Lazard Goes from Zero to Hero
With the Green Bay Packers’ grip on a first-round bye growing more precarious by the minute, Aaron Rodgers on third-and-10 went to the receiver who failed to make the opening roster and whose butt was glued to the bench for most of the first six weeks.
On third-and-10 from Detroit’s 28-yard line with about five-and-a-half minutes to go, Rodgers fired the game-tying touchdown pass to Allen Lazard.
“It was a quarters-(coverage) beater play,” Lazard said after Green Bay beat Detroit 23-20 to secure the bye with a 13-3 record. “We got quarters, I knew there was a really good chance I’d get the ball. And then I saw the safety trigger, so I knew I was going to be one-on-one with the corner. I tried to run my route to mimic running an out route because I knew how he was going to play and he was going to jump it and I was going to be able to get inside leverage, and leave it up to ‘12’ to do the rest.”
The play was huge in context of the game. Had Green Bay failed to complete its comeback from a 17-3 halftime deficit, it would have spent this week getting ready for a playoff game on Sunday against rival Minnesota. The play also was huge in terms of Lazard’s story. Despite an imposing 6-foot-5 frame and superb production at Iowa State, Lazard went undrafted in 2018. He spent most of his rookie season on Jacksonville’s practice squad before being poached by the Packers late in the season.
Lazard had an excellent training camp this past summer but, despite strong support from Rodgers, failed to make the initial 53-man roster. Ultimately, Lazard was added to the active roster before the Week 1 game against Chicago. He languished on the bench for most of the first six weeks of the season until it was desperation time in the fourth quarter against Detroit. Trailing 22-13 in the fourth quarter, Rodgers went to receivers coach Alvis Whitted and suggested Lazard get a chance to jump-start the offense.
It was a decisive moment. Lazard caught four passes in the quarter, including a touchdown, to help Green Bay win 23-22. Slowly, Lazard has emerged as the team’s No. 2 receiver. He finished fourth on the team with 35 receptions, second with 477 yards and tied for third with three touchdown receptions. Extrapolate his 11-game production over a full season, and Lazard would have tallied 51 receptions for 694 yards and five touchdowns.
By every metric, Lazard ranks not only as one of Green Bay’s most productive receivers but one of the more productive receivers in the NFL.
According to Pro Football Focus, starting with Lazard's emergence in Week 6, 115 receivers were targeted at least 17 times. That list includes Green Bay’s Davante Adams (89), Lazard (51), Geronimo Allison (37), Marquez Valdes-Scantling (24) and Jake Kumerow (17).
In terms of yards per pass route, Adams was ninth with 2.14 yards per pass route, Lazard was 41st with 1.68, Valdes-Scantling was 67th with 1.39, Kumerow was 75th with 1.29 and Allison was 109th with 0.66.
In terms of catch percentage, Lazard was 30th at 68.6 percent, Adams was 52nd at 65.2 percent, Allison was 56th at 64.9 percent, Kumerow was 80th at 58.8 percent and Valdes-Scantling was last at 37.5 percent.
In terms of passer rating when targeted, Lazard was 14th at 117.9, Adams was 40th at 99.4, Kumerow was 52nd at 94.7, Valdes-Scantling was 77th at 84.9 and Allison was 87th at 76.7.
With so much on the line in the final two games, he played a career-high 58 snaps at Minnesota and eclipsed that with 67 snaps at Detroit. Over the final 10 games, he averaged 44.1 snaps per game. Two of his four receptions on Sunday were third-down conversions in the fourth quarter.
“That’s the humor in life and football,” Rodgers said. “He barely played the entire game (against) Detroit until the fourth quarter and now he’s really important part of our offense, doing so many different things for us. I’m very proud of his approach. He’s a pro. The play he got hurt on, he’s got terrible leverage in the slot there and he widens his release and runs a slant. Just stuff you can’t really coach. Guys who don’t have that kind of feel just run a route and kind of get covered. But Allen attacks the leverage, slips, catches the ball, he’s good after the catch. Just really proud of him.”
