Keisean keeps it close in Detroit in our #5 play.
We’re continuing our journey through the Green Bay Packers’ top 10 plays of the 2024 season as voted on by APC staff with play #5 in our countdown (check out #6 here).
Heading into December, the Packers were enjoying a three-game winning streak over the Bears, 49ers, and Dolphins, which was immediately preceded by a loss to Detroit at Lambeau. Prior to that loss, the Packers had a nice four game winning streak, and so, in Week 14, the Packers traveled Ford Field to avenge their early streak-buster against the 12-1 Detroit Lions, trying to make a dent in their substantial lead in the division, and ensure they remained in a good spot for a wild card.
The Game
The Lions were absolute juggernauts in 2024 and entered this game on a ten-game winning streak that already included a win over the Packers. While the eventual champion Eagles were on par with the Lions, Detroit was probably the best team in the conference when healthy. Nagging injuries started to take their toll on the Lions’ secondary towards the end of the season and they would actually drop the game after this to the Bills, but they were still in relatively good shape against the Packers as they built a 17-7 lead going into halftime. If the Packers were going to prove they could hang with the big boys, they needed to turn it around fast.
And they did but…just not quite enough. Part of the early offensive struggles were due to the running game, where Josh Jacobs scored three touchdowns, but was otherwise inefficient with 18 carries for 66 yards on the ground. The Packers love to run, but they also don’t know when to stop, and they ran the ball far too much early, putting themselves in consistently poor down and distance situations, and digging themselves into a pretty big hole.
The Situation
But things started to turn around at the start the third quarter as the Packers reacted to the deficit by attempting to dial up big plays in the passing game. After Jacobs lost a yard on first down, Jordan Love found Christian Watson for 59 yards, putting the Packers in business at the Detroit 12. A few plays later, Love hit Tucker Kraft over the middle for a 12-yard touchdown to close the gap to 17-14.
The Lions would start their next drive from their own 30, and immediately suffer a holding penalty, pushing them back ten yards. A quick 6-yard pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown brought up 2nd and 14 from Detroit’s own 26-yard line. And here we go.
The Play
You can watch the play in its entirety here.
Keisean Nixon deserves a ton of credit for properly executing on this play. He reads Jared Goff perfectly and expertly undercuts Tim Patrick’s route, completing the catch. But before we get into all of that, let’s start with the fact that this play, as called by offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, and this throw, as executed by the normally solid Jared Goff, are just terrible.
For Johnson’s part, I think the idea of the play is to capitalize on a soft shell from the Packers on a long second down to pick up an easy 5-10 yards and set up a manageable third down. That’s a fine theory for a play, but this entire thing is a conceptual nightmare. Ideally on such a play, you would have any receivers not destined to receive a target running deeper, at least 15-20 yards to create space underneath. You might consider sending one of your speedier receivers on a go route to occupy a safety. And more than anything, you absolutely need your quarterback to throw to space. It’s a conservative, safe plan, which might not get you that deep shot, but probably gets you an easy 5-10 on a checkdown.
Instead, we get this ill-conceived football detritus. The Lions are spread four wide with Jahmyr Gibbs flanking Goff in shotgun. They have two receivers and tight end Sam LaPorta at the top of the formation with Patrick alone at the bottom. LaPorta is the only player to push past the thirty yard-line, however he’s well-covered by Quay Walker who also has safety help over the top, and while LaPorta is a very good tight end, he’s still just a tight end. But the fundamental problem with the play is the receiver routes, as they all run simple stop routes at the 30, directly into a cloud of Packer coverage players that is also sitting at the 30.
It’s actually fairly difficult to get a read on whether the Packers are in zone or man because the Lions spread them out and then ran right at them, one of the rare times that zone and man look kind of the same. (I think this zone because no one was breaking on Gibbs immediately, but who is to say?)
The smart throw here, to the extent there is one, would be to Gibbs, who at the very least has plenty of space in the flat to try to outmaneuver Nixon and Isaiah McDuffie, and at minimum is probably good for five-ish yards with some upside. It’s also easily Goff’s safest option, and given the play design, it’s hard to see why Gibbs isn’t the primary option.
Instead, Goff opts for an attempted stick, or perhaps a slant to Tim Patrick. I think it may have been intended as a slant that Patrick quit on too early, but I’m also not sure it would have mattered because Nixon was ALL OVER either route. I mean, what a break on the ball.
More than anything, this throw was the worst possible football combination of high-risk and low reward. Generally speaking, a corner undercutting a throw is taking at least some risk that the throw will turn out to be play-action, and his receiver is now running free down the sideline, but in this case, Nixon correctly determines that he has help over the top, specifically from McDuffie, who will almost definitely be making a quick tackle should the ball get through Nixon. And even if McStuffie fails in coverage, as happens sometimes, there’s still another layer of safety behind him. The risk of gambling for Nixon was minimal, and he read and played it so well that there was barely a risk at all.
Maybe the single strangest thing about this play is how little it was impacted by pressure. Goff got the ball out so quickly it almost looked planned, and while the Packers rushed four, there was no chance of anyone getting home as the ball was out immediately. Jared Goff is occasionally prone to make mistakes while under pressure, but here the mistake occurred before pressure could even possibly become a factor. It’s hard to imagine how this play design could have possibly sprung Tim Patrick enough to warrant such a quick throw in the first place.
And so, Nixon does the smart thing: he takes the chance, reads the route better than Patrick, and picks the pass with some momentum that he turned into a 16-yard gain, down to the Detroit 16-yard line. The 2024 Lions did not give teams many chances like this, and Nixon’s perfect execution kept Green Bay in the game, and even gave them a brief lead as Jacobs would punch it in from the six after an eight-yard gain from Dontayvion Wicks.
The Impact
Unfortunately Green Bay still dropped the game 34-31 as the Lions walked it off on a 35-yard field goal that was never in much doubt in the friendly indoor environment of Ford Field. Tim Patrick even got some revenge on a 3-yard touchdown at the end of the third quarter, but it was a back-and-forth game all the way featuring several lead changes, and tons of huge plays, and at least at the time, it gave me some hope that they really could hang with the big boys in a big game.
It also gave me reason to pay extra attention to Keisean Nixon, who recorded his highest PFF coverage grade of the season (84.8), while working on what would be an impressive second half of the season for him. Nixon is well-regarded by analytics sites and enjoys a better reputation there than among many of the Packer faithful. This play shows why the numbers may indeed be justified.