On Sunday night, the Green Bay Badgers’ offensive line controlled both the run and pass games against Minnesota.
“How do you like the offensive line?” was what Matt LaFleur yelled at his teammates in the locker room not long after the game.
As of Week 17, the Vikings had a number of the strongest run stops in football. All season, they gave up only 3.7 yards per run, which ranked as the fifth-lowest percentage among the NFL.
But Aaron Jones went for over one hundred miles for the second game in a row. He gained 120 yards, or 6 yards per run.
As a team, the Packers got 178 metres on their own turf. Jones beat Carolina last week in large part because he can make things happen for himself.
Jones played better against Minnesota, a state though, because Green State’s offence gave him more room to run.
“The run game worked really well tonight,” he said upon the game. “Three guys—Aaron Jones, who was previously AJ him, and PT Taylor—fought all of the time.” The offensive line did a great job.
I think all parties did an outstanding job tonight. In 2023, the Vikings had the highest blitz rate of all teams in the country.
They put pressure on the quarterback 49% of the time during quarterback snaps. It was very hot out there for the Vikings against Green Bay.
They blitzed Jordan Love upon a phenomenal 76% of his defensive dropbacks. The Vikings gave in to pressure from different directions and moved to hide the place it came from, as they always do.
Still, the offensive line for the Packers did a great job. Of the drops he made, Love was only sacked three times out of thirteen. He also only gave up two quarterback hits.
To feed 18 out of 25 targets for a yard or a half or two scores, Love was excellent against the blitz.
Egton Jenkins said, “Guys came, listened to, and won.” We said we would do that. It was our job to move around with the ball as well as safeguard the quarterback.
I believe we did both. As a line of attack, we did well. Some good plays were chosen by the coach.
The quarterback got the ball. Even though we might’ve done better, the show was still good.
Green Bay had trouble scoring in the beginning and towards the end of the season because their front line wasn’t playing consistently.
They lost four straight games from Weeks 4 to 8, and Love was pushed by the fourth-most dropbacks.
Love is blitzed more frequently than everyone else in the NFL, but since Week 11, he ranks thirty-first (very low) in the rate of dropbacks while under pressure.
The line of scrimmage has additionally conducted a big push on the ground. From Weekends 3 to 8, Green Bay only had to go 4.1 miles per run.
That number has increased up to 4.6 metres per run since the fifth game, when the defence really started to play better.
Even though that could not seem such a big jump, this season teams who receive 4.1 yards per run are placed 20th in the NFL. That’s quite the big difference, since 4.6 is only sixth-best.
Green Bay changed out the tackles and right guard at the same point that its offensive line got better. As of Sunday night, Jalil Walker had appeared in all 32 snaps at left tackle for the second week in a row.
At right guard, the plays are still split between Jon Runyan and Sean Rhyan. The teachers thought that this unusual way of doing things could render the game more fun and better for everyone in the unit.
All of these factors were clear in Minnesota, so it wasn’t a shock that Love and the Green Bay Packers played so well.