I ready that article and say, "no ****" Teams playing the pass and not the run considering who we have at QB is a no brainer really. Some of our best plays have been out of play action. I see Jordy catching TD after TD with that play. But when you get past who our QB is and what he likes to do, i mean for a while we regularly played with 4-5 WR's on the field and were so productive on offense, did it really matter there wasn't even a RB on the field to do play action with? Then look at the RB position, it hasn't been the greatest. We made a nice investment in Lacy and Franklin, Franklin was forced into retirement with a neck injury, Lacy had a couple really good seasons, and then got overweight and lazy and injured. No running game to fear. Starks battled injury, then we lost pretty much every RB we had on the roster and had to convert a WR. Nobody feared the running game, why would they have? It seems like outside of a few brief stretches, most times we've had a decent running game have been when we didn't have Rodgers on the field. Coincidence? Bad luck? maybe both?
and then last year, we found 2 hard running guys, one that can bust one from anywhere and then had a QB who's weakest pass in the bag was the down the field in the middle type pass of off play action. I don't think teams cared at all if Hundley tried throwing the ball out of any run, spread, power, pass pro, whatever formation. They just brought people up and put pressure on him because he could never beat them with anything else.
What I do know, a good running game will help the play action. I don't think GB with Rodgers will ever run the ball enough to be known as a running team to really build the threat of play action. Teams are always going to prepare for Rodgers to beat them with the pass as it's his strength. and despite all of that, we've had an offense that's landed outside of the top 10 maybe twice in 10 years. I think the circumstances of the past 3 years really lend me to a "no ****" reaction to this article. I mean you can pick any team at any point in history and point out the obvious by narrowing down the variables enough. Who would think we'd have a great play action team in a season where most of the offensive line is out till 2/3rd's of the way thru the season and even then, both starting tackles needed off seasons surgery and your guards. You lost your best stretch the field WR and both your other starters were injured all year and their level of play was obvious on a play in and play out basis all season long. Couple that with a 280lb lazy RB that's injured. Recipe for play action success?
Or a season in which you lose 4 or 5 of all 4 or 5 RB's you bring in to camp are injured and you have to convert a WR to RB and your defense is ravaged with injury and you're playing catch up all season long or in high scoring games from week 1 till the NFCCG. The perfect storm to run a successful play action offense? Or last year, we had RB's, we still have WR's and then had a QB who couldn't throw that ball in the middle of the field within 10 yards of anybody except a defender.
We need better TE play, that's obvious. Even with a good RB, we'll still be a passing team with Rodgers, but we can definitely set up the play action pass to Aaron's advantage. I think with the 2 guys we have now it will look a lot better next year assuming health of course we'll look better in the play action aspect of the game regardless of who's calling plays or designing game plans. Because of Rodgers, I don't think we'll ever be an offense based off run looks. But if Jones can bust a few and Williams can consistently get 4 or 5 in situations where we need 2 or 3, we'll probably see 4-5 huge plays out of play action every game. and Aaron's accuracy on those is just a tick or 2 better than Hundley's
