Good evening, everyone. On Saturday afternoon, the Green Bay Packers took on the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Divisional Round at Lambeau Field. Packers head coach Matt LaFleur was coaching his first game against his former boss in Sean McVay. In 2017, LaFleur was the offensive coordinator for McVay’s Rams. 3 seasons later, they were coaching against each other with the chance to move on to the NFC Championship game. In front of over 8,000 roaring fans at Lambeau Field, the Packers took care of business against the Rams by a score of 32-18. Let’s go into full detail on what transpired in this playoff game.
The Packers started this game on the defensive side of the football. They got off to a great start by forcing the Rams to go three and out on their first drive. On third and 6, QB Jared Goff threw a pass that was partially tipped by Preston Smith. It fell incomplete after the tip, forcing the Rams to punt for the first time. Tavon Austin returned the punt 9 yards to the Green Bay 32, where the offense started their first possession. The Packers offense, led by QB Aaron Rodgers, was moving the ball well during the drive. At one point, Rodgers caught the Rams defense with 12 men on the field, which meant that the offense was given a free play. On the free play, which took place at the Rams’ 31 yard line, Rodgers found WR Equanimeous St. Brown for a 27-yard gain that set up a first and goal. Even with the goal-to-go situation, the Packers were not able to get a touchdown. On second and third down, Rodgers had 2 incomplete passes that should have been caught by Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Allen Lazard respectively. To be fair, Rams LB Troy Reeder played good defense on the third down pass. The incompletions resulted in the Packers settling for a 24-yard Mason Crosby field goal, which gave the Packers a 3-0 lead. On the ensuing defensive possession, the Packers let the Rams go down the field in 8 plays. There were a couple of times where Jared Goff found a wide open receiver for a completion down the middle. The Rams got all the way to the Green Bay 14 yard line before they faced a dilemma. RB Cam Akers was stopped short on third and 2, which forced them into a fourth down. Before the ball was snapped, Rams guard Austin Corbett committed a false start penalty, which took the offense back 5 yards. As a result, Matt Gay was called upon to attempt a 37-yard field goal, which was good. Malik Taylor returned the kickoff only to the Packers 16, where the offense started their second drive. Like the previous drive, the Packers had mostly no problem moving the ball down the field. During the time-consuming possession, Aaron Donald was called for unnecessary roughness after a play was over. The reason why was because he grabbed the facemark of Elgton Jenkins, who played very well on Saturday against Donald (more on that later). The drive ended with a 1-yard touchdown pass to Davante Adams that was a thing of beauty in terms of play-calling and pre-snap motion. Before the snap, Adams went left and then right. Keep in mind that Jalen Ramsey was man-to-man on Adams during the play. Adams got open right at the snap, when Rodgers threw to him for the score. What was funny was that Ramsey was furious after the score. My thought was that Ramsey was mad because one of his teammates did not do his assignment right. With the touchdown (plus the extra point by Mason Crosby), the Packers took a 10-3 lead with 11:37 left in the second quarter.
The Packers defense forced the Rams to go three and out on their ensuing possession. On second and 7 from the Rams 25, Jared Goff was sacked for a 7-yard loss by Za’Darius Smith. LB Christian Kirksey made a stop on the next play by tackling RB Malcolm Brown after a 4-yard catch. An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against the Rams during the punt (in addition to the 8-yard return by Tavon Austin to the Green Bay 38) gave the Packers offense the ball in Rams territory. From Los Angeles’ 47 yard line, the offense went on another touchdown drive to increase their lead to double digits. On this drive, Davante Adams crossed over Jalen Ramsey for a 12-yard catch and run on second and 14 from the Rams 25. This play was after an Aaron Jones run was called back due to offensive holding on Robert Tonyan. 3 plays after a Jamaal Williams run that converted a third and 2, Rodgers pump faked Leonard Floyd and ran for the 1-yard touchdown that gave the Packers a 16-3 lead. The extra point snap was unfortunately botched, resulting in the score staying at 16-3 with 3:29 left in the first half. The defense was unable to stop the Rams from cutting the lead to single digits on the next possession. 5 of the plays were runs by Cam Akers, with Jared Goff completing 3 short passes in between. The drive ended with a 4-yard TD pass to Van Jefferson that cut the lead to 16-10 (PAT made by Matt Gay). Even with 29 seconds left, the Packers were able to go down the field for a field goal. A couple of big pass completions to Davante Adams and Robert Tonyan (respectively) brought Green Bay to the 21 yard line. On the pass play to Tonyan, Aaron Rodgers rolled to his right while getting away from Aaron Donald. The Packers only got a field goal after 2 straight end zone shots, which were luckily not picked off by the Rams. The 39-yard field goal by Mason Crosby was good, giving the Packers a 9-point half-time lead.
The Packers had the ball on offense to start the second half. With their lead at 9 points, this was an opportunity to get that lead back to double digits. On the first play from scrimmage, Aaron Jones followed the blocks and went all the way to the Rams 15 before being pushed out of bounds. The 60-yard run play set up a touchdown that occurred a few plays later. On second and goal from the one, Aaron Jones ran it in for the score that increased the lead to double digits. The Packers tried to go for the two-point conversion, but the pass by Rodgers went incomplete, resulting in the score staying at 25-10. The Packers defense got off to a great second half start by forcing the Rams to go three and out. On third and 7 from the Rams 30, Jared Goff was sacked by a combo of Kenny Clark and Rashan Gary. Tavon Austin did not field the punt, which went all the way to the Green Bay 15 before being downed by LA. The ensuing Packers possession had a couple of missed opportunities for deep shots to the end zone. The first one was Aaron Rodgers over-throwing a wide-open Marquez Valdes-Scantling, while the second one was dropped by Allen Lazard. In between those 2 incompletions, Rodgers threw a pinpoint pass to Lazard while in the end zone. The drive ultimately resulted in a punt after an incomplete pass to Valdes-Scantling, who was held during the play by Rams CB Darious Williams. The punt by JK Scott went only 37 yards to the Rams 21, where it was downed by Kamal Martin. The Rams then went on an 11-play drive that ended with a touchdown that cut the lead to single digits. There were a couple of plays where the Rams used the Wildcat formation, where the running back gets the direct snap from the center. One of those plays resulted in a 7-yard touchdown run by Cam Akers, which cut the lead to 9 points. The Rams then completed a 2-point conversion with this play: a Jared Goff pass to Van Jefferson, who then lateraled to Akers for the 2 points. With 1:41 left in the third quarter, the lead was cut to 25-18.
The Packers offense tried to go down the field on their next drive, but they only got to the Rams 47 before they were forced to punt. On second (and third) and 7, Rodgers threw 2 straight incomplete passes, which meant that JK Scott was called upon to punt once again. At least this punt put the Rams deep in their own territory at the 6 yard line. Entering this possession, the Rams had a chance to tie the game. The Packers defense, though, had other plans. On second and 10 from the Rams 32, Kenny Clark sacked Jared Goff for a loss of 6 yards. After a 5-yard pass play on third and 16, the Rams were forced to punt back to Green Bay. The offense started the drive at their own 27 with 9:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. The drive almost went disastrous due to an AJ Dillon fumble on the second play. The fumble was luckily recovered by Aaron Rodgers, who ran for a yard. On the next play, Rodgers found Marquez Valdes-Scantling for a clutch screen pass that went for 4 yards and a first down. 2 plays later, Rodgers found a wide-open Allen Lazard on a 58-yard play-action pass that went for a touchdown. This touchdown essentially sealed the game for the Packers as they increased the lead to 32-18. The defense responded with forcing the Rams to turn it over on downs. On fourth down, Goff was sacked for the fourth time by Rashan Gary (kudos to Za’Darius Smith for helping Gary with the sack). The offense sealed the win with three more first downs, including the last one on second and 2 from the Rams 13. After three kneel-downs, the game was over.
With the 32-18 win, the Packers have moved on to the NFC Championship game, which will be at Lambeau Field for the first time in the Aaron Rodgers era. Before I say anything else, I want to give a shoutout to the fans who attended Saturday’s game. Despite the number being under 9,000, the crowd sounded like a full stadium at points (especially when the Packers were on defense and chanting “MVP” at Aaron Rodgers). Hopefully the fans stay loud and proud on Sunday afternoon.
With that out of the way, it’s time to talk about the offense. Other than a couple of risky plays that did not succeed, Matt LaFleur called a great game against his former boss Sean McVay. The offense, led by him and offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, torched the Rams number 1 defense for 484 total yards, including 188 on the ground. All 3 running backs carried the ball well for Green Bay, with Aaron Jones leading the way with 99 yards and 1 touchdown on 14 carries. One of those carries went for the 60-yard run that started the third quarter. Jamaal Williams played decent as well, running for 65 yards on 12 carries. AJ Dillon had 27 yards on 6 carries before he was injured on the play in which he fumbled the ball. I am sincerely hoping that Dillon heals quickly from the quad injury. Aaron Rodgers played great, despite throwing a couple of near interceptions. Overall, he went 23 of 36 for 296 yards and 3 total touchdowns (2 passing, 1 rushing). The TD pass to Davante Adams (who had 66 yards on 9 catches) was designed well and frustrated Jalen Ramsey, who also got bested by Allen Lazard on a couple of plays. Speaking of Lazard, he redeemed himself from an earlier drop by catching the 58-yard play-action TD pass that sealed the game for Green Bay. He also caught the pass from Rodgers on the play that the QB was in his own end zone with defenders all over him. Robert Tonyan had 4 catches for 60 yards, including a 33-yard catch and run that set up the field goal before halftime. Marquez Valdes-Scantling had 4 catches for 33 yards, including a clutch third down conversion that set up the game-sealing TD pass to Lazard. If I were going to give the game ball to anybody on the offense, it would be the offensive line, who made sure that Rodgers was not sacked at all during the game. Elgton Jenkins, in particular, kept Aaron Donald in check whenever he was on the field (Donald took off some snaps due to his rib injury). Even if Donald was not injured, I would have been confident in Jenkins keeping him in check anyway. I really liked it when Donald got frustrated and gave the Packers a free first down with his unnecessary roughness penalty. Everyone on the O-Line did a great job, including Jenkins, Corey Linsley, Lucas Patrick, and Billy Turner. As long as they keep the QB upright and create the running lanes, everything will be great for the Packers on offense.
On defense, the Packers did a great job against the Rams offense. On the drives that the Rams did not score on, the Packers limited them to only 28 yards of offense and 4 punts (plus a turnover on downs). Jared Goff was sacked 4 times by the Packers defense, including 1.5 times by Kenny Clark and Rashan Gary each and once by Za’Darius Smith. Jaire Alexander allowed just one catch for -3 yards on three targets (first-team All Pro worthy to me). Krys Barnes made a great play by deflecting a pass despite having a club on his left hand (he got injured but he came back). There were a few times that the defense allowed the Rams to go down the field easily, but they got the stops when they mattered. It is frustrating to watch the defense at times, but it’s always good to see them get the clutch stops. As long as they continue to make those stops, I think that the Packers will go all the way to the Super Bowl.
If there is one part of the team that could derail any championship hopes for Green Bay, it would be the Special Teams unit. Thankfully, there were no turnovers or penalties against the Packers. Other than that, there were a couple of worrisome moments, including an injury to Mason Crosby’s shoulder on the botched extra point snap. I get what JK Scott tried to do on the play, but it did not go well. At least Crosby was able to finish the game without any trouble. There was a 30-plus yard kickoff return, which hopefully does not happen next week (and potentially beyond). JK Scott only punted twice, with the second one pinning the Rams deep in their own territory. Mason Crosby made all of his kicks, including 2 field goals and 2 extra points. Tavon Austin only returned a couple of punts from Johnny Hekker, with each return being under 10 yards. The only thing that I want from Special Teams next week against the Bucs is for them to not screw things up. Any mistake by Green Bay could potentially ruin their chances at a Super Bowl berth. I have hope that the Packers will not make those mistakes (*knocks on wood*).
Overall, it was a great win for the Packers over the Rams on Saturday as they advanced to the NFC Championship game. That game will be played at Lambeau Field against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who won against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday night by a score of 30-20. I know that the Packers lost to the Bucs in Week 6, but that game was back in October. The Packers have improved mightily since that 38-10 loss in Tampa. I am confident that Sunday’s NFC Title game at Lambeau Field will be completely different in terms of the result. As long as they don’t turn the ball over and protect Aaron Rodgers, I really like the Packers chances on Sunday. More on this matchup later. In the meantime, I hope that both teams stay COVID-free for the whole week of preparation. Have a good night, everyone. Go Pack Go!
(Here are the highlights of the game, provided by the NFL's YouTube page.)
コメント