What Can the Colts expect from the Packers offense?

I’ve been in a really interesting position this week. As someone who has been writing about the Packers offense for 10 years – and as someone who is currently doing the same for the Colts – I’ve been able to watch both teams offenses with the other defense in mind. What can the Colts do to attack the Packers defense and vice versa.

In this space, let’s just get into the Packers offense. What can we expect to see them do this weekend?

It’s a tricky question. If Jordan Love was under center, I’d have a pretty clear answer. With Malik Willis at the helm, there’s no way to no for sure. So let’s talk about how the Packers typically like to operate and what that could mean.

When the phrase “Shanahan Coaching Tree” is uttered, it tends to conjure up a specific image of an offense. A Wide Zone centered run-attack, countered by play action and bootlegs. Lots of horizontal movement up front and flood passing concepts behind it (sending 3-4 men into the same area of a field).

While there’s some truth in that, the offense as a whole has shifted away from some of that. You’ll certainly see some of that wide zone run game, but the Packers offense has been getting into more power concepts over the last few years. They’ll run a lot of Duo (an inside zone run that creates multiple double-teams that can be described as “power without pulling”), and they’ve also started running more power concepts with pullers. When they do that, you’ll often see a tight end pulling as well. That allows the Packers to get bodies at the point of attack while only having to pull one lineman. As the guy who seems to be TE1 this year, Tucker Kraft has been a big part of this part of their game. All 5 of their starting linemen can move well in space, so they will use all of them as pullers, making it hard to predict where they’ll attack.

In the passing game, they like to use play action and attack the middle of the field. On the play action front, they’re typically in the 26% range (they’ve average 26.4% play action since LaFleur became head coach, and they’ve typically stayed within about 1% of that each year, per NFL Pro). With Willis at the helm, I expect that number to spike this week.

As for attacking the middle of the field, I don’t think that’s going to be a huge part of their offense. Willis has been known to be a bit erratic with his accuracy, posting a career 52.2% completion percentage (across 67 attempts). That’s all well-and-good…