We did it. We successfully navigated the offseason and now find ourselves here, on the precipice of the regular season. And we already have one, honest-to-goodness preseason game in the books. I know the preseason isn’t always the most thrilling product, but I’ve always loved getting a chance to watch some of the young players I’ve been reading about for the bulk of the preseason. In this first game, we finally got a look at camp darling Romeo Doubs, and saw him kick off his Hall of Fame coronation with a touchdown catch from Jordan Love.
We’ll get to Doubs in a second, but first I wanted to highlight a guy who hasn’t quite had the fanfare of Doubs: Amari Rodgers. As we all know, Rodgers is entering his second season, after a less-than-flashy rookie season. He struggled in the return game and didn’t see many snaps on offense. When he did see the field, he was mainly used as a jet motion guy and never a true option on the play. I didn’t expect a ton from a 3rd round rookie, but I certainly hoped to see more production than 4 catches for 45 yards.
I’m a big believe in Rodgers, mainly due to his make-up. He didn’t test as the most explosive athlete, but he is, by all accounts, a tireless worker. And not only on the field, either: he is known to be a diligent student of the game, spending a lot of time with his playbook to really get the nuance of the offense. Not that it means he’s going to absolutely be a success or anything, but I believe in him.
He came into camp slimmer and looking more explosive. Still, between Doubs’ name popping up every 30 seconds and reports of the defense dominating practice, we didn’t really hear Amari Rodgers’ name crop up too often. He seemed to always be in the background, but certainly not the standout performer.
However, he did some nice things in this preseason game, and I hope that it’s a sign of things to come. Let’s take a look at his touchdown catch from Danny Etling.
Play 1: 2nd & 9, 13:20 remaining in the 4th quarter, Packers trailing 20-14
The Packers are running mirrored Dragon (slant/flat combo on both sides of the line), with a sit route coming from the in-line TE on the right. Rodgers is in the left slot, running a flat route under the slant from Ishmael Hyman [5]. The 49ers look like they’re playing man coverage across the board, with a back-end look that could be either two-high or single-high, depending on the post-snap rotation.
The safety over Rodgers is the key. He’s playing closer to the line than the other safety, but they could easily spin to a two-high look.
At the snap, the slot defender over Rodgers blitzes and the safety over Rodgers picks up the coverage assignment, while the other safety spins to a single-high look. With five men going out into routes and the slot blitz coming off the edge, Etling needs to get rid of the ball quickly.
His first look is to the left, so he sees the blitz and the change in coverage. With Tariq Castro-Fields [36] following Hyman on the slant, Etling is able to flip the ball out to Rodgers in space. The safety is closing, but Rodgers is able to catch the ball, turn and burst upfield. The safety looks to be aiming at the back hip and Rodgers is able to fly by him. (Perhaps as a result of all the offseason training?)
There’s still the issue of the single-high safety who is coming over to make the stop. Rodgers is pinned to the sideline, but he gives a nice fake to the inside to freeze the defender, before breaking for the front pylon.
The ball gets tipped by the slot blitz, but there’s still enough on it to make it into the loving embrace of Amari Rodgers.
Good read by Etling, and great job by Rodgers to make something happen with the ball in his hands. Here’s to hoping it’s a sight we get used to seeing in 2022.
While we’re here, I also talked about the Love-to-Doubs TD. So if you’re interested in checking that out, feel free! I talked about the concept overall, the idea of mirrored concepts, what Love’s first read likely was and why he went to Doubs, etc. I had fun digging in a bit. Football is back!
Albums listened to: Danger Mouse & Black Thought – Cheat Codes;Phil Keaggy – Sunday’s Child
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Dusty Evely is a film analyst for Cheesehead TV. He can be heard talking about the Packers on Pack-A-Day Podcast. He can be found on Twitter at @DustyEvely or email at dustyevely@gmail.com.