Due to an injury to Eric Stokes and continued issues at safety for Darnell Savage, changes to the Green Bay Packers secondary were a must.
Those changes were made on Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys and paid immediate benefits.
Poor angles, at times what looked like an unwillingness to tackle, and not being in the right spot left Savage looking lost at the safety position at times. A few weeks ago, Joe Barry was asked about moving Savage to the nickel cornerback position where his skill set would be better utilized, but in an uninspiring response, Barry said that would require depth at the safety position to do so.
The Packers then found that depth last Wednesday when they claimed Johnathan Abram off waivers. They also had slot snaps to fill with Stokes being placed on IR on Saturday and Rasul Douglas moving to the boundary.
Savage played 48 snaps from the slot against Dallas but still had a role as a safety as well. When the Packers were in their base defense, as we have seen all season, Savage and Adrian Amos were the two deep safeties, with Isaiah McDuffie and Quay Walker at linebacker.
When in nickel, Savage took over in the slot, and Rudy Ford was deep next to Amos with Douglas and Jaire Alexander on the boundary. Then in dime, Savage was again lined up deep, but this time next to Ford, while Amos was in the box and Keisean Nixon was the slot cornerback.
With these moves, Savage was still played 100% of the Packers defensive snaps while Ford was on the field for 76%.
These changes that were made certainly didn’t solve everything. Dallas did a really good job of moving CeeDee Lamb around so that he oftentimes wasn’t matched up on Alexander, and he was nearly unstoppable, catching 11 of his 15 targets for 150 yards and two touchdowns. We also saw some self-inflicted wounds by Barry, again giving too much cushion to the Cowboys’ receivers at times.
With that said, despite Lamb’s performance, the Packers’ secondary held Dak Prescott to only 5.5 yards per attempt, which for context, wouldn’t even rank in the top 35 this season among quarterbacks. Pass catchers not named Lamb totaled just 115 receiving yards.
Overall, this was a secondary that appeared to be playing much more aggressively with their new look. We regularly saw the Green Bay cornerbacks challenging the Dallas receivers at the line of scrimmage, and Barry even sprinkled in some cover-one looks, along with some well-disguised coverages, one of which helped create Ford’s second interception as things were muddied up over the middle of the field. In general, there was more of an attacking nature from this group and added level of cohesiveness as well, illustrated by their ability to pass routes off.
Ford was able to fully capitalize on his newfound opportunities. He flies around the field as a run defender, never encountering a tackle he didn’t want to make, and he also came away with two interceptions, which led to 14 points for the Packers’ offense while also taking at least three off the board from Dallas. With the Packers often utilizing light boxes in Barry’s defensive scheme, having willing run defenders at the safety position is a must.
Savage, meanwhile, looked much more confident lined up in the slot and far less passive than he did at safety. Barry even utilized him on several occasions as a blitzer to drum up some needed pressure on Prescott.
Savage finished the game with eight total tackles, including one miss. For reference, Savage has eight tackles combined over the previous three games. In coverage, he surrendered five receptions on six targets for 75 yards and had one pass breakup per PFF. While not perfect, his impact in this small sample size was far greater from the slot than what it had been as a safety.
“Rudy’s been doing some good things, and when given opportunities on defense, he’s maximized those, and he plays with a lot of speed; you can feel his speed out there,” said LaFleur after the game. “He’s physical too. To get Savage a little more involved closer to the ball and see if he can do something in that position, that’s just the route we decided to go this week.”
As a whole, and specifically in the secondary, this is a Packers’ defense that has very much underwhelmed this season. And while what we saw from them against Dallas isn’t a cure-all for every issue, the changes made provided several positives to build off of moving forward.
