Cardinals present challenging matchup for the Packers in struggling area
Ask any member of the Green Bay Packers to tell you what has been the most disappointing area of the team through five weeks of the season, and give them the truth serum. They will probably talk about the pass rush. The Packers have invested a lot of money and draft capital into the edge […]
Ask any member of the Green Bay Packers to tell you what has been the most disappointing area of the team through five weeks of the season, and give them the truth serum. They will probably talk about the pass rush.
The Packers have invested a lot of money and draft capital into the edge rush room, and the results are underwhelming to say the least. Outside of the Tennessee Titans game, Green Bay has had trouble generating pressure, especially with the defensive ends. And the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday present a tough challenge, evaluating the reasons why the Packers have struggled.
When asked if his edge defenders (Rashan Gary, Preston Smith, Lukas Van Ness, and Kingsley Enagbare) have been good enough, head coach Matt LaFleur talked about the defensive gameplan, especially in the first two weeks, when the defense faced mobile quarterback in Jalen Hurts and Anthony Richardson.
"A lot of it is gameplan dependent. When you're going against these quarterbacks nowadays that are capable of escaping the pocket, you have a different rush plan. And your rush plan may be to just condense the pocket," LaFleur said in his podcast this week. "You've gotta be a little more calculated with how you rush the passer. Naturally, when you do rush like that, those mush rushes, you typically don't get as many opportunities to go hit the quarterback. We've had two games like that."
And the Packers, in fact, haven't had many opportunities to affect the Packers. Through five weeks, Green Bay is only 30th in pass rush win rate — ESPN measures who won each snap after 2.5 seconds, so it basically means that the Packers defensive front is taking a lot of time to get to the quarterback.
And if the main reason why the Packers struggled with it early on was facing mobile quarterbacks, you can imagine that the same approach would have similar results against Kyler Murray.
"Kyler is something else, because he can make all these off-schedule plays, he can beat you with his legs, he can beat you with his arm," LaFleur added. "It's gonna be a great challenge for our defense to try to find ways to contain him. If he starts doing the game off-schedule, there's no great playcall for that. He's gonna create some explosion plays and it's gonna be a problem."
The good news is that the Cardinals' protection is not as efficient as the Eagles' and Colts' ones. A pass protection composite uniting metrics from PFF, SIS, and ESPN puts the Eagles as the fifth best pass protecting offensive line in the NFL, and the Colts at seventh. Meanwhile, the Arizona Cardinals are 17th. The bad news is that the Packers couldn't do much against the Minnesota Vikings (25th) and only produced against the Tennessee Titans (30th).
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. If the Packers keep the same approach, they might have some success containing Murray inside the pocket, but will probably fail rushing him. It's a fine balance, and something that defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley will have to thoroughly consider before Sunday.
How to watch, stream, and listen to Green Bay Packers vs Arizona Cardinals in week 6
Game will be broadcasted by Fox for local markets
