Murphy’s Law: Why the Green Bay Packers lost to the Atlanta Falcons
By Kenn Korb
Left in the dust
An oft-used phrase in sports is “speed kills”; it proved plenty true in this contest.
Speed is something which can separate the great from the average, giving a player or team a sort of advantage which cannot be fully overcome through mere scheming.
It also is a great way to make up for and cover up mistakes, or to take a performance up to a higher level.
As Robert Mays of The Ringer dove into great detail about in the days leading up to this game, Atlanta is a team built with an abundance of speedy players. This is obvious when looking at the weapons they have available on offense – Taylor Gabriel, Devonta Freeman, Tevin Coleman to name a few (obviously Julio Jones as well, but as Mays would say, “he’s a centaur,” and I’m not counting mythical beings into that total) – but the defense is where that speed can make a less-heralded (but perhaps even more important) difference.
That was blatantly obvious across this game, to a startling degree.
In no way did Atlanta shut down the Green Bay offense, but the speed they brought to the table let them disrupt plays in stints often enough to prevent the Packers from ever picking up enough of a rhythm to really challenge them, particularly after they had mounted their sizable early lead.
That speed allowed the team to feel comfortable lining up often in man-concept play calls.
If you’ve forgotten, this is something which has been a bugaboo for the Green Bay offense at times in recent seasons; if the receivers aren’t finding ways to beat their man consistently, it leaves Rodgers having to extend plays forever and the offensive line stuck pass-blocking for long bursts without a break – both of which far too often ended up fruitless in that year-long stretch of underwhelming offense exhibited by the team between from mid-2015 to mid-2016.
It never got as bad as many of those game did, but enough damage was done over the course of the game.
Overall, rhythm was undone and many possible big plays were undermined at multiple points across the contest due to all that speed.
Think back to Green Bay’s first drive: they had been moving the ball well, with Rodgers finding Jordy Nelson for some sizable gains and the ball moving seemingly effortlessly down the field to pick up 52 yards in five plays.
On third down however, Rodgers dropped back, but before he had any chance to really set up and look for a target, Deion Jones of the Falcons burst untouched through his line on a delayed blitz like a lightning bolt; it’s kind of surprisingly Rodgers managed to even get the ball away at all (though nowhere close to it being a completion) with how immediately that man had him in his grasps.
The play there took a hot-moving offense and forced them to settle for a field goal try; with the miss, the Packers found themselves with nothing to show for their mostly-good opening series.
Other examples include the way a defender closed in on Rodgers on his INT (forcing him to toss the ball slightly sooner than he appeared to be planning to; in the process, he now gave Jordy zero chance of getting at the ball), the foot-slap sack by Rashede Hagemann that came right before it, or how often in general the Falcons were able to have defenders get up on Rodgers whether he stayed in the pocket or decided to leave it.
Here’s something even more telling: according to ESPN Stats & Info, Rodgers was pressured on 21 of his dropbacks.
If that sounds like a lot, it kind of is; for context, it ties with Cam Newton versus Denver in last year’s Super Bowl (remember how dominant of an effort that was by the Broncos?
In at least one way this one was just as tough on Rodgers) for the most pressures on a quarterback in a playoff game in the past 10 seasons.
Even considering the offensive line ended up with Letroy Guion playing guard at one point, that’s a preposterous amount of pressure.
It was all made possible by the Falcons’ incredible array of speed.