How to Beat the Packers

There isn’t a lot to go on for a template on how to beat the Packers. The Chiefs loss doesn’t really count without Rodgers and the Saints game was a long time ago, so I can’t just use that for an easy template. That means that this week, instead of looking for patterns that opponents have followed to beat the Packers, I’m looking more for situations on where they can be beaten.



Scoring Trends

The first thing to look at is when the Packers outscore their opponents. This is a look at who scores more TDs by quarter, Packers or opponents:





I find this very interesting for a few reasons.

1) The Packers don’t start fast.

2) Usually catch up by halftime.

3) The games they lost (Saints & Chiefs… yeah, I know it doesn’t count), they didn’t catch up by halftime.



Knowing this, I was curious how often the Packers led at halftime. In their 8 wins, the Packers have led at halftime in every game. However, most games were close; only one time did the Packers lead by 2 scores at halftime (10 pts vs. the 49ers), looking at the halftime leads by game:

• Detroit Lions: 3

• San Francisco 49ers: 10

• Pittsburgh Steelers: 7

• Cincinnati Bengals: 2

• Chicago Bears: 3

• Washington Football Team: 7

• Arizona Cardinals: 3

• Seattle Seahawks: 3

That’s not a very impressive list, so that might be a crack in their armor to remember for later. Additionally, I looked at the scores immediately before halftime to see if it was the Packers' two minute drill that closed things up, answer: no, not consistently.



Scoring Sources

This also leads me to a very odd question – that TD differential is not very impressive, where does their overall points differential come from? Kicking.

Packers TDs: 25 (No defensive TDs)

Opponents TDs: 23 (No defensive TDs)



Packers FGs: 14/21

Opponents FGs: 6/9 - what?!? 6 FGs in 10 games? (Note to self, bench Greg Joseph in fantasy)

That means their overall scoring differential is +12 from TDs and +25 from kicking.



This Packers offense isn’t really great. They’re #15 in scoring efficiency (Vikings are #17), and #17 in points scored (Vikings are #15). There’s more to this inefficiency too, their running game isn’t that good:

Packers rushing: 419 yards at 4.4 ypc / 7 TD

Opponents: 490 yards at 4.6 ypc / 8 TD

Note: the Packers will be without Aaron Jones, this might be a big deal, more on that later.

So what gives? They stink at rushing and don’t score that many TDs Why do they win so consistently?



Passer Rating Correlation

The answer to why they win so consistently, is passer efficiency. In every Packers game so far this season the QB with the higher passer rating has won. Normally I take passer rating with a grain of salt, there are too many other variables (i.e. running QBs, yards after catch), but for the Packers I thing it applies. Look at the passer rating by quarter:




This explains how the Packers take relatively pitiful halftime leads and consistently stretch them to wins despite not being that efficient at scoring as a team. There’s two sides to this: Rodgers’ efficiency has been good and nobody has slowed him down in the 2nd half. A the same time, other teams’ efficiency has collapsed. So this 3rd quarter passing efficiency is their super power riding a high completion% to salt away the clock, right? Maybe, time to look at some actual games to see what caused this brilliance.



What Happened in those 2nd halves?

Lions: The Lions played a really good first half, but when they started the 2nd half they went:

- Turnover on downs on 4th &1 at the 25, passing up a FG to make it a 1 pt game.

- 1 Play Drive, fumbled snap

The Lions made more mistakes, but these were the two that turned a close game into a runaway. They weren’t great plays or strategy, they just screwed up.



49ers: Avoided major mistakes and took the lead forcing a dramatic last second drive by Rodgers.


Steelers: This is credit to the Packers D. They just outplayed the Steelers offense.


Bengals: The Bengals came out and made one big play, then on the 3rd play of the half, Burrow inexplicably threw on the run into obvious coverage.


Bears: Are a generally terrible offense and provide no insight


Washington: Heinike Got strip sacked on the 2nd play of the half, setting up an easy Packer TD.


Cardinals: 2nd play of the half, a RB tips an open screen pass up in the air for an easy INT. Cardinals threw another INT in the endzone when AJ Green forgot to run his route.


Seahawks: 3-0 game, Wilson forces a throw to a backed WR in the end zone for an easy pick (added another throw into tight double coverage later.


So to summarize, that’s 1 offense playing their own game and winning the 2nd half (49ers); 1 offense getting beat by the Packers D (Steelers), 1 terrible offense (Bears), and a whopping 4 teams that made mistakes that handed the Packers a huge 2nd half advantage; 3 of those 4 were completely unforced errors.



Good news then: this isn’t a thing that requires something out of the ordinary to beat, it just requires the Vikings playing their game (and being a better offense than Chicago or Pittsburg – who are both terrible)



Packers Passing Weakness

Overall the Packers passing attack is only OK if I use Net Yards Per Attempt to measure how potent a passing attack is. On the season, the Packers only rank 16th in the NFL at 6.5 NYPA (Compared to #1 Rams at 7.9 and #31 Lions at 5.3, leaving out the #32 bears since they are a huge outlier).



Their Bread and butter passing is 2nd down where Rodgers improves to 8.3 NYPA (again, compare that to the #1 Rams at 7.9). And if they stay on schedule, they’re off the chart: 2nd and 4-6 yards when every play is on the table Rodgers rises to 9.5 NYPA with an 82% completion rate.



This is where that Aaron Jones point comes back in. On 1st and 10,

Aaron Jones: 68 Attempts, 5.3 YPC

AJ Dillon: 48 attempts, 4.8 YPC

It’s close, they’re both good, but the difference between stopping the run on 1st and 10 is huge. Rodgers NYPA drops from 9.5 to 7.2; his completion % falls off by 10% as well. That equates to about 1 stalled drive per game (and since the Packers aren't winning convincingly, th. So even a small falloff from Jones to Dillon could be meaningful.



How to Beat the Packers

This ended up being way less complex than I expected. I expected an 8-2 with wins over multiple good teams to have wins that are much more convincing. But fully half of the Packers wins can be traced straight to errors by the other team. The Packers are still a good team, so the normal “don’t screw up” rules apply.



First, it will be helpful to play the 2nd quarter strong, which will keep pressure off of those mistakes so many other teams have made vs. the Packers in the 2nd half. The Packers have trailed twice at the half and lost both. However that’s a bit too generic.



A more specific answer: the Vikings need to set themselves up to win on 2nd down, especially coming out of halftime. The best way to do this is to hold AJ Dillon under 4 yards on 1st down. This can cut down the number of opportunities for Packer drives to falter or turn them into FGs that don’t stretch the lead. Tougher 2nd downs will keep Rodgers away from situations where he has a lot of easy passing choices – that’s what runs up his passer rating, which correlates strongly to wins.