Green Bay Packers vs San Francisco 49ers -  Previewing the 2020 NFC Championship Game

Packers offense vs. 49ers defense

Aaron Rodgers

This Packers offense has looked a lot different under Matt LaFleur. While Rodgers is still the star of the show, they are much more balanced in terms of run-pass splits and don’t ask the ultra-talented quarterbacks to always make those difficult throws he is capable of. While they were pretty static under Mike McCarthy for several years and kind of predictable in their West Coast passing concepts, LaFleur’s plan is much more about pre-snap movement and misdirection.

Aaron Jones has turned into a star, racking up over 1500 yards and a league-lead tying 19 touchdowns from scrimmage. Coming from the Mike Shanahan tree, the young packers head-man uses many similar plays as Kyle does with San Francisco. It’s a lot outside the zone, bootlegs, and throwback screens while using a good variety of personnel sets, instead of always spreading the field. With that knowledge of the offense, however, 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh was all over the Packers offense in their first matchup. They held Rodgers to 20 of 33 for 104 yards, giving him an average of just over 3.1 yards per attempt, while the offense only scored once all game in a 37-8 beatdown. The usually elusive Green Bay quarterback was sacked five times and they were an abysmal 1 of 15 on third downs.

There's absolutely nothing to get for the Packers running the ball from 21 or 12 personnel and they had no success going play-action out of those looks with max-protection and two receivers out in the pattern. That consistently put them behind the sticks and the 49ers’ stunts really made it tough for the Packers O-line to get hands-on everybody, not only creating disruption in the run game but also getting someone free before the Rodgers could get the ball out to the deeper routes that were needed.

At the same time, not a single screen to the backs worked because the Niners had their linebackers run them down with their speed and all those guys on the D-line show excellent pursuit. So for the Packers to get more into a rhythm, they need to take what’s available to them. The Niners is all about keeping everything inside and in front of them. They pretty much surrendered any out-routes by the slot receivers from doubles sets, even if their corners made the receivers pay for catching them, and they mostly put two safeties deep when Davante Adams lined up in the slot, which should create more space underneath.

I would also like to see Green Bay put Adams in a slightly condensed split with a tight-end inside of him to work those quick out-routes against what pretty much is one-on-one coverage at that point against cover-three. After completing that a couple of times you can come back with the out-and-up since Rodgers excels at those rainbow throws and Davante is great at tracking them. Because of how they usually play it, motioning into bunch sets and throwing screens that way has been pretty successful against San Fran.

So throwing the ball on early downs and getting some easy completions to stay ahead of the sticks is key, but you obviously can’t go away from the run game, because when you don’t connect on some of those throws and get into third-and-long that is when that pass rush of the Niners really cranks it up. Early on the Packers should try to get to the edge with some jet sweeps and get that defense to move laterally instead of allowing them to attack upfield against those zone schemes. The best run of the night on that side of the ball came when Green Bay was in a bunch set with a tight-end on the opposite side and they faked the jet sweep and got the ball to Jones on a toss the other way.

With that being said, just beating San Francisco schematically is almost impossible because of the talent they have on defense. They just had a lot of success against a similar offense in the Vikings, where they kept Dalvin Cook under 20 yards rushing while also completely taking away the bootleg game with the backside edge defender attacking Kirk Cousins and the linebacker to that side plastering the easy check-down option, like a tight-end coming across or slipping into the flats.

While they don’t really play a lot of man-coverage on early downs, the one thing Green Bay can take away from their Divisional Round game is that deep ball to Stefon Diggs for the Vikes’ only touchdown, when they burned Ahkello Witherspoon on third-and-short, where they do switch to more man. The Niners are very good layering the pass rush and making it tough for quarterbacks to throw with rhythm and step around the pocket. That means Rodgers can’t be as antsy as he was last time and keep himself in more of a throw-ready posture if they do get into long-yardage situations.