Packers should be more creative with their offensive personnel usage
Aaron Jones in the slot. Christian Watson or Jayden Reed in the backfield. Luke Musgrave as an outside receiver. Do any of these ideas seem absurd to you? Probably not, because all of these players are versatile offensive weapons, and using their abilities in multiple ways would be a smart proposition for a young offense. […]
Aaron Jones in the slot. Christian Watson or Jayden Reed in the backfield. Luke Musgrave as an outside receiver. Do any of these ideas seem absurd to you? Probably not, because all of these players are versatile offensive weapons, and using their abilities in multiple ways would be a smart proposition for a young offense. But, well, Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur hasn't done that as much as you would think.
Since LaFleur became the Packers head coach in 2019, the Packers are not even in the top 10 in personnel diversity — when a piece of the on-field personnel plays outside of their original position.
Coaches from the same tree, like San Francisco 49ers' Kyle Shanahan and Los Angeles Rams' Sean McVay are in the top 10 in the same period, and this might be a huge offensive boost to impact how defenses gameplan against them.
Another example is Mike McDaniel, the Miami Dolphins head coach and from the same offensive tree. Against the Buffalo Bills, he aligned wide receiver Tyreek Hill on the backfield and running back De'Von Achane in the slot. Achane ran a jet sweep and scored a touchdown.
During training camp, McDaniel had already shown glimpses of that, with Hill as a receiving running back.
Since Shanahan took over as the 49ers head coach, his personnel diversity has grown year to year. It's obviously related to a point to how versatile his offensive roster is — Christian McCaffrey could play wide receiver at an NFL level, Deebo Samuel could be a running back, and so on. But they are built like that for a reason.
You could argue the Packers offensive weapons are not as versatile as the 49ers' and Dolphins' ones, and that's mostly true. But that doesn't mean the Green Bay pieces are not multifaceted, especially when Aaron Jones is on the field. With AJ Dillon, achieving that is more challenging, but Jones has been used in the slot, and eventually even as an outside receiver.
As far as the wide receivers, Randall Cobb had moments where he aligned on the backfield to run Texas routes, for instance. Cobb is with the New York Jets now, but Jayden Reed can absolutely execute this role.
Christian Watson has a different body type, but he aligned as a true running back at times at North Dakota State. In the NFL, Watson has shown the ability to stretch the field horizontally too. That would also allow Watson to make an outside motion before the snap and run vertical routes down the field, getting an advantage to start the play before the defense does. LaFleur praised Watson's versatility and intelligence, but he has used this mostly to change where the second-year player aligns as a classic receiver.
"What's so unique about Christian is,” LaFleur said during training camp, "you can line him up at the Z and tell him the next play when somebody might out, hey you got to go play F, or you got to go play X, and he doesn't blink. And that's tough for most guys to do, to switch your brain around like that."
With Jordan Love and the offensive weapons, the Packers gained more options to run an innovative and open offense. There are examples of how this is possible inside the same coaching philosophy, so it's up to Matt LaFleur to execute it more regularly.
