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No, AR wasn't allergic to slants, he threw a lot of them. He just didn't emphasize them to the degree other offenses and QBs have, not even when he had the best WR corps of his career with us
Its also a wee bit dangerous inside for the WRs.
They get more protection than ever, but they're still at risk of meeting a dropping DL or an angry LB because so many teams play cover-2 zone
Slants are great for getting open quickly vs man coverage, but vs zone, you're slanting right into the defender instead of away from the defender
during the Holmgren era we used a lot of short west coast offensive schemes made famous by the 49ers under Walsh, Mike brought that with him when he became our coach.
MCCarthy brought a completely different form of WCO that depended far more on spreading the defense horizonatlly as well as vertically, hense less short passing
Sherman also used basically the same offense that Holmgren used.
Lafleur prefers stacked receivers and motion, he believes that getting yac yrds benefits from also having a blocker to help
the fact is that slants have mostly disappeared from our offenses since 2008.
Its possible - but I'm going to need to see a citation on this one.
That period covers 14 years of Packer offenses across 2 HCs / 2 systems and more than 5000 pass completions.
Sorry, can't give a definitive citation. I'm mostly going off memory and tidbits like below.
*Edit: Can't get the first link to display properly*
bleacherreport.com/articles/289387-re-igniting-the-flame-getting-greg-jennings-back-into-the-game
Too many times this year, the offense has been relying on "the big play" to move the ball down the sideline. The three-step drops and slant passes have disappeared from the offense.
With the lack of pass protection, it makes even more sense to implement quicker release passes. The offense that was so successful in 2007 and 2008 was built around quickly getting rid of the ball into the receivers' hands in order for them to make a play.
Q: Tim Canniff, Asheville, NC - Is the slant no longer in the Packer playbook? It seems a 3 step drop - quick slant might help remedy the Packer line problems yet it seems to be a forgotten play.
A: Greg A. Bedard - I think Rodgers is often afraid to throw those slants. Takes a lot of guts to do that. Not many guys do throw it consistently because it has a good chance of going bad.
the reason we saw so much deep passing imo was do to the 8 man boxes, our receivers where getting blown up , there was no yac, and thats if they even got open to catch the pass, we watched our stacked sets blown up behind the LOS, the deep passing was to force defenders to back off the LOS, Lafleur even said so in a after game presser.
McCarthy used to say he had two different playbooks for Favre and Rodgers.
Favre's playbook had more crossers/slants because he liked throwing over the middle, while Rodgers's playbook had more passes down the sidelines.
That tracks with what we know to be true of how both of them play. It definitely feels like passes over the middle were more of a thing with Favre than Rodgers just off of subjective impression, but also, Favre was slightly taller than Rodgers, and decidedly more of a risk-taker.
And throwing over the middle is risky in several ways: more traffic (more defenders to get a hand on the ball), more injury risk to the WR, and you are throwing directly through the opposing D-Line where guys have gotten good at getting their arms/hands in the way and deflecting passes (leading to INCs and INTs). Between the two of them, who do you think is going to throw more passes over the middle, the taller guy who's more of a risk-taker, or the shorter one who's more risk-averse?
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the fact is that slants have mostly disappeared from our offenses since 2008.
Its possible - but I'm going to need to see a citation on this one.
That period covers 14 years of Packer offenses across 2 HCs / 2 systems and more than 5000 pass completions.
Sorry, can't give a definitive citation. I'm mostly going off memory and tidbits like below.
*Edit: Can't get the first link to display properly*
bleacherreport.com/articles/289387-re-igniting-the-flame-getting-greg-jennings-back-into-the-game
Too many times this year, the offense has been relying on "the big play" to move the ball down the sideline. The three-step drops and slant passes have disappeared from the offense.
With the lack of pass protection, it makes even more sense to implement quicker release passes. The offense that was so successful in 2007 and 2008 was built around quickly getting rid of the ball into the receivers' hands in order for them to make a play.
Q: Tim Canniff, Asheville, NC - Is the slant no longer in the Packer playbook? It seems a 3 step drop - quick slant might help remedy the Packer line problems yet it seems to be a forgotten play.
A: Greg A. Bedard - I think Rodgers is often afraid to throw those slants. Takes a lot of guts to do that. Not many guys do throw it consistently because it has a good chance of going bad.
This is specifically the narrative I remember back in 2008 when Rodgers took over. Favre liked the slants, Rodgers liked the sideline throws, so McCarthy de-emphasized the former and increased the amount of the latter.
Yes, of course Rodgers can and does throw slants from time to time, but in the later Favre years, we were known as the YACkers and I tend to prefer that offense a lot more than a passing offense which is largely confined to the sidelines. I generally think that a lot of Rodgers' failures were related to his mental/habitual fear (or risk-avoidance) tendencies, and this is yet another manifestation of those. It's true that sideline throws are less risky but we are sacrificing a lot when we rule out large swaths of plays.
NGL, some of those back shoulder throws to an out-of-bounds Jordy were pretty cool though.
McCarthy used to say he had two different playbooks for Favre and Rodgers.
Favre's playbook had more crossers/slants because he liked throwing over the middle, while Rodgers's playbook had more passes down the sidelines.
That tracks with what we know to be true of how both of them play. It definitely feels like passes over the middle were more of a thing with Favre than Rodgers just off of subjective impression, but also, Favre was slightly taller than Rodgers, and decidedly more of a risk-taker.
And throwing over the middle is risky in several ways: more traffic (more defenders to get a hand on the ball), more injury risk to the WR, and you are throwing directly through the opposing D-Line where guys have gotten good at getting their arms/hands in the way and deflecting passes (leading to INCs and INTs). Between the two of them, who do you think is going to throw more passes over the middle, the taller guy who's more of a risk-taker, or the shorter one who's more risk-averse?
show me where McCarthy said that? how these QB's played was the design of the coaches, both of these QB's could make any throw, McCarthy preferred high percentage passing, and not just sidelines either, lots of crossing patterns to Nelson, Jennings, and Cobb did most of his damage inside.
I don't understand why people/you, want to try and pigeon hole either of Favre or Rodgers, either one could do very well in any scheme, it's the coaches and also the receiver talent we had at the particular time that dictated the passing schemes used, not the QB's
Its possible - but I'm going to need to see a citation on this one.
That period covers 14 years of Packer offenses across 2 HCs / 2 systems and more than 5000 pass completions.
Sorry, can't give a definitive citation. I'm mostly going off memory and tidbits like below.
*Edit: Can't get the first link to display properly*
bleacherreport.com/articles/289387-re-igniting-the-flame-getting-greg-jennings-back-into-the-game
Too many times this year, the offense has been relying on "the big play" to move the ball down the sideline. The three-step drops and slant passes have disappeared from the offense.
With the lack of pass protection, it makes even more sense to implement quicker release passes. The offense that was so successful in 2007 and 2008 was built around quickly getting rid of the ball into the receivers' hands in order for them to make a play.
Q: Tim Canniff, Asheville, NC - Is the slant no longer in the Packer playbook? It seems a 3 step drop - quick slant might help remedy the Packer line problems yet it seems to be a forgotten play.
A: Greg A. Bedard - I think Rodgers is often afraid to throw those slants. Takes a lot of guts to do that. Not many guys do throw it consistently because it has a good chance of going bad.
This is specifically the narrative I remember back in 2008 when Rodgers took over. Favre liked the slants, Rodgers liked the sideline throws, so McCarthy de-emphasized the former and increased the amount of the latter.
Yes, of course Rodgers can and does throw slants from time to time, but in the later Favre years, we were known as the YACkers and I tend to prefer that offense a lot more than a passing offense which is largely confined to the sidelines. I generally think that a lot of Rodgers' failures were related to his mental/habitual fear (or risk-avoidance) tendencies, and this is yet another manifestation of those. It's true that sideline throws are less risky but we are sacrificing a lot when we rule out large swaths of plays.
NGL, some of those back shoulder throws to an out-of-bounds Jordy were pretty cool though.
Yackers???? Tex you do know of course that spread offenses where in vogue when McCarthy was hired, and the more pure WCO of dink and dunk passing was being phased out, quick strike scoring was the way of the present and future when Mike was hired, hell we hire our coaches based on whats doing well at the time, and we did it again with Matt Lafleur, offenses evolve about every 10 to 15 years because defenses adapt to what had been the flavor, so offenses figure out something new, or had worked in years past
also in 2020 Tonyan caught 99% of his 52 catches right where you/others think Rodgers wont throw them, receiver talent dictates the passing patterns used, not the QB, and not even the coach
This is specifically the narrative I remember back in 2008 when Rodgers took over. Favre liked the slants, Rodgers liked the sideline throws, so McCarthy de-emphasized the former and increased the amount of the latter.
Yes, of course Rodgers can and does throw slants from time to time, but in the later Favre years, we were known as the YACkers and I tend to prefer that offense a lot more than a passing offense which is largely confined to the sidelines. I generally think that a lot of Rodgers' failures were related to his mental/habitual fear (or risk-avoidance) tendencies, and this is yet another manifestation of those. It's true that sideline throws are less risky but we are sacrificing a lot when we rule out large swaths of plays.
NGL, some of those back shoulder throws to an out-of-bounds Jordy were pretty cool though.
Yackers???? Tex you do know of course that spread offenses where in vogue when McCarthy was hired, and the more pure WCO of dink and dunk passing was being phased out, quick strike scoring was the way of the present and future when Mike was hired, hell we hire our coaches based on whats doing well at the time, and we did it again with Matt Lafleur, offenses evolve about every 10 to 15 years because defenses adapt to what had been the flavor, so offenses figure out something new, or had worked in years past
also in 2020 Tonyan caught 99% of his 52 catches right where you/others think Rodgers wont throw them, receiver talent dictates the passing patterns used, not the QB, and not even the coach
Oh yeah, I remember the spread being the hot thing at the time, for about 5 years until the read option became cool.
I didn't come up with the YACkers name- that was a media thing at the time.
I still wish we would see Art Briles given a chance in the NFL. He had a modified spread that was even more insane and I would be curious to see it adapted in the pros.