Bears, Packers’ wildly different offensive team-building approaches shaped by their QBs
Founding franchises. Bitter rivals. About as opposite as they come.
That especially rings true with their offensive team-building strategies. One team has a plethora of high-priced talent. The other has the plethora of talent, but is paying pennies on the dollar for said talent.
And it might all speak to how much they trust their quarterbacks.
Despite what the Packers said publicly leading up to the 2023 season, they weren’t exactly tempering their own expectations of quarterback Jordan Love. Green Bay knew Love would be entering his first season as starter after three years of riding the bench behind Aaron Rodgers and yet, they made no splash additions to Love’s arsenal. There were no proven veterans brought in. They didn’t take a wideout in the 2023 draft until the second round. Their top players at the position were entering their second year.
No matter what head coach Matt LaFleur said publicly, the Packers were betting on Love.
It paid off. Surely, it was a testament to LaFleur and his playcalling. You can see it develop throughout the season. LaFleur gave Love a lot of quick passes, shorter reads and kept things relatively simple in the beginning as Love got used to the pace of the big leagues. Love’s issue was never his grasp of the playbook, it was his lack of live reps and game experience.
But even in the early aughts of the season, Green Bay saw some success. Aided by motion, which the Packers deployed at the sixth-highest rate in the NFL, LaFleur gave Love his choice of targets. So many targets. And it put stress on opposing defenses, who never knew who Green Bay’s top receiver was.
They still don’t.
Ten players caught touchdown passes from Love last year. Five of them multiple times. Jayden Reed and Romeo Doubs tied for the team lead in touchdowns. Eight such scores were all it took.
There was no single player for opponents to key in on each week leading up to the game.
One week it was Reed, like in Week 1 against the Bears. The next, like Week 13 against the Chiefs, it was Christian Watson. Sometimes it was even tight end Luke Musgrave, who finally got his wide-open score in the wild-card round against the Cowboys.
Love had so many options that occasionally, balls bounced off one receiver’s hands in the end zone and another receiver was there to catch it, like in the fourth quarter against Denver when Love threw a touchdown pass to Reed by way of Doubs.
Someone was always open thanks to this rotating cast of wide receivers, along with a couple (rookie) tight ends who had a knack for being exactly where they’re needed to be.
Love had the second-most easy targets in the league last year, according to Next Gen Stats. His receivers had the third-best wide-open percentage. “Wide open” is classified by a receiver having five or more yards of separation from his nearest defender.
That was all accomplished because defenses simply didn’t know where to turn.
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