Here’s a way to get Jayden Reed the football.
Every offseason, I end up spending time looking around the league (and in college) for plays the Green Bay Packers could steal for the upcoming season. It’s a way for me to keep up with football outside of Green Bay, and a chance to find some really fun plays in the process.
As I wrote about a few weeks ago, my focus has been on plays that support more of a Power Spread approach to offense. I looked to the Eagles for a QB run a couple weeks ago, but today we’re dipping into the college ranks to find a play that would work well off the split-gun spinner run game the Packers dipped into last year. I know I’ve talked about the Packers going more Spread in 2025, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to totally abandon the condensed, 12 personnel approach, so we’re exploring options in that world as well.
I wish I could say I found this play myself, but I did not. If you know the great Dan Casey, you know he digs deep to find the coolest plays in football every day. Recently, he posted a play from the Montana Grizzlies’ final game of the 2024 season: a 35-18 loss to the South Dakota State Jackrabbits. (Side note: if you haven’t signed up for Casey’s One Play A Day email list, I can’t recommend it highly enough. You get to start off every day with a fun play, and there’s not much better than that.)
To bring this play to the forefront of my mind, a friend of mine texted me about how cool this was. That got me thinking about it all day and realizing how perfectly this could fit into the Packers’ attack. So thanks, Matt.
Dan Casey refers to this as the Tornado Reverse. Let’s watch the play.
Wooooooooooo buddy that’s slick. What are we looking at here?
They’re in 12 (1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR) personnel in a tight, YY Wing formation (two TEs in-line on the same side of the formation). The QB is in shotgun, flanked by the RB, and the two WRs are in a condensed split on either side of the formation.
Before the snap, the WR on the right motions in front of the QB, then orbits behind as the QB snaps the ball. The QB fakes to the WR orbiting behind him, then spins to fake to the RB crossing his face, before eventually pitching to the WR from the left who takes the ball around the edge.
The blocking is set up really nicely. The RT and C release to block down the field, joined by the motion receiver, who released off the fake and is now acting at the lead blocker.
It’s a lovely bit of misdirection and it works like a dream here.
As I mentioned already, this is something that would fit in nicely with the spinner run series the Packers added to their arsenal last season. It’s certainly not something you could roll out too often, but, used in moderation, this would be a killer.
As for how the Packers could run it, there are a number of options, but this is how I’m looking at it in my current state (near 1:00 AM on a Sunday). My offensive line is Rasheed Walker [63] at LT, Aaron Banks [65] at LG, Elgton Jenkins [74] at C, Anthony Belton [71] at RG and Zach Tom [50] at RT. As I mentioned in the QB run post, this is how I view the offensive line at this moment, but, ideally, Jordan Morgan takes that LT job.
For tight ends, I’m going with Tucker Kraft [85] and Ben Sims [89]. I wanted to put Luke Musgrave here, but both blocks are crucial here, so I’m prioritizing that. If you want to put Musgrave in over Sims, I’m not going to fight you. They’re certainly going to have Musgrave in that position at times this season, so it could still work. I’ve got Kraft on the reverse block because we’ve seen him do it before, and he really excels at it.
For WRs, I could have gone a ton of different ways with it. For tonight, I’m letting the rookies shine. I’ve got Savion Williams [83] as the orbit receiver and Matthew Golden [22] as the man getting the ball. Since Jayden Reed worked as the orbit man so much last season, I nearly put him there, but I went with Williams for a couple of reasons. For starters, his hands are a little iffy, but he’s dynamic with the ball in his hands, so him getting the ball on a handoff is something the Packers would have shown already in 2025 prior to this. The second reason is that, with his bigger frame, I’d like to see him as a blocker downfield more than I could see Reed in that role (although I think Reed would be perfectly fine at simply getting in the way).
For the ballcarrier, I went with Golden over Reed because I like the idea of both rookie receivers on the field at the same time. On something like this, I don’t think you could go wrong with Golden or Reed.
There’s a version of this where they run it out of 11 personnel, and Dontayvion Wicks is the insert blocker with the reverse block under the line while Kraft is on the line. There’s a version later in the season where Reed is the motion blocker and Christian Watson gets the pitch. There’s a version where it’s run out of an entirely different formation and could potentially work into the spread attack I’ve been envisioning for them.
Honestly, I sketched out a lot of versions of this play. The Packers have the personnel and the offensive framework to build this into their playbook without any issues. Aside from needing to coach it, I guess, but that’s not really my concern. I’ll leave that to the philosophers and the scholars.
Albums listened to: Wet Leg – moisturizer; Gwenno – Utopia; Hammock – Nevertheless