Green Bay Packers

Hail Rodgers: Why the Green Bay Packers beat the New York Giants

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 9:24 p.m. ET

Fansided, Kenn Korb/FanSided via Lombardi Ave

It took awhile for things to really get going, but the Green Bay Packers managed to come alive for a 38-13 victory over the New York Giants in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.

What happened for the Green Bay Packers to come away with the convincing win, especially after suffering through a very slow start on offense?

Let’s take a look.

Bending, but not breaking

Though the offense eventually put up 38 points, it took quite awhile for them to get going. Green Bay’s first five drives? All punts. With that happening, this game could’ve easily gotten out of hand (in fact, it’d be tough to find a Packers fan out there not expecting the worst given the early offensive futility).

Surprisingly, the defense stepped up.

Despite seven different drives in the first half of this game — with four of the first five reaching Green Bay territory — the Giants only managed to come away with two field goals through two quarters.

The Giants may not have an impressive offense overall, but they do have a top-five receiver in Odell Beckham Jr. who is capable of blowing apart games on his own.

Even with his presence, however, the Giants were unable to finish off early drives. With three drives making it to the Green Bay 35 or beyond, the Packers (albeit with major help through drops by the New York receivers) stemmed the tide and ketp the Giants out of the end zone in that first half.

Due to the strong early play (and luck) brought to the table by the Green Bay defense, their offense was able to work out the kinks to have an explosive second half.

Finding Rhythm — And Keeping It

The Packers didn’t begin the evening with much of a sustained rhythm on offense. Like I said before, their first five drives ended in punts; two of those were three-and-outs, and only one lasted longer than four plays.

If it wasn’t for the defense and some freebie drops by the Giants, the team would’ve been blown off the field.

Luckily, the defense held the score close long enough for them to work past those struggles and find the rhythm which had been missing.

It began on the sixth offensive drive. Aaron Rodgers dropped back, quickly diagnosed the coverage, and lofted a strike to Davante Adams for 31 yards. Rodgers himself pointed to this throw as where he found a rhythm; from there, neither he nor his team looked back.

Two plays later, Rodgers found Adams in the end zone after buying what seemed like forever in the pocket; 7-6, Green Bay. Next drive a couple rushes by Montgomery and quick throws to Randall Cobb and Montgomery set up what became the incredible half-ending Hail Mary between Rodgers and Cobb; 14-6, Green Bay.

Though Green Bay would end the next two offensive drives without points (a punt and a turnover on downs), the overall rhythm had not been lost; their next four drives turned into three touchdowns and a field goal, getting the team to its eventual 38 points.

It all began with their play in the waning minutes of the first half.

Hidden Yardage

Special teams tend to be an afterthought to most, an area where the routine usually happens and it is only becomes a topic of conversation when something goes wrong.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t having an impact, however. Against the Giants, Green Bay’s special teams unit stepped up numerous times to have a significant effect on the game, even though it may have not been immediately noticeable.

Multiple punts sent to the Green Bay return team ended up in advantageous spots. Of the eight punts kicked by the Giants, five ended up at or beyond the Green Bay 20; three of those saw Green Bay start their offense from their own 45, and two started right in Green Bay territory.

Among those returns, Micah Hyde brought two up for at least 15 yards himself (though one was brought back due to a Packers penalty). When looking at kick returns as well, Green Bay saw both Jeff Janis and Christine Michael bring a kickoff into great field position (Janis to the Packers’ 44 yard line; Michael to the Packers’ 37).

On the other end, the punting and coverage units were even more on their games.

Jacob Schum continually flipped the field for the Packers. Three times his punts pinned the Giants back at least at their own 11 yard line, twice his punts were downed, and once there was a fair catch. His net average punting yardage for the game (41.3) is third-best among playoff punters through the Wild Card round, and would have been tied for ninth during the regular season.

The coverage team was even better than Schum himself, helping immensely in making his performance end up looking as good as it does. They keenly timed the downing of those punts, were completely on top of the one fair catch, and allowed a total of four yards across the three returns actually attempted by the Giants.

The contributions from the constantly overlooked third facet of football may not have been as brazenly noticeable as what the offense and defense did, but the bonus chunks of yardage given to the Packers (or, to look at it another way, taken away from the Giants) through special teams play made plenty of difference in Green Bay not only winning this game, but kept it within striking distance early and put things away for good late.

Offensive blockade

On the surface, it seems weird to say an offensive line, which saw its quarterback sacked five times, was a huge reason why that team won, but that’s where we are now.

Here’s the thing with those sacks: The majority cannot really be pinned on the line. Two of them saw Rodgers run out of bounds with the ball rather than throwing it away (strange decision-making on those, to be sure), and the others were influenced heavily by the use of specialized and delayed blitzes.

These also were plays where Rodgers held onto the ball for an extended period of time; those sort of plays can become huge plays (especially under Rodgers), but it puts a huge burden on those linemen to hold up for so long.

This all mostly happened early on, as the offense struggled to find any rhythm. When the offense was in rhythm, however, the offensive line was at its sterling best.

There were a ton of different instances throughout this game where Rodgers was given forever to step back, survey the field, and find his man.

Among that group are Jordy Nelson‘s early 13-yard catch, Adams’ five-yard TD catch to kick off Green Bay’s scoring, Cobb’s Hail Mary, Adams’ 23-yard catch (on Green Bay’s Field goal drive), Montgomery’s 34-yard reception (on Green Bay’s fourth touchdown drive), and Cobb’s 16-yard touchdown.

The Giants’ usual wrecking crew (albeit missing Jason Pierre-Paul) wasn’t able to get anything done without blitzing, and even that didn’t help much as the game got into the second half.

Their four-man pass rushes got exactly nowhere, and their defensive ends didn’t make much of an impact at all.

Olivier Vernon found himself stonewalled by David Bakhtiari; across 71 snaps (46 pass rushing plays), he picked up just a single tackle. Roman Okwara did end up with a cleanup sack in his 57 snaps (37 pass rush opportunities), but did nothing outside of that in his matchup with Bryan Bulaga.

To really get a feel of how important the influence of the offensive line was, just take another look at the Adams TD again. The way Bulaga holds up Okwara on his own with ease, or how T.J. Lang constantly shifts and readjusts with his matchup as Rodgers danced around in the pocket behind and beside him, is a feat to behold.

That sort of incredible play has been going on all year from this line (they were far and away the top-graded pass blocking line in the NFL, per Pro Football Focus’ grading metrics), and in the most important game of their year so far, that strength showed through yet again.

Cobb’s Big Day

“We’re better with 18 on the field and he showed it tonight.”

That’s Rodgers talking about Cobb in a postgame interview immediately following the game. Those words definitely came to fruition in this contest.

With the offense struggling early and losing Nelson to a rib injury, Green Bay needed other guys to step up in major ways. Multiple players made important contributions, but no player had a more sterling effort than #18 for Green Bay.

Cobb returned after missing two straight games due to injury to put up perhaps the best performance of his entire career. On five catches, Cobb picked up 116 yards and three touchdowns — only the second time in his career he scored that many times in a single game.

This performance wasn’t due to cheap and easy catches with a single big play to boost the raw numbers, either. Every one of his five catches went for at least 13 yards. Four of those catches — including of course his three touchdown receptions — came on scoring drives, and all four of those went for at least 15 yards.

When everyone is healthy Nelson may be the #1 receiver for Rodgers, but Cobb provides the Green Bay offense a level of diversification and versatility which no other receiver can, and to go with it is the ability to seamlessly take on the mantle of top option when the situation dictates it.

His ability to do so made a massive difference for a Green Bay offense which needed a spark to get going, but then couldn’t be stopped.

With Nelson likely stuck to having either a lessened or nonexistent role versus the Cowboys due to his rib injury, this sort of performance from Cobb will not only be welcomed but likely necessary for Green Bay’s magical run to continue beyond the Divisional Round.