rushers were on the right side and the run play was designed to go up the middle.
"I don’t fault that decision at all," LaFleur said. "You can’t bank on that (running it in) because you’ve got a short edge (on the right side). Who’s to say that safety is not going to run it down from behind if he hands that ball off?"
On the other hand, the Packers needed only 1 yard for a fresh set of downs and a chance to tie the game or go for the win with a two-point conversion. Even if the safety gets there, Dillon should be able to drag him a yard.
If ever there is a time to trust your running game, it was on those two plays.
At the very least, run it on first down to let the Giants know you might run it again on second down. Instead, they knew the Packers were going to throw it and they jetted toward Rodgers with their arms up, anticipating a quick throw.
Two attempts, two passes batted down. No run attempts.
"Typically, I’d say, the majority of times, that’s going to be tough to run into," LaFleur said. "Not to say that it can’t work. It certainly can. But I think that given the circumstances and what we talked about, I don’t have an issue with the decision."
T.J. Lang probably begs to differ.