Breaking Down Green Bay's Explosive Ground Plays vs. the Buffalo Bills
On the ground, Green Bay Packers running back Eddie Lacy looked unstoppable for an entire quarter against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. Ripping off a handful of double-digit-yard runs, nothing on the field was slowing him down.
It wasn't until head coach Mike McCarthy called him off from the sideline that he began to dwindle throughout the game. In the final three quarters of the 21-13 loss, Lacy only ran the ball eight times.
Looking at his early performance, it opens up several questions for McCarthy to answer, because as far as most are concerned, he did as well as you could ask for a back to do. In tandem with James Starks, the running back duo totaled six "chunk plays" last weekend.
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The design for Green Bay's would-be first explosive play of the day rushing was a power-blocking concept. With the Bills in nickel, they only had six of their seven box starters in on the rep. Rookie center Corey Linsley was slated to pull around the guard on his left to take out one of the two linebackers, while tight end Andrew Quarless, lined up in the backfield, went through the same hole to get to the back-side linebacker.
Josh Sitton, the left guard, took care of the slanted 1-technique defensive tackle, who would essentially have been out of the play if the former Central Florida tackle solidified his block. Outside of that, it's fairly general blocking. Two players in the screenshot were free of a blocking assignment. One was the single-high safety, and the other was a defensive back who dropped near the tackle box pre-snap.
If every block hit, Lacy should have been able to nail the left B-gap and gain half the distance between he and the high safety.
With his offensive line coming through, Lacy was able to do just that. When it was time to attack his running lane, he had plenty of space to navigate through.
With the back-side defensive back unable to catch him near the line of scrimmage because of a bad angle, Lacy wasn't brought down until the defense gave up 12 yards to the Alabama product.
An interesting aspect of this play was the pre-snap movement of receiver Randall Cobb. Not the biggest pass-catcher on the squad at 5'10" and 192 pounds, Cobb was an interesting choice to put in the backfield. After running what some people call an "orbit," which is essentially a motion from one side of the field, then back, Cobb settled in next to Quarless, who again was playing an H-back role.
Against 11 personnel, meaning one tight end and one running back, the Bills again played Green Bay with a nickel defense. Following Cobb near the line of scrimmage, though, was a defensive back, moving the box number to seven, typical of a base defense.
The blocking of this play was much different than the previous explosive play. The first highlighted run of the match came off a power concept, while this one was an outside zone, a typical stretch play.
With four defenders to the left of the center, Green Bay elected to run James Starks, the change-of-pace back on the roster, to the short side of the field where he had spacing on the line of scrimmage to make a nice play. If the Linsley, T.J. Lang and Bryan Bulaga got a hat on a hat, Starks just had to get past the 45-yard line to burst into the secondary.
At the handoff, the Packers had clearly won at the point of attack. With the right B-gap so open, the run was telegraphed and the high safety crashed down to his run responsibility.
After making it out of the running lane clean, though, Starks made a move to shake the safety, allowing him to run free in space.
It finally took a third would-be-tackler to knock Starks out of bounds. If he wasn't running towards the short side of the field, he may have been able to take the ball into the end zone. Limited by the sideline, he still managed to pick up 12 yards.
After Starks got a shot at an outside zone, Lacy got one. On a very similar play, Green Bay again ran to the right on a stretch, but this time it was toward the wide side of the field. Leaving Jerry Hughes, the stand-up pass-rusher, unblocked, the Packers didn't have an option for an across-the-field cutback here. The play-side blockers needed to get their jobs done.
At the handoff, Lacy really had two options. He could continue the stretch to the right B-gap or cut back to the left A-gap. Two key blocks still weren't executed: Lang's against a linebacker and fullback John Kuhn's low block to clear the center of the play.
Sticking his foot in the ground and making a strong cut, Lacy bounced inside where Kuhn had gotten his man on the ground. The best option of the two, Lacy's vision should be given a gold star for the snap.
The only free man able to make a downhill play on Lacy was the high-safety, who was more than 20 yards away from the running back. The cut had "big play" written all over it.
Navigating through traffic, Lacy made another move, freeing himself from the angles of the Buffalo defense.
It took a swarm of blue jerseys to wrestle him down in space, but the Bills eventually did after the 2013 Offensive Rookie of the Year gained 15 yards.
The Packers were grilling Buffalo on the ground at this point. This would be the second play of a back-to-back-to-back pounding the Bills would receive at the end of the first quarter. Running a similar power play to the first large run of Sunday, Lacy again would try to hit the left B-gap to rip off a sizable dash.
This time, the back-side linebacker was left free, as was the high-safety, who was also on the back-side of the play. Linsley again pulled from center and was the key blocker of this play, due to the lack of an H-back kicking out the hole as Green Bay had on the originally highlighted power play. This time, Kuhn went through the right A-gap to get to the Mike linebacker.
The free linebacker hadn't made a play on the ball when the handoff occurred. Because of this, he had no chance at early-in-the-snap impact. Linsley still hadn't locked into his man at this point, meaning Lacy would have had to display patience to continue smoothly to the secondary.
He was able to do so, earning himself a nice, wide lane to burst through, courtesy of yellow helmets in the trenches. By now, both of the free defenders on the play were making a break on the feature back.
After 17 yards, they met him near the 50-yard-line.
The final leg of a three-play, 51-yard run gash was this stretch play. Nothing much different than what had previously occurred, it's surprising that the Bills didn't back off their linebackers or drop a safety near the center of the field. Bunching up near the line of scrimmage clearly hadn't worked at least four times previously in the still-early game.
When Lacy got the ball, he pretty obviously couldn't take the outside zone all the way outside to the right C-gap, as the defensive end Bulaga was slated to block was able to keep his outside shoulder clear. Linsley and Kuhn still had to get on their men at this point, too.
Making a hard cut, Lacy shot himself into the right A-gap, wasting no time to dart upfield. It was now he and the safety in a one-on-one battle.
For the longest run of the game, Lacy ate 22 yards, largely due to his vision and leg drive.
In the fourth quarter, another chunk play on the ground was executed. Unfortunately for Green Bay, Sitton was called for holding on it, negating the result of the run. Nonetheless, it's significant enough to highlight.
Quick off the snap, defensive tackle Kyle Williams was able to knock back Sitton, a former All-Pro guard, to re-establish the line of scrimmage behind where it began on the play. With Lacy receiving the ball at that point, this was a cause of concern down the line.
Still, fearless, Lacy dropped a bit when running through the zone lane, moving right past Williams, who was closing in on the ball-carrier.
After darting to the defensive backs, he finally hit the turf after netting 21 yards.
Final Thoughts
With a quick start of dominance on the ground, it's interesting that Green Bay went away from the run game in their loss to the Buffalo Bills. After blasting off five runs of 12 yards or more in the first quarter, including three consecutive plays totaling 51 yards, Eddie Lacy's eight carries in the final three quarters become a question.
Even if the squad doesn't want to run down the back of a solid offensive line, they've proved they can do so, if nothing else. Heading into the playoffs, this will be a key for the team: Establishing the run. If McCarthy can get out of his own way by not over-thinking the run-pass ratio, the Packers have a solid shot at dominating through the air and by ground.
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