FOXBOROUGH - No Micah Parsons, no problem for the Green Bay Packers defense.
Under new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon, the Pack has stifled opponents, especially over the last month or so, doing it without arguably the second-best pass rusher in football.
Green Bay is fourth in DVOA, 5th in EPA/play (-0.12) and, for you traditionalists, 10th in both total defense (314 YPG) and scoring defense (20.5 PPG). How are they doing it with Parsons just now beginning his return to play after ACL and meniscus surgery (the expectation is he’ll make his season debut in week 12 against the Rams)?
“Really well-coached defense, no question,” Josh McDaniels said. “Jonathan Gannon, I've known him for a long time. He is tremendous… they’re sound and complicated at the same time. That's not always an easy thing to do on defense, but they don't give up a lot of big plays, so they make you drive it. That's one.
“Two, they challenge you with their front; it's physical and violent. They're fast at the second level. They're very instinctive in the secondary; I think the two safeties and the star, the nickel, are as good as we've played in terms of reading the quarterback and finding the football. There are a lot of eyes on the football because this is mostly a zone team, and so if you make a mistake, there's going to be a lot of Packers that see it. I think the combination of making it hard to make big plays to shorten the drives, and then forcing you to execute 8, 10, 12 plays in a drive…”
On the surface, you’d say that doesn’t necessarily align with AFC's October Player of the Month, Drake Maye’s strengths. He wants to be a playmaker and push the ball downfield, as he did last week. But his numbers have improved over the season, to the point where I think we can quiet the ‘cover 6 as kryptonite’ theory.
Maye is 6th in EPA/play versus zone coverage, completing 73% of his passes. Did you see that coming? What the Packers will show: tons of single-high safety looks that spin to two-high post-snap (no one has adjusted more, 31%, over the last four weeks than GB) is something Maye and the Pats have seen a ton of and are finding consistent success against. How much? Try 2nd in EPA/dropback versus 2-high and 6th against post-snap safety rotation.
“They don't let up a lot of explosive plays,” Maye observed. “I think they're in the right spot. They've got veteran guys. They've got young guys playing well. They're good in the back end. They keep things in front (of them). They mix up pressure looks. They're getting guys free to the quarterback. We've got a tough challenge.”
I would quibble with the “getting guys free to the quarterback.” Green Bay is basically middle-of-the-road with their pressure rate (38.7%, 18th in the NFL) and converting those into sacks, but this is the other part of Maye’s evolution this year: how well he’s