Packers Film Room: Malik Willis to Jayden Reed goes for 51 yards

With 1:13 remaining in a tie game, the Green Bay Packers faced 2nd & 6 from their own 34-yard line with backup quarterback Malik Willis under center. But let’s back up for a second. In fact, let’s back up to exactly 1 quarter earlier.

With 1:13 remaining in the 3rd quarter in a game in which the Packers were trailing 17-13, they faced 1st & 10 on their own 42-yard line with Willis. They’re in 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) in a tight formation (if I’m not mistaken, the name of this formation is Deuce LT Off, signaling that the strength of the formation is on the left and telling the TE to align off the ball instead of on the line). Jayden Reed [11] is aligned in-line (but off the ball) on the right, away from the strength of the formation. This will be important in precisely 1 quarter.

At the snap, the Packers run their standard PA Boot concept (in their playbook, this concept is simply known as “Keep”). They fake a wide zone run to the left, then Malik Willis [2] boots to the right to find a Sail concept waiting for him (a three-level flood concept, with a deep corner/Sail route, an intermediate crosser and a flat route).

Off the right side of the line, Reed is running a Slam route. Basically, he has an initial down block, then releases to the boot side. This route works in the space created by Ben Sims [89] on the slide route to the flat. The idea is that Sims will drag the defense horizontally to the sideline, which will leave space behind him. Reed’s job is to simply work in that space and be open if Willis works back to him.

Willis is looking to thrown downfield, but it’s not there and pressure is in his face so he scrambles for 20 yards.

The way Willis boots is really interesting. Usually, the QB continues his boot to the sideline and throws on the move. On this play, Willis pulls up short, even though there isn’t any pressure off the edge forcing him to do so. Based on how the Packers teach this play, I have to assume this was intentional. We usually only see this type of pull-up on the boot on a designed throwback concept that plays off of PA Boot. So stick a pin in that for the briefest of seconds.

Now we fast-forward exactly 1 quarter and end up back where we started.

With 1:13 remaining in a tie game, the Green Bay Packers faced 2nd & 6 from their own 34-yard line with Malik Willis under center. Once again, the Packers are in 11 personnel, Deuce LT Off formation. Jayden Reed is – once again – aligned in-line (but off the ball) on the right, away from the strength of the formation. They show wide zone to the left, then Willis boots right, once again pulling up short instead of carrying it out to the sideline. No big deal there for the defense; this is exactly what they saw earlier.

They’re showing the Sail concept to the right, with the TE (Tucker Kraft [85] this time) releasing under the formation. Reed initially releases inside as if he’s going to down block. So far, this looks exactly like the “Keep” rep we saw earlier.

Then things look different. Instead of releasing to the flat, Kraft pulls up to provide protection to Willis on the right side of the line. Meanwhile, instead of releasing on the Slam route, Reed releases over the line and emerges from the other side of the field. He “Leaks” out the opposite side of the expected concept, you might say.

With the Jaguars trying to recover from the play fake – then trying to recover from the expected PA Boot concept – Reed finds himself wide open up the right sideline.

Willis puts it on the money and Reed hauls it in for a gain of 51, eventually getting pushed out of bounds at the Jaguars 17-yard line.

The Packers pick up 11 yards on their next two plays, then kneel the clock out to 2 seconds left to win the game as time expires

Matt LaFleur talked about this play after the game:

The “Can” mentioned here is a mechanism used by the Packers (and pretty much every offense). On some plays, they will come to the line with two calls, joined by a “Can”. The offense will run the first play, but, depending on what the QB sees post-snap, he can “Can” the first call and run the second one. The QB will put his hands up to his ears as he yells “CAN CAN CAN,” and the skill position players will mimic that motion to show that they got the signal. (I talked a lot about how this all plays out in a piece I wrote this past offseason.)

In this case, the “Can” was likely a result of the Jacksonville Jaguars’ safety rotation. When the Packers ran PA Boot in the 3rd quarter, the Jaguars were showing a single-high safety. When Bo Melton [80] released on his crosser, he pulled the boundary defender with him. With the safety following the flood to the right, the left side of the field was completely open.

On Leak, the Jaguars initially align with two high safeties, but they rotate down to the strong side (over the TE) pre-snap. Willis Cans the call when the safety rotates down, anticipating the same coverage.

Sure enough, the Jaguars were playing this the same way they played PA Boot. Good recognition by the coaching staff to see this during the game, great recognition by Willis to see the rotation and great execution.

Let’s just watch those two plays back-to-back and get out of here.

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Album listened to: Halsey – The Great Impersonator; Nine Inch Nails – The Fragile