Why has Aaron Rodgers’ deep passing become a problem?

There really isn’t much to worry about on the surface if you’re Matt LaFleur, head coach of the Green Bay Packers. Your team is 5-1, and they’ve recovered very nicely from a 38-3 opening day shellacking at the hands of the Saints. Your team ranks 11th overall in DVOA — fifth in offense, 23rd in defense, and your defense has improved from a very shaky start overall. You have Aaron Rodgers, one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history, and outside of that opening disaster against the Saints, Rodgers is right on pace with some of his best seasons — maybe not to the point he was in the early 2010s when he was killing every defense he faces, but certainly better than average.

Rodgers ranks seventh in DYAR among quarterbacks, eighth in DVOA, and fifth in QBR. Rodgers has done this despite a banged-up offensive line, led by the absence of left tackle David Bakhtiari, who’s still recovering from the torn ACL he suffered last December.

So again, not much to worry about.

Until you look at Rodgers’ deep-ball statistics from last season to this season. Then, you might like to look a little deeper.

In 2020, including the playoffs (per Pro Football Focus), Rodgers attempted 89 passes of 20 or more air yards, completing 37 for 1,435 yards, 16.1 yards per attempt, 14 touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 123.7. Only Daniel Jones (no, really), Kyler Murray and Matthew Stafford had a higher deep-ball passer rating, only Tom Brady had more deep attempts, only Brady and Josh Allen had more deep completions, only Brady had more deep yards, and only Brady had more deep touchdowns.

Through the first six games of the 2021 season, the picture is very different. Rodgers has attempted 30 deep passes, but he’s completed just nine for 354 yards, 11.8 yards per attempt, no touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 48.5. Only Tua Tagovailoa and Ryan Tannehill have lower passer ratings on deep passes, only Murray, Trevor Lawrence, and Tagovailoa have more deep interceptions, and only Tannehill, Jacoby Brissett, Tagovailoa, and Justin Fields have matched Rodgers’ goose egg when it comes to touchdowns on deep passes.

This is not what one would expect from Aaron Rodgers. (Also, Miami’s passing game is even worse than we thought. Ugh). Rodgers famously told Bears fans that he owned them after a rushing touchdown, but when it comes to the deep ball, it’s Rodgers who’s been getting owned this season. Six games in, it’s enough of a problem to investigate why it’s so, and how it can be fixed.

Pressure is a problem, but not the only problem.

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It would be easy to point to Green Bay’s injury-depleted offensive line as the problem. After all, if Rodgers doesn’t have time to get the ball out of his hands on plays where his receivers are running deeper routes, it stands to reason that the deep passing game isn’t going to work. And this is part of the issue, but far from the only one. Per Sports Info Solutions, Rodgers has faced pressure on eight attempts of 20 or more air yards. He has completed one of those attempts for 31 yards, 28 air yards, and one of his interceptions.

That interception came against the Bengals in Week 5. Defensive lineman Cameron Sample beat a double team to flush Rodgers from the pocket, and while Adams will usually win one-on-one battles as he had against cornerback Chidobe Awuzie (who, to be fair, has played out of his mind this season), Awuzie got the upper hand here.

Pressure also caused this end zone incompletion on a throw to Adams, who had beaten cornerback Mike Hilton on a slot fade route. Rodgers had the open throw, but pressure from defensive tackle D.J. Reader, who beat right guard Royce Newman, forced a hurried and errant attempt.

Connection has been off -- even with Davante Adams, but especially with everybody else.

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Full marks to Davante Adams for rocking the outstanding sombrero after Green Bay’s Week 2 win over the Lions. However, the deep connections between Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Adams have not always been optimal this season. This has extended even more precipitously to Rodgers’ other receivers. In 2020, Adams had 10 deep catches on 20 targets for 363 yards, three touchdowns, and a passer rating of 135.4. This season, he’s caught six deep passes on 13 attempts for 240 yards, no touchdowns, and a passer rating of 60.6.

Not earth-shatteringly awful, but certainly a downturn from the previous season. The real issue here seems to be that while Adams is getting more deep targets, Rodgers’ other deep receivers have fallen off the map.

In 2020, Marquez Valdes-Scantling led the Packers with 30 deep targets, catching nine for 453 yards, five touchdowns, and a passer rating of 104.9. This season, Valdes-Scantling has one catch on eight deep targets for 47 yards, no touchdowns, and a passer rating of 12.0. The Packers placed Valdes-Scantling on injured reserve in early October with a hamstring injury.

On this deep incompletion to Valdes-Scantling in Week 3 against the 49ers, Valdes-Scantling pulled up slightly on a play in which he had beaten cornerback Emmanuel Moseley. So, while this looked like an overthrow on the surface, it could have just as easily been a case where MVS ran out of gas.

In 2020, Allen Lazard had six deep catches on 11 targets for 270 yards, one touchdown, and a passer rating of 129.9. This season, he’s caught one deep pass on three attempts for 42 yards, no touchdowns, and a passer rating of 81.9.

In 2020, tight end Robert Tonyan caught seven passes on 10 deep attempts for 219 yards, four touchdowns, and a passer rating of 152.1. This season, he’s been targeted four times on deep passes, and he doesn’t have a single reception.

Tonyan did have one big play on a deep ball against the Lions, though — this 25-yarder in which Tonyan beat Detroit cornerback Jerry Jacobs off the formation, and Jacobs responded with a thorough mugging, leading to an obvious pass interference call.

The only deep receiver who’s been effective for the Packers this year is Randall Cobb, added to the roster via trade from Houston in July, basically at Rodgers’ insistence. Cobb has caught both of his deep targets for 57 yards, no touchdowns, and a passer rating of 118.8. Other than that, crickets.

Cobb was the featured assassin in Week 4 against the Steelers in a 27-17 win, catching two touchdowns on shorter passes, and this 25-yarder in which he beat cornerback Cameron Sutton downfield. Cobb’s connection with Rodgers is obvious.

“Because of MVS’s injury, obviously, a lot more snaps for him tonight, but I feel like the first couple weeks we could tell that he was getting himself where he needed to be to tap [into] a bigger role in the offense,” Rodgers said of Cobb after the Steelers game. “But the things that he does that you can’t really teach is that feel. You know, the third-and-10 where he had inside leverage and he made kind of an out move, and I put a good ball down the seam to him.”

“Good,” Adams said after the Bengals game, when asked how he felt about his connection with Rodgers. “We left a couple of them out there. We had a productive day with some one-on-one opportunities. I was doubled a decent amount of the day, but credit to the coaches for coming up with some plays to get me downfield. It felt good catching that deep one down there. I’ll continue to capitalize on these opportunities [when given the opportunity] and try to snowball the momentum.”

“We got it down there with two minutes left and had a miscommunication up front,” Rodgers said about the 25-22 overtime win over Cincinnati that turned into a battle of embattled field-goal kickers. “I had Davante wide open and missed him. Had a chip shot field goal and missed it. Get it back somehow, and then missed another field goal. I hit Devante again to get it down in there, and the ball gets picked. Both teams worked hard to try to lose that game.”

Well, it’s been a mixed bag so far.

Arm strength is not the issue.

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Rodgers will turn 38 on December 22, so the automatic assumption may be that his arm talent is starting to regress. But this is not a Ben Roethlisberger situation, or a Drew Brees situation in 2020, where the quarterback in question has to put his entire ass behind every throw. When he has time in the pocket, Rodgers can still air it out with his usual mechanics, as he did on this 59-yard completion to Adams against the Bengals. Adams split the coverage with great moves and acceleration, and Rodgers was on point the whole way.

How can the Packers fix this?

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What I don’t see on most of Rodgers’ deep passes this season are the kinds of route concepts that present easy openings. There’s a lot of iso stuff downfield that can be easily matched by better defenders. Rodgers has been able to transcend that brilliantly throughout his career, especially in the Mike McCarthy era, but it might behoove LaFleur to give Rodgers and his targets a more diverse palette to beat man and match coverage. Rodgers’ issues against two-deep coverage are well-documented, and this season, on deep passes against Cover-2, 2-Man, Cover-4, and Cover-6, he’s completed one pass for 31 yards, no touchdowns, and one interception.

Furthermore, defenses have been able to take Adams out of the picture at every level of the field by running two-deep. Last season, Adams caught 13 touchdown passes against defined single-high coverages, and two against defined two-high coverages. Valdes-Scantling (four touchdowns) and Tonyan (three touchdowns) benefited the most from that. There are instances this season where you can see Rodgers modify his checks based on safety rotation and movement, which is a smart adaptation to a situation that can’t continue if the Packers are to play at their best.

Throwing deep balls successfully under pressure is expected of the league’s best quarterbacks. Josh Allen has completed seven of 15 passes of 20 or more air yards under pressure this season for 244 yards, 218 air yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions. And as erratic as the Chiefs’ passing game has been at times this season, Patrick Mahomes has completed four of 10 deep passes under pressure for 174 yards, 136 air yards, a league-high three touchdowns, and one interception. Even rookie Zach Wilson of the Jets, who’s been erratic on his best days, has completed six of 16 deep passes under pressure for 216 yards, two touchdowns, and one interceptions. There are a lot of quarterbacks this season with no deep touchdowns, but most of them are of the Sam Darnold/Jalen Hurts variety.

That’s not where Rodgers is in his career — not yet, at least. He still has a ton left in the tank. But if the Packers are to maximize their opportunities in what might be Rodgers’ last season with the team, coming up with different and better plans to make the deep pass a consistent factor should be Job One.

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