Packers' 2023 offense is the perfect situation for Jordan Love
Some people may have scoffed at the Green Bay Packers' decision to take not one, but two, tight ends on Day 2 of the 2023 NFL Draft, but if you know what this team likes to do and you know the roster – it made all the sense in the world. Especially when looking at […]
Some people may have scoffed at the Green Bay Packers' decision to take not one, but two, tight ends on Day 2 of the 2023 NFL Draft, but if you know what this team likes to do and you know the roster – it made all the sense in the world.
Especially when looking at what rookies Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft are capable of doing. Both players have the skillsets to be matchup problems and they reflect the mold of today's dominant tight end: big, fast, athletic, and versatile.
"Oh it's huge," Packers offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said Tuesday. "When you can play these guys in the box and then be vertical threats, where you can split them out and get them isolated on linebackers and safeties and win one-on-one matchups, that's going to be a very important thing for our offense. So, we're going to just kind of see how it goes as we move along, but I'm very excited about having both those guys."
The key aspect, here, is the additions of Musgrave and Kraft will help the Packers run more 12 personnel, which is a great idea for the players they currently have on offense. It's obvious the Packers' offensive strength is the running game. Being able to run more 12 personnel will allow Matt LaFleur and co. lean more into that strength, because obviously, the more tight ends on the field, the bigger the bodies and more likely a team is to run the ball.
But this won't be an archaic three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust-type offense. The Packers still have an elite playmaker in Christian Watson and obviously as aforementioned, Musgrave and Kraft aren't just people-movers – they're receivers, themselves. The explosiveness and versatility of those players pushes this version of the Packers offense into the modern NFL offense category.
This all helps Jordan Love in the end, which is the biggest -and most important- takeaway, here. 12 personnel with tight ends such as the new rookies allows the offense to run different plays out of the same look(s), which not only helps make things easier for Love, but again, it hurts the defense.
"It depends on what defense you're playing," said Stenavich. "But sometimes, when you get into 12 personnel, they put their base defense [on the field] and you can kind of, dumb down the defense, if you will. You get less looks, you can kind of predict what's going on and then also, when you get all those guys on the field -those linebackers- you can split out the tight ends and get one-on-one matchups with tight ends or receivers.
"There's a lot of different things you can do in the pas game, as far as creating matchups. I think that's gonna be exciting for us – to be able to do that."
The 2023 version of the Packers offense is a great starting point for Love and if the unit can grow together, they'll be a stout offense for the foreseeable future.
