Last week I mentioned that I like to run offenses around the league during the week, find fun things, and then work them into the Green Bay Packers playbook. With only two games last weekend – one of which was short on offense – there wasn’t much film to watch.
Last week we found two Buffalo Bills games. This week, I want to steal a play for the Packers: the TD to Jaxon Smith-Njigba (11).
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The Seattle Seahawks consist of 11 members (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR), starting in a 2×2 set. Before the snap, Smith-Njigba moves from his right stance to the backfield, lining up to the left of Sam Darnold (14). This is not a normal separation for Smith-Njigba; he is positioned outside left tackle.
They run a scissors concept on the left, with Smith-Njigba and Rashid Shaheed (22) crossing paths on the pitch. Cooper Kupp (10) is the other receiver on this side, and he runs a short pivot route, starting outside and cutting back. Scissors is a popular concept in this area of the field, but I like how the Seahawks achieve it here, freeing up the deep Sail/Corner route from the backfield.
The Seahawks catch the Rams in zone coverage and they crush it. Nate Landman (53) falls with Smith-Njigba in the middle part of the field, then falls back to the middle, passing it to Cobie Durant (14). However, Durant follows Shaheed to the middle of the court, leaving the corner wide open.
Darnold knows he has Smith-Njigba, but the pocket gets messy around his feet, so he fades to the left and throws to the corner as Jared Verse (8) crashes into his face.
Nice design and great playcall in a great moment. There were 25 seconds left in the 1st half with the Seahawks trailing 13-10 when this ball was snapped.
Now let’s steal it.
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Just like the Seahawks did, we’re going to make it work with 11 people. By SumerSportsThe Packers were the 7th best team in the red zone out of 11 this season, so we can probably find some success with this approach. We’ll be showing a 3 part package, but we’ll start with this Scissors look (although that would probably be the paid game).
Our staff:
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RB: Josh Jacobs (8). A healthy Marshawn Lloyd makes a little more sense here, as his explosiveness would allow for a little more versatility in how you can deal with this. However, for now, we’ll stick with Jacobs. He remains a threat with the ball in hand. The other option would be Chris Brooks, who works as a FB in some of the Spinner activities the Packers do.
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TE: Tucker Kraft (85). We’re assuming here that they are healthy, but, with only 1 TE on the field, Kraft is the obvious choice. Since we’re taking a vertical route from a Nub look, we could pretty easily give this role to Luke Musgrave. As the season progressed, he seemed more and more comfortable in this role.
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WR1: Christian Watson (9). We want to threaten vertically from the outside and threaten the safety from that side, which makes Watson the obvious choice.
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WR2: Matthew Golden (0). He should play a bigger role in this offense in 2026, and the quickness and footwork on this pivot route should play directly into his strengths.
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WR3: Jayden Reed (11). If we are lining up a WR in the backfield, Reed is the obvious choice. He has plenty of experience in that role and the Packers play enough with him there (both passing and running) that having him in the backfield isn’t a gift moving forward.
So that’s our staff group. The concept of scissors is simple.
But, again, it’s probably the winning game. A variation of this that might work well is an old West Coast Staple, originally designed to attack Tampa 2. That’s right, baby, we run Texas.
Everything else looks exactly the same, but this gets us Reed out of the backfield on a LB (or maybe a safety). We still have Watson threatening at the top, and Reed on the Angle route gives us a nice high-low. Golden works well as a follow-up on the Angle, allowing Reed to free up some space for Golden to come back in. If that doesn’t work, you still have a sort of Smash look right with Kraft and Jacobs.
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Finally, we will throw another shot. Show Golden on this pivot a few times, pop inside, then release this route vertically instead of going back inside.
There are certainly other variations you can exploit, but that’s about all the time I have today. This was a really fun concept and seems like something that could fit perfectly with the Packers staff. Hopefully we’ll see it appear next year.
Albums listened to: Jenny On Holiday – Heart of quicksand; Poppy – Empty-handed
