The Packers Surprise With Multiple Back Sets

The Packers, despite their image, were surprisingly good at running and stopping multiple back running plays.

NFL fans like to make a distinction between “modern” and “archaic” teams; teams like the Packers, Patriots, and Broncos are labeled “modern” with star quarterback focused precision passing games while “archaic” teams like the Bills, Jets and Rams have spent their efforts on a “ground and pound” philosophy, coupling a stifling defense with a sturdy running game.  Historically and statistically, the passing game has emerged as the better of the two philosophies and Packers fans gloat gleefully on how backwater the Vikings are by paying Adrian Peterson $14 million a year. 

However the Packers, despite their reputation as a pass first, pass second, and probably pass third football team do have some anachronisms of their own.   No team is perhaps in love with fullbacks more than the Packers, at one point having 3 on their roster and even at this point they often dress their tight ends as fullbacks and have them lead block. 

Football Outsiders recently released their running statistics looking at multiple running back efficiency and how the Packers performed in 2014 might be surprising.  Without looking at the data, most Packers fans would probably assuming that since the team prefers multiple receiver sets, the percentage of 2 running back formations (tight ends shifted to the fullback position are counted as running backs by FO) run would be on the lower side of the league; the declining number of snaps starting fullback John Kuhn would enforce assumption has received over the last couple years.  However the Packers are actually 11th in the league in percentage of 2+ running back plays.

Another assumption would be that with Eddie Lacy’s size and running style, he probably would be more productive operating as the lone back with a less stacked box since he can just plow through defenders.  Again, the Packers were most successful at running the ball when the running back had a lead blocker in front of them, going from an -8.8DVOA to a +6.8 DVOA when switching from 1 back to 2 back set.  To put this in perspective, the Packers ranked 15th in rushing with 1 back but an astonishing 3rd when running with 2 backs; keep in mind coming in a #1 and #2 in 2+ back rushing efficiency are Seattle and Dallas, two run centric teams. 

To me, this is a startling discovery; while John Kuhn recorded an admirable +3.4PFF rating in run blocking last year he was only on the field for 195 snaps out of 1072.  More importantly, tight ends Andrew Quarless and Richard Rodgers had abysmal run blocking ratings at -1.2 and -9.5 respectively.  While these ratings also include tight ends blocking inline with the offensive line, I think the overall consensus is that neither tight end was all that good of a blocker in 2014.  

On defense it’s pretty much the same story.  Initial impressions would say that the Packers should be god awful at run defense against a lead blocker; the defensive line, once stocked with big guys like BJ Raji, Ryan Pickett and Johhny Jolly (all 330lbs+) have been replaced by the comparatively Lilliputian Datone Jones (285lb), Letroy Guion (315lbs) and Mike Daniels (305lbs). 

Moving on back, before Clay Matthews switched to inside linebacker, both AJ Hawk and Brad Jones were 2 of the 3 worst run defenders on defense (Datone Jones was the 3rd, which only makes matters worse) and disengaging from a blocker, such as a fullback) to make a tackle has long been a pipe dream for Packers inside linebackers. 

And yet, the Packers were actually better at defending 2+ back sets at -12.2% versus -7.6% with 1 back sets (keep in mind defensive DVOA are the inverse of offensive DVOA so bigger negative numbers are better).  How they managed to do this is beyond me. 

The final interesting fact is that the Packers saw the lowest number of 2+ back sets in the league at 19%.  The average of 2+ back sets run by opposing teams the Packers faced in 2014 is a full 10% lower than it should be meaning not only were the Packers good at stopping 2+ back sets but other teams also knew this and avoided running those plays.  

Overall, the Packers are surprisingly effective at both running and defending 2+ back sets; while the Packers have been viewed as a pass-first team whose definitely more likely to spread it out through the air rather than pound it through the tackles in reality a lot has changed since the record breaking 2011 season.  The Packers have finally found a running game and have an offensive line that complements a balanced offensive strategy.  On defense, while defending against the run is still an issue they surprisingly were successful at stopping running plays with lead blockers.  If anything I think this points to a more balanced offense and defense, which makes the Packers more dangerous. 

 

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Comments (17)

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Clay's picture

July 27, 2015 at 12:21 pm

Very insightful article.

I just to be clear though about the startling discovery you made. You said the Packers are better at running out of two back sets, which includes MUCH of the time a tight end being used as the second back. You also pointed out that the Packers tight ends were poor run blockers last year. Isn't that pretty ironic? I am left to imagine that the Packers would be #2 or #1 out of two back sets if the very reason they are using those sets (tight ends) actually did their job well!

Am I understanding this right?

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hobbes's picture

July 27, 2015 at 02:37 pm

That is correct, I don't know how they managed to do that either. My only conclusion is that since tight end run blocking on PFF is not based on where they line up, its possible that they were absolutely god awful at blocking inline but much better when at fullback. I don't know if I really believe that but that's the only thing I could come up with.

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Clay's picture

July 27, 2015 at 08:46 pm

Thanks for the reply! It is funny that's for sure. I guess you would have to break down where they lined up like you said.

Well I will look forward to an even better running game given that the tight ends improve, not to mention the O line consistency and maturing, as well as Eddie's progress.

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hobbes's picture

July 28, 2015 at 12:17 pm

Actually one other plausible explanation that realized is that there could be a discrepancy between the DVOA of football outsiders and the blocking grades at PFF, after all they are run by different groups and measure different things. That being said I don't think I would expect such a drastic difference between the two.

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Deelux523's picture

July 27, 2015 at 02:12 pm

I also read the FO article, but the conclusion I drew was that the reason we saw so few 2+ back sets may have had more to do with our 1st half offense's success and high scoring forcing teams to go pass-wacky, rather than our stingy run D.

After all, the best defense IS a good offense.

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Max85's picture

July 27, 2015 at 02:28 pm

Agreed. The 2-back set wasn't going to help at the rate we were scoring against most teams.

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hobbes's picture

July 27, 2015 at 05:02 pm

That would explain why the Packers didn't see as many 2+ back sets as expected but probably not why the Packers were better at stopping them.

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hobbes's picture

July 27, 2015 at 02:41 pm

If I'm not mistaken, DVOA accounts for this. DVOA is a measure of how a play does against an "average" offense or defense and takes into account down, distance, location on field, current score gap, quarter, and opponent quality. Furthermore, if the Packers were nursing a lead and using 2 back sets I would think that efficiency would decrease since the defense would know its coming and stack the box and I don't think the Packers are a team that can dominate no matter what when it comes to running the ball.

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Since'61's picture

July 27, 2015 at 03:56 pm

I think that the Packers numbers look good on offense with 2 back sets because of their solid, consistent OL play regardless of the quality of their TE blocks plus the ability of Lacy to break tackles and fall forward when he finally does go down. On defense I think that the Packer's success against 2 back sets is due to the previously mentioned fact that teams playing from behind will need to pass more against the Packers and the fact that running plays out of 2 back sets tend to be slower developing plays and while the Packer DLs are lighter than in the past they are faster. This combined with CM3 playing inside yields better overall results. Unfortunately, past performance does not guarantee future results so for 2015 we start fresh. Go Pack! Thanks, Since '61

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hobbes's picture

July 27, 2015 at 05:01 pm

For offense I don't think that the offensive line is much of a factor since the OL is part of both 1 and 2+ back sets. There will be naturally different blocking schemes and play calls that perhaps favor 2+ back sets more but I don't think it can explain going from -8.8 to +6.8DVOA. I would think most if not the vast majority of the differences stems from the 2nd runner and not the offensive line.

As for defense, the fact that offenses had to play from behind more often is a possible explanation for the decrease in 2+ back sets against the Packers, but again I don't think CMIII is somehow better when he has to shed a fullback before making the tackle.

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Tundraboy's picture

July 27, 2015 at 06:40 pm

Think you nailed it!

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Allan Murphy's picture

July 27, 2015 at 06:51 pm

Chilax !

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Thegreatreynoldo's picture

July 28, 2015 at 01:49 am

Interesting article. The stats are indicative to the extent that one has faith in DVOA. Of course, maybe I am an hide-bound, old fart. GB gave up 4.2 yds/att against one back sets, good for 10th - tied with 7 teams, so the rank is 10th to 16th. NFL average is 4.3. Call GB average. GB gave up 3.8 yds/att against two back sets, which is the NFL average and would tie GB for 16th to 20th. Call it about average, while remembering that GB was a bit worse than the dead median team. The improvement from 4.2 to 3.8 yds/att between 1 and 2 back sets seems surprising, but 16 teams improved more (and 1 tied). The article says that GB ranked 18th in being better against the 2 backs vs. 1 back, a bit below average.

The conclusions I draw are that while GB improved versus 2 back sets in terms of raw numbers and but not in rank, and its improvement was below the NFL average, as it was not as good against 2 back sets as the median team.

Defense seems to me to be about two things: points allowed and getting off the field, preferably on the 1st series so as to help with field position.

GB allowed a 1st down on 58.9% of passing attempts, ranking 27th. GB allowed a 1st down on 25.8% of rushing attempts, good (or bad) for 32nd in the NFL - that is, worst in the NFL. GB tied for 13th in points allowed with 21.8 pts/gm. My conclusion here is that GB was largely a bend but don't break team that gave its superb offense lousy field position, but the offense was so good that it overcame that issue. GB was better than it had been in the past at limiting big plays, to which I give credit to the play of the Burnett and Clinton Dix, and better LB speed provided by CM3 and Peppers. GB ranked 7th to 10th in interceptions (18), and 22nd in forced fumbles (12), so turnovers were just a tad better than average overall.

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hobbes's picture

July 28, 2015 at 12:25 pm

I think DVOA is one of the better stats out there, the algorithm I believe is public knowledge and if you are looking at historical data, there really isn't any other metric that even goes back that far. I won't say that it's perfect but it does I think capture the broad view which is that the Packers were better at defending 2+ back sets than 1 back sets, even if both rankings were pretty terrible.

I do find it interesting that the Packers can be in the middle of the pack in terms of average for both 1 and 2+ back sets but rank near the bottom (26th in the league) in total running yards allowed per game. The only other significant source of running yards would be quarterbacks but I have my suspicions that that would really make such a big difference.

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WKUPackFan's picture

July 28, 2015 at 06:09 am

The perception is (not necesssarily shared by me) Lacy lacks vision as a one cut runner in the ZBS. Two back sets usually require a more defined hole, which may allow Lacy to use his natural ability more.

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hobbes's picture

July 28, 2015 at 12:28 pm

I may be mistaken but isn't a one cut back in a ZBS system about as defined as it gets for running backs? I would think that perimeter style running backs have more decisions to make. It's possible that Lacy just isn't that good at finding a hole in general and thus following a blocker helps him.

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WKUPackFan's picture

July 28, 2015 at 06:09 am

The perception is (not necesssarily shared by me) Lacy lacks vision as a one cut runner in the ZBS. Two back sets usually require a more defined hole, which may allow Lacy to use his natural ability more.

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