The Packers kept leaning on Dash motion in Week 2, and against the Jets it turned into a clean little trapdoor for Jordan Love.
Green Bay had already used that motion 10 times over the first two weeks of the season. Eight of those snaps were runs, and they went for an average of 6.5 yards.
The run look stayed the same every time: the motion man kicked out the EMOL, the right guard pulled as the lead blocker, and the rest of the line blocked down. Last week, the Packers paired that look with a backside slant against the Vikings.
This time, the backside answer was a Bubble route.
That Bubble tag showed up on the backside of every one of these plays this week. The Jets tried to handle it a couple different ways.
When they lined up a man tight to Matthew Golden, that defender widened and tracked the bubble. When they played off coverage, the safety over Golden took it away instead.
The biggest snap came late in overtime.
After the Packers stopped the Jets on the opening possession of the extra period, they marched to the Jets’ 22 with 5:47 left. It was 1st & 10, and a field goal would end it since New York had already had its turn. Green Bay still wanted a little more breathing room for Trey Smack, who had been perfect to that point at 3/3 on field goals and extra points, helped along by a strong snap-and-hold operation.
The Packers lined up in 12 personnel in a perfectly balanced set, with one receiver on each side, an in-line tight end on each side, and the back behind the quarterback. Golden was split wide left, Christian Watson was wide right, and the Jets showed a corner over Golden shaded to the inside shoulder with the safety sitting on the hash.
Then Mark Redman started the Dash motion.
That movement triggered the play, but Love didn’t just hand it off and he didn’t simply throw the standard bubble. When Golden bubbled out, Love lofted the ball farther upfield and wider than a normal quick throw.
The cornerback was blitzing off the edge and had no shot at the football, and the safety was too far inside to get there in time. Love’s placement took away any chance for the defender on that side to make a play.
The Jets had blitzed on 31.25% of their defensive snaps, according to SumerSports, but this was the only cornerback blitz the Packers saw in the game, at least as far as this breakdown showed. Still, the alignment mattered just as much as the pressure.
If the corner had been outside Golden, the handoff likely would have come. If the Jets had stayed in off coverage with the safety over the top, Love probably would have thrown the bubble itself.
With the corner inside and the safety on the hash, Love found the in-between answer: throw it outside and upfield, where Golden could adjust to it in the air.
It was a good call in the moment, especially off Green Bay’s best run concept of the day. But the real value came from Love seeing it quickly and Golden adjusting on the move.
The result was a 14-yard gain and a much easier 26-yard field goal for Smack, who drilled it.
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Van Ness was fined for a hit to the head or neck area of a quarterback, while Williams was penalized for unnecessary roughness on a defenseless player. The dollars from those fines will be funneled to the Professional Athletes Foundation and the NFL Foundation, which use the money to support athlete health and wellness programs. [Read more 🡒]