Packers Snap Counts Versus San Francisco: Divisional Playoff Round
The Packers shoot themselves in the foot on Special Teams and the offense could not get untracked.
The Packers activated ZaDarius Smith, Whitney Mercilus, and Randall Cobb off of the Injured Reserve List while releasing DL Jack Heflin and CB Isaac Yiadom to make room. The Packers previously released Kingsley Keke and activated Lucas Patrick from the Covid List. The Packers did not elevate anyone from the practice squad.
The inactive players were David Bakhtiari, Shawn Davis, Vernon Scott, Jonathan Garvin and Marquez Valdes-Scantling. Garvin being inactive is surprising. Jake Hanson and Jordan Love were active but did not play.
| Player | Snaps | % | STs |
| Runyan | 56 | 100 | 3 - 13% |
| Patrick | 56 | 100 | 3 - 13% |
| Turner | 56 | 100 | |
| Kelly | 56 | 100 | |
| Myers | 56 | 100 | |
| Newman | 3 - 13% | ||
| Nijman | 3 - 13% | ||
| Rodgers | 56 | 100 | |
| Love | DNP | ||
| Adams | 53 | 95 | |
| Lazard | 51 | 91 | |
| Cobb | 30 | 54 | |
| St. Brown | 19 | 34 | 5 - 22% |
| Winfree | 11 - 48% | ||
| Rodgers | 8 - 35% | ||
| Jones | 42 | 75 | |
| Dillon | 15 | 27 | 2 - 9% |
| Taylor | 1 | 2 | 1 - 4% |
| Lewis | 26 | 46 | |
| Deguara | 24 | 43 | 9 - 39% |
| Davis | 11 | 20 | 20 - 87% |
| Dafney | 8 | 14 | 17 - 74% |
The Packers ran the ball 13 times in the first half for 46 yards, a 3.5-yard average. They ran the ball 7 times for 21 yards in the second half, a 3.0-yard average. Aaron Jones got all the carries in the second half because A.J. Dillon exited the game with an injury. Dillon gained 25 yards on 7 carries in the first half. Patrick Taylor received on offensive snap but no carries.
Aaron Rodgers completed 20 of 29 passes for 225 yards. He was 12 of 16 for 170 yards in the first half. Aaron Jones caught 9 passes out of 10 targets for 129 yards. Davante Adams caught 9 passes on 11 targets for 90 yards, including a couple of low passes. Allen Lazard caught 1 pass for 6 yards while Marcedes Lewis caught one pass for no yards as he fumbled. Dafney (2), Deguara (1) and Cobb (1) also were also targeted but had no receptions and therefore no receiving yards. Rodgers was sacked 5 times. JuWaan Winfree played special teams but received no offensive snaps. He does seem to know how to get open but he also has put the ball on the ground.
| Player | Snaps | % | STs |
| Douglas | 54 | 100 | 6 - 26% |
| Stokes | 54 | 100 | 3 - 13% |
| Amos | 54 | 100 | |
| Savage | 34 | 63 | |
| Black | 20 | 37 | 20 - 87% |
| Sullivan | 17 | 31 | 6 - 26% |
| King | 8 | 15 | 6 - 26% |
| Alexander | 8 | 15 | |
| Jean-Charles | 19 - 83% | ||
| Campbell | 54 | 100 | |
| P. Smith | 44 | 81 | |
| Gary | 41 | 76 | 2 - 9% |
| Barnes | 38 | 70 | 9 - 39% |
| Z. Smith | 19 | 35 | |
| Mercilus | 12 | 22 | 1 - 4% |
| Burks | 5 | 9 | 20 - 87% |
| Galeai | 13 - 57% | ||
| Clark | 47 | 87 | |
| Lowry | 45 | 83 | 6 - 26% |
| Lancaster | 29 | 54 | 6 - 26% |
| Slaton | 11 | 20 | 6 - 26% |
The Packers' defense did not give up a touchdown. They held the vaunted San Francisco rushing attack to 106 yards on 29 carries, a 3.7-yard average. Garoppolo completed 11 of 19 passing attempts for just 131 yards and was sacked 4 times. He threw one interception (Amos) and had a couple of other shaky throws that fell harmlessly to the ground. He did have his receivers drop a couple.
Rashan Gary had a fine game with 3 tackles for loss, 4 total tackles, all solo, 3 quarterback hits and 2 sacks. Pro Football Focus credited Gary with 6 pressures. Kenny Clark was stout in the middle, and contributed a consistent push. He had 2 quarterback hits and a sack, 4 tackles, including one for loss. ZaDarius Smith had a tackle for loss and a sack, plus 3 pressures in 19 snaps per PFF. Preston Smith led the Packers with 9 tackles (6 solo) while DeVondre Campbell and Krys Barnes each added 7 tackles. Darnell Savage left the game with an injury. The coverage was generally very good.
The Packers played Campbell and Barnes more than normal. They played 2.44 true defensive linemen per play, within their normal ranges if a little higher than normal.
The special teams were terrible. A short field goal was blocked. A punt was blocked and returned for a touchdown. The coverage was not good.
WR: 2.73
RB: 1.04
TE: 1.23
DL: 2.44
ILB: 1.80
OLB: 2.15
DB: 4.61
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Comments (12)
greengold
January 23, 2022 at 05:18 am
Thanks for all you do here TGR. Well done, as always.
I’m mostly surprised Yosh Nijman didn’t get the nod at LT more to finish the season. The guy was very solid for GB, and earned that opportunity. Should be a lot of interesting cap gymnastics this offseason, and I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts on those.
Thegreatreynoldo
January 23, 2022 at 05:28 am
I just assumed Bakh was playing LT. I kind of took off Thursday and Friday from football. I suggested Newman over Patrick at RG, but who knows how Newman would have fared? I just assumed Turner at RT. SF is good up front and has waves of edge players, so perhaps it wouldn't have made a difference. Hard to prove a what if.
GB, probably like most franchises, tends to give the nod to veterans. Hence, 1 snap and no carries for Patrick Taylor and no offensive snaps for Winfree despite a possible difficulty amongst the WRs in getting open. I will wait for the film guys to tell me whether AR just didn't see open guys all night. Lots of folks say that, but when I look I see that the throwing lane was clogged up or AR was scrambling the other way, etc. But he sometimes does get fixated on certain receivers. That includes Cobb and Lazard, though, neigher of whom got much action.
Thegreatreynoldo
January 23, 2022 at 05:22 am
The offense laid an egg. Fans will point at Aaron Rodgers, but I imagine this effort will take the luster off of LaFleur and Nathaniel Hackett. It should certainly signal the end of Maurice Drayton's employment in GB.
The offensive line was very meh. Looked to me like Lucas Patrick allowed 2 of the 5 sacks. The run blocking was at best meh. I have no idea if different personnel would have performed better. Kelly had some issues as well. The OTs gave up 8 pressures in this game according to PFF. I didn't notice Turner as much as Kelly. I thought Kelly played some pretty decent ball filling in during the regular season.
Nothing doing downfield. I will wait for the film guys but I think SF didn't have to worry about the deep ball and kept a lot of guys fairly close to the LOS to cut off the underneath stuff. I don't remember AR really connecting downfield other perhaps once to Adams.
The Lewis fumble at the SF 42-yard line stopped a drive. Not close enough to say it took points off the board. The blocked field goal on what was a chip shot took 3 points off the board. Jordan Willis overpowering Wirtel led to a blocked punt and 7 points for SF. Tight game. Playoff football. GB lost the turnover battle. They lost the field position battle. SF had a 45 yard and a 32 yard kickoff return, neither of which reached even close to the end zone.
Coldworld
January 23, 2022 at 09:20 am
Thank you so much for all your effort on these, and I’ve enjoyed reading your thoughts too. In the end, a coaching meltdown on offense in terms of personnel active, personnel usage and overall and in game tactics. The bubble burst. LaFleur is a pretender and Rodgers just no longer able to overcome that. Next year it will be Love or whomever.
It will still be fun, if likely briefer and less winning, but we do finally have a D I think, and one that is young. If we can replace the OLBs and retain Campbell and ideally add there, this could be a defense led team if you do this next year. Thanks again TGR.
Thegreatreynoldo
January 23, 2022 at 10:20 am
LOL - I just left APC and you, good Sir, were my number one person to reply to. 😁 Definitely not always agreeing, though sometimes just a quibble. Maybe Wied was?
BTW: I've no idea what each emoji means, and don't plan to make a study of it. This one seems right, but I've no idea if it is. Definitely not getting on it by EOD, as Frankie would say.
LLCHESTY
January 23, 2022 at 01:40 pm
I wonder if they might have gotten a little more going in the run game with Nijman at LT. You and I both commented about his aggressiveness in the last few games and maybe a little more of that would've helped.
I also wondered about not activating Anderson. My thought before the game was if the 49ers got their running game going early the big guys would be worn out by the 4th quarter. Ultimately it didn't matter but it seemed like a questionable decision at the time.
Thanks for the snap counts and breakdowns this year.
CheesyTex
January 23, 2022 at 03:04 pm
Excellent posts, as usual, TGR. Look forward to yours.
Packers not-so-Special Teams:. Would love to have your take on why the Packers always seem to go low-ball in compensation for Special Teams Coaches. Their compensation packages do not count against the Cap or any other mandated limit, the difference between top-tier S,T. coaches and what the Packers "save" is a pittance in the grand scheme of things, and I'm just not aware of any $ reason why they wont go top-tier or even close to it.
It's a head-scratcher that posters on this site (and others) saw early in the season that Special Teams was the Packers Achilles heel, yet the brain-trust did nothing in-season to "fix it" (deference to MM).
Minniman
January 23, 2022 at 05:34 am
Echoing GreenGold, thanks for all of your hard work in putting these together James - you did well.
Interesting that offensive and defensive snap counts were very similar - but that wasn’t where the game was won and lost.
I did see Alexander make a bad miss late in the game on a third down (tried the chop block with no shoulder [understandably] and missed the RB).
The Packers o-line had a tough night too.
Oh well, now comes the processing of an end of an era and the rebuilding of a team
Know this though - whatever happens, I will always support The Green Bay Packers.
Thanks for the memories A-Rod. Happy Trails.
Go Pack Go
Thegreatreynoldo
January 23, 2022 at 06:19 am
End of an Era phrase in the comments made me play some Nightwish in the car last night: Nemo and Ghost Love Score. As it happens, I liked the third era better than the first era, but didn't care too much for the second era.
[For those needing a translation of my babble, the metal band Nightwish fired their lead singer, who I liked a lot, back in 2005; then they hired a meh 2nd lead singer, and then a tremendous 3rd lead singer in 2012.]
I looked at SF's snap counts. Not too much there. DL was 4.00 while the LBs were up a little at 2.2 from 2.07 and 2.11. SF played Josh Norman for 2 snaps and AR threw a hope at Adams (?) as soon as Norman entered the game. The usual suspects otherwise played the usual amount except for CB Ambry Thomas who was inactive.
stockholder
January 23, 2022 at 08:29 am
I See TWO THINGS THAT BURN MY BUTT. The OL SNAPS. You play Nyman and Newman all year, and can't let them get in there? The WRs are the other. Adams drew everybody to him. Lazard was to slow and should have replaced the TEs who couldn't catch. Hopefully changes are coming to the Wr position. In the form of speed. Rodgers may not like it. But the change must happen.
Roadrunner23
January 23, 2022 at 03:50 pm
Snap count - Bakhtiari 0
That’s 0 from the top paid LT in the NFL
0 snaps after a year off
I get it you’re afraid, your knee is sore, know what? So is everyone’s.
Pussy!
flackcatcher
January 24, 2022 at 12:45 pm
Took a couple of days away from CHTV after the meltdown. Went back to watch the game again. Confirmed what I suspected during the game. Rodger's junked the game plan late second quarter. Once Lafleur lost control of the offense he was just along for the ride. As head coach he was clearly either not ready nor did he have the two of the three phases of his team ready to play. That in its self is a firing offense. The one bright spot, as it has been this season is the defense. Jon Barry took a system that was not his own, and made it work well all season. On the defensive side, Barry put his ego away, and became part of group effort by the coaching staff. (defense by committee)While we fans have been screaming about Special Teams for years, Lafleur took it to a new level of stupid. If Gutekunst wants to boot Lafleur, his handling of ST gives Gute all the ammo he needs. This is the third time that Lafleur has failed at the elite level in the playoffs. That does call into question Lafleur's ability as a HC.The things that we fans feared would bite this team did in this game. Rodger's ego, and Special Teams play. (Sigh...) Let the era of Love begin...