Packers: 3 under-the-radar observations from Week 1 win

3. Intermediate middle of field still avoided

Let’s be clear—the Packers’ offense, and the passing game in particular, were spectacular on Sunday. Aaron Rodgers played one of his best games in years, and seemed to be completely in sync with Matt LaFleur’s play-calling.

But as different as the performance was, one thing remained the same—the intermediate middle of the field was almost entirely ignored in the passing game.

This is a trend with Rodgers and the Packers. In 2019, Rodgers attempted a league-low percentage of passes in the short-middle and intermediate-middle areas of the field. In recent years, he’s favored throws to the sidelines, which data show to be harder to complete.

On Sunday, that remained true. He zipped a tight completion to Adams on an in-breaking route in the first quarter, and completed a deep seam throw to a wide-open Allen Lazard in the fourth quarter. But outside of those two passes, nearly every throw was either very short (drag routes or push passes) and/or to the peripheries of the field.

Adams in particular, and Lazard and Valdes-Scantling to a lesser extent, thrived by defeating man-to-man coverage on the outside, and Rodgers found them there routinely. The fact that tight ends were largely ignored is not unrelated to the avoidance of the intermediate middle.

Again, this trend didn’t hurt the Packers on Sunday. Perhaps this isn’t a problem that LaFleur and Rodgers need to solve. But it will be fascinating to see if and how this evolves over the course of the season. If Valdes-Scantling and Adams continue torching corners deep, that may result in two-deep safety looks that open up the middle of the field for Tonyan and others.