Official OTA/Minicamp Thread

[smuggler]

Watch Love against the Chiefs. They were basically daring the offense to throw over the middle and we refused. It's part of the game plan, it's not necessarily a flaw of Rodgers personally. We'll see this season, though, assuming the offense maintains the status quo.

[sharpe1027]

Watch Love against the Chiefs. They were basically daring the offense to throw over the middle and we refused. It's part of the game plan, it's not necessarily a flaw of Rodgers personally. We'll see this season, though, assuming the offense maintains the status quo.

They might game plan that way. On the other hand, it seems like Rodgers has been doing this most of his career, predating MLF, but I haven't seen any stats to back that up.

It will be interesting to see.

[run pMc]

Rodgers used to throw into the middle more; I wonder if part of it is personnel. They really haven't had a good-to-great slot receiver in a while. I don't know that it's schematic necessarily - Shanahan offense does a fair amount of easy throws designed to have players get YAC. I suspect there's a personal preference thing as well with Rodgers as well as habits (good or bad) over time. Watch older games and he was throwing stuff to Jennings, Driver, and Finley in the MOF much more often. They haven't really had guys like that, but I also think Rodgers got overprotective of his TD-to-Int legacy and decided he'd rather throw a YOLO ball to Adams up the sideline than take what should be an easy throw into the MOF if you read the coverage and avoid any lurking LB or S. I can't help but think there's an element of bad habits/ego with it.

[bobblehead]

Watch Love against the Chiefs. They were basically daring the offense to throw over the middle and we refused. It's part of the game plan, it's not necessarily a flaw of Rodgers personally. We'll see this season, though, assuming the offense maintains the status quo.

I don't think you can draw big conclusions from a first time starter on a few days notice being blitzed every down. Love was much better in the 2nd half of that game when he calmed down and had a halftime to look at tape and see where to go with the ball vs the blitz.

Rodgers has never used the middle of the field much. I watched Tonyan catching preseason passes behind the LB in front of the S with Boyle throwing the ball. Then when the season started I never saw those completions again. I have a very strong hunch we will see it this year and fans of Rodgers will claim its because we never had a TE like Musgrave.

[MadScientist]

Rodgers avoids risky throws like the plague, especially down the middle. But in fairness, the Packers had garbage TEs for te last decade. Throwing late over the middle us a bad thing, and those plodders and has-beens couldn't get open early to save their lives.

[sharpe1027]

Rodgers avoids risky throws like the plague, especially down the middle. But in fairness, the Packers had garbage TEs for te last decade. Throwing late over the middle us a bad thing, and those plodders and has-beens couldn't get open early to save their lives.

No disagreement on that, but TEs aren't the only option over the middle and Rodgers did really well when he did go over the middle, so it seems like he might have had potential to be even better than he was by being a little more balanced.

[MadScientist]

No disagreement on that, but TEs aren't the only option over the middle and Rodgers did really well when he did go over the middle, so it seems like he might have had potential to be even better than he was by being a little more balanced.

TE's are the most well positioned to get to the soft middle of zone defenses. It will be interesting to see how the Packers attack it this year and next. Will they risk more throws over the middle with the rookie TEs who will be lacking in experience in one of the more challenging positions to learn this year? Or will the Packers bring them in slow and prep them more for a breakout next year. If the Packers can't shred zones down the middle next year, a lot of people need to be shown the door.

[sharpe1027]

I think they will to try to use the TEs more. Whether they'll be successful is another story.

[Sparkey]

Rodgers avoids risky throws like the plague, especially down the middle. But in fairness, the Packers had garbage TEs for te last decade. Throwing late over the middle is a bad thing, and those plodders and has-beens couldn't get open early to save their lives.

The highlighted part is the reason why you didn't see Rodgers use the middle more. He seemed to hold the ball longer, waiting for that big play, which then prevents him from using the middle of the field more because those routes are usually quick hitting plays where a LB gets lost handing off the defender in a zone or is not fast enough to cover a guy crossing the middle.

Rodgers wanting to go deep negated a lot of the OTM routes that would be run by TE's or RB's.

[run pMc]

Per Pro Football Focus, between the 49ers, Dolphins, and Packers, on passes inside the numbers in the 0-9 yard range, 19% of all Packers pass attempts came in this range, with the 49ers at 26%, and the Dolphins at 15%. The Packers were lower than both in percent of total pass attempts over the middle of the field at the 10-19 yard range (Dolphins 20%, 49ers 11%, Packers 9%) and lower at the 20+ range than both the 49ers and Dolphins (Dolphins 5.6%, 49ers 3.7%, Packers 2.5%).

Even compared to other Shanahan tree coaches their MOF usage was low.

https://www.acmepackingcompany.com/2023/6/5/23739201/green-bay-packers-film-room-four-season-defining-moments-on-offense-2-aaron-rodgers-jordan-love

[bobblehead]

No disagreement on that, but TEs aren't the only option over the middle and Rodgers did really well when he did go over the middle, so it seems like he might have had potential to be even better than he was by being a little more balanced.

Just imagine if he had hit Watson with a crossing route vs. the Eagles early in the game.

[ThunderDan]

I can't remember how many times during game day threads I posted that a WR ran a crossing route and was open in the middle of the field. I can't count the number of times I have been to a game and seen WR, TE and RB running wide open across the middle of the field for a 1st down and ARod throwing down the sideline.

And I am not talking about having half a step on the defender. I am talking 5 yards wide open after the LBs completed their drops and a guy runs open underneath. Tom Brady made a career on those throws.

[MadScientist]

I can't remember how many times during game day threads I posted that a WR ran a crossing route and was open in the middle of the field. I can't count the number of times I have been to a game and seen WR, TE and RB running wide open across the middle of the field for a 1st down and ARod throwing down the sideline.

And I am not talking about having half a step on the defender. I am talking 5 yards wide open after the LBs completed their drops and a guy runs open underneath. Tom Brady made a career on those throws.

It looks like the Packers are working on this:
https://packerswire.usatoday.com/202...-love-in-2023/
Hopefully they will hit a bunch of those open middle passes this season.

[run pMc]

Yeah, I can't count the number of times we posted in here about guys running open he didn't see or flat out ignored. If we can see it, you know he can too (either real time, on the tablet at sideline, or in game film review) and you'd think he'd change his game a bit.

The Packers Wire article also references this one which is interesting:

https://247sports.com/nfl/green-bay-packers/article/fact-or-fiction-aaron-rodgers-avoids-the-middle-of-the-field-207552129/

I found 67 QBs who have attempted at least 100 non-RPOs passes past the LOS since the start of 2019. Of those 67 QBs, Aaron Rodgers was 65th at targeting the middle of the field. To give you a sense of the difference, the king of targeting the middle of the field during that time is Jimmy Garoppolo, who targeted the middle of the field on 58.4% of his passes. So the difference between Aaron Rodgers and the #1 QB on this list is 23 percentage points. Put another way, Rodgers attempted ~14 fewer passes per game over the middle of the field than Jimmy Garoppolo.

Rodgers has performed better than the rest of the league when he targets the middle of the field, but he targets the field at a much lower clip than the rest of the league.

[Joemailman]

I thought 2018-2019 might have been when Rodgers really started reducing his MOF throws. That was when he lost Randall Cobb, and maybe didn't trust the younger guys who replaced him. Obviously, the draft picks of Reed, Musgrave and Kraft point to the Packers wanting to attack the middle of the field. I wonder if they would have made those picks if Rodgers were still going to be here.