The Green Bay Packers called a dagger concept and, at first blush for coach Matt LaFleur, the throw for Jordan Love was wide open down the field. So the resulting checkdown that went to AJ Dillon for 22 yards wasn’t something LaFleur initially saw as an ideal execution of the play.
So LaFleur investigated.
And the answer didn’t lie in what he saw. In fact, what made the play is what he didn’t see.
The Detroit Lions sent a fifth rusher, and looped Alim McNeill around nose tackle Quinton Bohanna, which gave the 3-technique McNeill a free run at Love. Feeling the pressure, Love didn’t have the extra tick on the clock he needed for the deeper concept to develop, so he quickly dished to his outlet man, Dillon, who was waiting for the checkdown in the flat. In the moment, LaFleur’s eyes were downfield with the receiver. But the full context gave him a prettier view.
“That gave me confidence like, ,” says LaFleur from his office on the first floor of Lambeau nine months after Love tossed three touchdown passes in a 29–22 victory. “I was watching him. The dagger’s wide open. I didn’t see what happened in the pocket. The rush barreled down, he got the ball out. So we came back and called the dagger again, and he ripped the dagger when the pocket was clean.
“It’s just that feel. However long that takes, that feel that you get in the pocket, he’s done such a good job with it."
The second dagger came five plays later, going for 16 yards to Romeo Doubs to set up a field goal that put the Packers up 23–6 at halftime of the teams’ Thanksgiving Day game. It made a two-possession game a three-possession game, and Green Bay wound up cruising to a crucial win that was only close at the end after Detroit scored a touchdown with 46 seconds left.
The impact of the sequence, though, would be felt for much longer than just that afternoon.
As you dig into that game, you’ll find the strength of the plan the Packers have executed with Love over the past four-plus years since stunning the world with his selection at the end of the first round in April 2020.
How the first play unfolded essentially informed LaFleur that even if things didn’t go right around Love—and no protection is set up to allow an athletic defensive tackle a free run at the quarterback—on that kind of call, he could trust the former first-rounder to do the right thing. That, in turn, emboldened LaFleur to go right back to the concept a few plays later, with some adjustment, knowing if something else short-circuited, Love would handle it.
So if you thought you saw a different Love down the stretch last season—with the crescendo coming in Dallas on wild-card weekend—trust your eyes. LaFleur saw the same thing, too, but only because the quarterback earned a deeper trust the coaches needed to let him play that way.
