Anatomy of a play: Breaking down jet pass protection and “3 Jet Flag Bow”

This film breakdown goes inside the inner workings of a Packers passing concept in the Kyle Shanahan lineage that Matt LaFleur has been running since he’s been a signal caller.

The Green Bay Packers had a half-dozen explosive passing plays of 20+ yards against the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, out of multiple playcalls and alignments. The subject of this article is a play that was executed to perfection on a second and long in the third quarter and it came on a scoring drive where the Packers would later score a touchdown. The play call is “3 Jet Flag Bow” and the Packers called it for a 28 yard gain early in the second half.

Let’s take a look at the basic structure of the play from the pass protection to the route combination.

Situation: 3Q 14:12, 2nd-and-14 @ GB-21

Formation and motion: Bunch Right Nasty Y Left

The formation is a condensed formation in 11 personnel. “Bunch right” denotes a trips three wide receiver bunch to the right in a 1-back personnel grouping. “Y Left” is the tight end motion to the left from his spot in the trips.

Jet pass protection

Jet pass protection is a common West Coast Offense pass protection where “2/3 Jet” is a 6-man half slide from the center over to the tackle with the backside offensive lineman man blocking their two closest threats. 2 Jet protection is center to the left tackle half slide and 3 Jet pass protection is center to the right tackle half slide. The sixth blocker the running back who looks for a pass rush threat from the inside-out from the center to the backside.

200/300 Jet protection denotes the quarterback taking a 3-step drop from under center or a 1-step drop from shotgun.

From the end zone angle, this play gives us a very good look at the 3-man half slide to the right and 2-man man protection scheme to the left.

The protection is set to slide to the right because that’s where the threat comes from with 3-over-3 from the center to the right tackle.

The offense knows there is no threat of a blitz from safety Taylor Rapp (No. 24) because he’s walked down over tight end Josiah Deguara (No. 81) indicating man coverage and there’s no defender capping him to cover the tight end.

Running back A.J. Dillon is going to check for the first threat to the inside and release to the flat as the safety valve if there’s no extra rusher. The defense isn’t showing any indication of an extra rusher than the five up front can handle so at the snap he releases to the flat as he peeks inside.

At the snap, the right side of the offensive line half slides to the right against the three rushers. The defender as the stand up nose tackle doesn’t ultimately add to the rush and drops to the low hole. The back side is engaged in man blocking 1-on-1 with their pass rushers. Dillon peeks for the inside-out threat and releases to the flat.

The passing concept

The passing concept is a full field read for the quarterback on a 5-step drop from under center and a 3-step drop in shotgun. From right to left the route progressions/combinations are a 1) drag china, 2) flag bow, 3) basic route, and 4) arrow.

Although it’s possible for the quarterback to make a full field read on this play if the pass protection holds up long enough, the quarterback can also make a pre-snap determination based on the coverage.

The Rams are showing 2-high coverage pre-snap but end up rotating the field safety down and playing cover-1.

Rodgers drops back and sees this rotation and knows he has a throw to the flag route to Marquez Valdes-Scantling (No. 83) because there is no coverage over the top and MVS beat his defender up the field. Rodgers drops back on a 3-step drop but is unable to step into a throw with bodies around him. But it doesn’t matter.

He makes the correct read right away and with a simple flick of the wrist is able to drop one in accurately to Valdes-Scantling down the sideline on a drive they would eventually score a touchdown on.