Paul Bretl | 9/7/2024
GREEN BAY, Wis. — The honeymoon phase with Jeff Hafley as the Packers new defensive coordinator has come to an end. The regular season is here and ultimately all that matters are the results.
In the team’s Week 1 opener against the Philadelphia Eagles, against an admittedly very difficult opponent that can hurt opposing defenses in a variety of ways, the results weren’t there for the Packers’ defense. Those overall struggles started with an inability to apply consistent pressure.
“It felt like Jalen had a lot of time to throw the football,” said Matt LaFleur post-game, “and I think anytime that you don’t get a pass rush–and again, that is a really good offensive line, I just expected more from our pass rush tonight. And then you know when we did bring pressure there were a lot of times when it looked like guys were uncovered. We had some mistakes.”
As a unit, the Eagles offensive line was credited with surrendering only nine pressures the entire game, per PFF. That’s a pressure rate on Hurts of just over 23 percent–which for an offensive line, anything under 30 percent is a good day. Even when the Packers sent some blitzes, which they did from both the linebacker and nickel positions, those pressures didn’t get home quick enough, and as LaFleur mentioned, coverages were blown on the back end in several of those instances.
A lack of consistent pressure against this Eagles’ offense is certainly not a recipe for success. Not that the Packers’ secondary didn’t have it’s own miscues, but asking the cornerbacks and safeties to have to routinely defend AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith for three-plus seconds is a tall task for really any unit–and the results reflected that.
The duo of Brown and Smith combined for 12 receptions on 18 targets for 213 yards, including a few explosive pass plays, and one touchdown.
The Packers understandable concern with keeping Hurts in the pocket contributed to their pass rush approach. For the most part, they were able to limit Hurts’ opportunities outside the pocket, but the potential cost was a lackluster pass rush. And that’s the challenge that this Eagles’ offense brings to the table–you try to take away one avenue, and they can beat you another way.
“I mean our plan was to keep him in the pocket and let him beat us with his arm,” said Kenny Clark. “A lot of our rushes were power rushes trying to contain him, not try to get too crazy with our rushes and get too much up field. We limited probably until the fourth quarter. We still gotta get pressure on him in some kind of way.”
Contributing to the Packers’ issues on defense was their play against the run, which again, was no easy task against a backfield featuring Hurts and Saquon Barkley. Early on, the Packers were able to bottle up Barkley, but the Eagles featured him heavily, and as the game went on, he found more success. Barkley finished the contest carrying the ball 24 times, totaling 109 yards at 4.5 yards per attempt.
The trickle-down effect of not being able to slow the run game is that the offense is often able to stay ahead of the sticks, putting them in short down-and-distance situations, where the defense now has to essentially defend the entire field and be prepared for either a run or a passing play. In short, the offense has a distinct advantage in these situations.
“I gotta go back and watch the tape,” Rashan Gary said. “I gotta see how much they rushed for. He’s always been a good back. Been hitting the holes and Saquon is Saquon.”
Throughout training camp, we heard a lot about this new attack style defensive front under Hafley, where the objective is to get off the ball and into the backfield, an approach that suited so many of these Packers’ defenders well, and played to one of the strengths of the collective unit which is its depth. And it’s not as if it was only talk, in practices, particularly the joint practice with Baltimore, that disruption was on full display.
However, the Packers’ defensive front was up against a dynamic offense that featured one of the better offensive lines in football–a unit that ended up doing just about all of the dictating. One good performance or one bad performance in the first game isn’t an indicator of what the season will be, but the Packers will have to be more disruptive moving forward.