Exploding Beyond .500: Why Green Bay Packers beat Seattle Seahawks
By Kenn Korb
Taking it away early and often
Takeaways in bunches used to be something which happened with regularity for the Green Bay defense. From 2009-2014, Green Bay was in the top-8 among in the league in this statistic four different times, leading or tying for the league lead twice in that span. This (in addition to an offense resistant to risky plays and turnovers themselves) was a major part of how the team routinely has been among the league’s best in turnover ratio (five top-10 finishes, with four in the top-5 and twice leading the NFL).
That’s slowly been changing, however. We saw some of that begin in 2015, with the Packers securing their lowest number of turnovers since before 2009 (22), but the trend was looking to take another major step down this year. A big piece of that comes from a secondary which has been unable to come away with interceptions at anywhere close to their prior rate. Turnovers league-wide have held a pretty stable 60-40 rate which leans towards interceptions, so when a team grabs less of those their rate is more dramatically affected (that counts even more for Green Bay, which has always struggled with fumble luck during Mike McCarthy’s tenure).
Looking directly at their interception totals, we see they had picked up 30, 24, and 31 from 2009-2011, respectively; since, the best they’ve managed is 18 — still good for top-8 finishes among NFL teams in those years (2012 and 2014), but far under their previous totals. This subject deserves its own longform post, but for a quick summary: this is in-line with the league as a whole (turnovers have taken a massive overall dip throughout the league since at least 2009), but it still is worrisome for a defense which once prided itself on turnover-forcing prowess.
The Packers came into this week having forced a mere 12 turnovers (8 of which were INTs); prorate that across a full year, they were set for just 16 takeaways on the year — by far their worst showing since before 2009. Combine that with an uptick in giveaways (17 through 12 games, which prorates to over 22 for a full year; would be their worst showing in a full Rodgers season) and they were looking at possibly their worst showing in terms of turnover differential — even more damaging than when Rodgers missed half of 2013. It’s no wonder the team struggled for most of the season just to reach 6-6.
Against Seattle, this had to change it some meaningful fashion. It did so to a startling degree.
The Packers came away with five different interceptions of Russell Wilson here — that’s as many as they had from their defensive backs combined through the first twelve games of 2016.
Here’s how those went:
Green Bay up 7-3. Russell Wilson tossed a floater over the middle to Jimmy Graham. Graham fell down to give Morgan Burnett an easy grab (though Burnett would’ve had a chance at it regardless).
Green Bay up 21-3. Wilson found his man Doug Baldwin open deep for what should have been a touchdown. His throw was lacking power and depth however, giving Damarious Randall enough time to recover and snatch it perfectly out of the air right before Baldwin could get his hands on it.
Green Bay up 21-3. Seattle is driving after halftime, hoping to cut into the deficit. Wilson throws to Jermaine Kearse, but tight coverage by LaDarius Gunter caused the ball to get popped up, providing an easy grab for Quinten Rollins for a touchback.
Green Bay up 21-3. Wilson again has his team moving, and finds Baldwin for a seemingly simple completion. The pass was good, but Baldwin mistimed his reception attempt. The ball proceeded to deflect of his helmet and right to where Randall (who had actually fallen down in his coverage) could quickly recover and pick it off.
Green Bay up 31-10. Seattle was in their last gasps at making something happen, and Wilson threw another seemingly simple toss. Again, his receiver flubs it, with Micah Hyde coming away with the interception this time.
Along with all of those, there was even a late fumble when everything had already been decided, giving Green Bay a six-pack of takeaways on the afternoon. The showing was so good it took Green Bay all the way up from a -5 turnover ratio to a +1, and it gave us the sort of perfromance we hadn’t seen from this group since that fateful 2014 NFC Championship Game against these same Seahawks.
Glad to see it turned out differently this time.