Green Bay Packers vs. Seattle Seahawks: Breaking Down Green Bay's Game Plan

Only a couple weeks from the Super Bowl, the Green Bay Packers are in the last stretch of their season. If they lose on Sunday in Seattle, the end of the line comes early.

Facing the Seahawks, to whom they previously lost by 20 points to start their 2014 campaign, the Packers need to show the world how their offense and defense have evolved over the last 18 weeks. According to Odds Shark, the squad is still a 7.5-point road dog.

At least in Vegas, Green Bay is still heavily projected to lose. Odds Shark also has 47 points as the projected total for the game, much lower than the AFC Championship Game, featuring the Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots, projected to score 53.5 combined.

Overall, a 27-20 Seahawks victory seems to be around the consensus, but the Packers only scoring 20 points seems like a poor bet. The team only scored fewer than 20 points three times in the regular season, against the Bills in a loss, against the Jets in a win and, yes, against Seattle in Week 1.

To avoid another such loss, Mike McCarthy's team must execute two key factors, one on each side of the ball.

Offensive Key: Use Three Receivers

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In their first meeting of the 2014-2015 season, the Packers completely avoided cornerback Richard Sherman. Not throwing his way one time in the September matchup, McCarthy sent Jarrett Boykin, then a third receiver behind Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb, to the right boundary as a virtual decoy for 60 minutes.

This idea may seem good on paper—you know, not throwing to one of the best, if not the best, defensive backs in football—but it hurt them in the long run.

The issue stemmed from the fact that Seattle has more than one amazing defender. Bobby Wagner, the Seahawks middle linebacker, tied a career high in tackles with 14 in the game, shutting down 2013 Offensive Rookie of the Year Eddie Lacy. Lacy only had 34 yards in the game and a 2.8 yards-per-carry mark.

With Sherman shutting down the right side of the field, All-Pro safety Earl Thomas took the deep portion, really only giving quarterback Aaron Rodgers two options from there: throwing to the middle of the field or throwing to the left. Now, the middle, patrolled by Wagner and another All-Pro safety in Kam Chancellor, wasn't really much of an option, either, if we're taking away alternatives just for being mismatches like Green Bay seemed to do.

That meant the Packers fairly predictably threw left shallow heavy for the game, which led to Rodgers' 5.7 yards-per-throw average, the second lowest of his season, only behind his Buffalo result of 4.4. Twice during the 2014 regular season, against the Carolina Panthers and Chicago Bears, he threw for double the yards per throw as he did against Seattle.

In short, the team limited itself. This time around, Green Bay has a huge advantage in the air: an actual threat as a third pass-catching target. Instead of a decoy in Boykin, the Packers are going to trot out Davante Adams, their second-round selection of last year's draft class, as the boundary receiver, potentially the one Sherman is assigned to.

He has had the best rookie season of any rookie receiver under McCarthy, which says something by itself, but is also going to be combined with Cobb and Nelson, who some may argue have had their best seasons of their careers in 2014, to attempt to neutralize Seattle's advantage in the sky.

If Rodgers is fully healthy, unbothered by the calf issue that sprung up Week 16 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, then the Packers have a fair shot at this game, at least from an offensive perspective, if Green Bay wants to play head-to-head football and not shy away from necessary dice rolls to beat this squad.

If Seattle should overcorrect and help out its pass defense, then the Packers should fare better in the run game. The first time around, Green Bay lost starting right tackle Bryan Bulaga, subbing in Derek Sherrod, who finished 2014 out of the league before signing a futures contract with the Kansas City Chiefs. It was also Corey Linsley's first game in the NFL, a fifth-round rookie who improved throughout the season to the point that some were claiming he deserved a Pro Bowl bid at center, and Lacy left in the fourth quarter due to a concussion.

A lot of random factors took place for Green Bay's ground game in Week 1. By avoiding those and not the Seattle pass defense, the squad could push through those projected 20 points easily.

Defensive Key: January Football

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On the defensive side of the ball, the Packers need to continue what they've been doing for the past several weeks in stacking the box. The Seahawks offense is built off misdirection passes, a strong run-blocking unit and Marshawn Lynch, possibly the best running back of 2014.

Against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 16 and against the Dallas Cowboys in the divisional round, Green Bay dropped safety Morgan Burnett, named a captain in the playoffs, into the box. This flexibility has only been allowed in 2014 because first-round pick Ha Ha Clinton-Dix can function as a one-high free safety. This safety unit is night and day from the 2013 version, which featured M.D. Jennings as a starter and resulted in zero interceptions between the two back-end defenders.

Clinton-Dix had one brutal play against Seattle in Week 1 when he was still a rotational player, but as the season went along, the Packers trusted him enough as the full-time starter. They should feel good about testing him in mid-January, even if his first NFL game didn't go great. Keeping things consistent defensively allows the squad, which hasn't been great in run defense this season, to have a strong run presence.

While quarterback Russell Wilson is very talented, the team literally runs through Lynch. It would appear that the Seahawks are the rare "old school" team in the league, establishing the run to set up the pass rather than the other way around. Seattle does various things, such as rolling Wilson or going heavy on play action on passes, to make the game easier on its quarterback, but he doesn't have much pass-catching talent around him.

Focusing more on the strength of the team, the run, the Packers' best bet might just be rolling the dice and playing man-on-man with Clinton-Dix roaming the deep portion of the field. Taking away what the defending champs do best, ground-and-pound, and making them "prove" themselves in a win seems like the way to go, looking at this game on paper.

Final Thoughts

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Green Bay has a rather large obstacle sitting between it and an NFC Championship. Seattle is talented on both sides of the ball and might be the best overall team in the league. It's no surprise that the Seahawks are favored at home as the defending Super Bowl champions, but the Packers can still make a run at snatching that title away from them.

If the team completely changes its approach offensively from their first matchup, it could score more than the 20 points Vegas is willing to say Green Bay will score. On defense, throwing bodies into the box and forcing Russell Wilson to throw to possibly the worst unit on the field, the Seahawks receivers, seems like the least potent poison.

Everything hinges on Aaron Rodgers, who has been battling through a calf injury for the past month, but if the squad can get those two objectives done, there's still unfinished business for the team to accomplish.