Do Packers Need To Be More Aggressive on First Down? Here’s Data

The Green Bay Packers’ offense has been plagued by being too inconsistent. Has it also been plagued by being too conservative?

Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur talks to quarterback Jordan Love during the second half against the Carolina Panthers. | Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

GREEN BAY, Wis. – With the Green Bay Packers’ offense stuck in the mud, quarterback Jordan Love would like to be unleashed.

“Definitely, as a player, you always want that,” Love said on Wednesday.

The Packers will pack a two-game losing streak for their trip to New York to face the Giants on Sunday. They scored a combined 20 points in a 16-13 loss to the Panthers and a 10-7 loss to the Eagles. Love didn’t throw a touchdown pass in either game.

While it’s apparent the Packers have leaned on their running game, the data might surprise you.

The Packers have run the ball on 46.0 percent of their offensive snaps, the 10th-highest run rate and not hugely different than the league median of 42.8 percent. Last year, Green Bay was third at 50.7 percent, though some of that is skewed by the play-calling following the injuries to Love.

On first down, again, it’s apparent the Packers have leaned on the run game. The Packers have run the ball 54.5 percent of the time. While that seems high, it’s not. Almost three-fourths of the league – 23 teams, to be exact – is running it more than 50 percent of the time on first down.

Similar to their overall run rate, the Packers are 11th in first-down run percentage. The Buffalo Bills are running away with the title, no pun intended, with a first-down run rate of 62.7 percent. They are sixth in the league in scoring. The Detroit Lions, who are second in scoring, and Seattle Seahawks, who are third in scoring, are among the teams running the ball with greater frequency on first down than Green Bay.

So, the data makes clear that it’s perfectly acceptable to rely on the running game to set the table for what’s next. 

Green Bay certainly relied on it at the start of Monday’s game against the Eagles. Its first five plays on first-and-10 were running plays, not including Love’s fumble on the first play of the second series, which officially went into the book as an aborted play but might have been a pass.

Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs has not found much daylight this season. | Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

Green Bay’s run-pass split on Monday was 11 runs and 14 passes. However, when you discard the 2-minute drive at the end of the first half and the pass-heavy approach once the Packers fell behind 10-0 in the fourth quarter, the split was 10 runs and three passes.

That’s clearly a conservative approach, perhaps born from LaFleur thinking that Jacobs churning away for a few yards is a better result than Love throwing incomplete when under pressure from a struggling offensive line.

“I would say just the consistency level of how we go out there,” LaFleur said of his line on Wednesday. “Whether it’s in the run game or the pass game, just how consistent can you be. I always think that unit is one. There’s five individuals but you are one, and all it takes is one guy and the whole unit suffers as well as the whole offense.”

Obviously, whatever play is called on first down, it sets up success or failure for the rest of the series. So, on Green Bay’s opening series, Jacobs ran for 5 yards to set up a first down. Then, he ran for 3 yards to set up a first down. Finally, he was limited to 1 yard and the drive ended with a punt.

In the second quarter, a series started with back-to-back runs of 5 and 11 yards but died on back-to-back runs for 3 and minus-1.

On the first play of the first drive of the second half, Love hit Christian Watson for 20. After runs of 4 and 3 yards set up another first down, Jacobs was buried for a loss of 4, which led to another punt.

On first down this season, Jacobs is ninth with 88 carries but 15th with 347 yards. Of the 39 backs with at least 40 first-down carries, he is 30th with 3.94 yards per carry. Running the ball at about 4 yards per first-down play would be acceptable if those plays consistently gained 3, 4 or 5 yards to set up the offense for success. The inconsistency of the running game, however, is why the offense as a whole has been so inconsistent.

That’s apparent during the losing streak. The last two games, 17 of their 54 snaps on first down gained 0 yards or worse. That’s 31.5 percent. The first seven games, the 0-or-worse rate was 23.3 percent. 

There’s a statistical case to throw the ball more often on first down, because Love has been excellent. He’s third with a 74.5 percent completion rate, eighth with 8.2 yards per attempt and seventh with a 112.6 passer rating.

During the two-game losing streak, they’ve been bad, regardless of what’s been called. In the losses to the Panthers and Eagles, the Packers are averaging 3.9 yards per first-down rush, which ranks 21st, and 5.3 yards per first-down pass, which ranks 22nd.

During the skid, Jacobs has run the ball 21 times on first down, which is tied for seventh. His success rate is 57.1 percent, which ranks a solid 14th out of 34 backs with 10-plus carries. (A successful first-down play gains 40 percent of the necessary yards, so, on first-and-10, that’s a gain of at least 4 yards.) He’s averaged 4.29 yards per carry, which ranks 20th but is, oddly enough, better than his season-long mark.

Love has thrown the ball 25 times on first down the last two games, which is tied for eighth. His success rate of 48.1 percent ranks 20th out of 31 quarterbacks to throw at least seven passes. His 5.56 yards per attempt ranks 26th.

“I think we need to play clean football,” LaFleur said of the offense in general and not just on first down. “I think that’s the first and foremost. When you look at it, a lot of self-inflicted just mistakes, whether it’s false starts, we had a couple of illegal formations. Every individual’s got a responsibility on every play. And if you’re not clean, if one guy’s not clean, it can go to crap.” 

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