The Green Bay Packers defense primarily uses zone coverage under Joe Barry, but the team’s top three cornerbacks, Jaire Alexander, Rasul Douglas, and Eric Stokes, all allowed little separation when in man coverage.
A recent chart put together by Judah Fortgang of PFF helped illustrate which cornerbacks (who played at least 200 snaps in 2022) were better in man coverage in terms of separation allowed and which were better in zone coverage. All three of Alexander, Douglas, and Stokes had negative separation grades when in man coverage, which is a good thing in this case and shows that they were in tight coverage.
Believe it or not, between Douglas, Stokes, and Alexander, Stokes was the one who actually performed the best by this metric. This hopefully points to 2023 being a bounce-back season for Stokes once he’s healthy after a very inconsistent 2022 season prior to his injury. Despite being close in coverage, Stokes still allowed five completions on seven targets at 11.8 yards per catch, with only one forced incompletion when in man.
However, as I alluded to already, the Packers do not use a lot of man coverage. One of the primary principles of Barry’s defensive scheme is to take away the big play, which leads to a heavy usage of zone coverage. According to PFF, Alexander was in man coverage on just 20% of his total snaps in 2022, Douglas 20.5%, and Stokes 26.2%.
As a coach, it’s always a balance between sticking to the system and molding it to fit with what your players are good at. Stokes was primarily used as a cover corner while at Georgia, and Alexander is one of the best cover cornerbacks in the game. Douglas has shown to be a playmaker under just about any circumstance, and while it’s a small sample size from last season, Kiesean Nixon, who will be starting in the slot at least until Stokes returns, was able to limit pass catchers when in man. It’s also worth noting that while rookie Carrington Valentine likely won’t see much, if any, playing time this season, the Packers did spend another draft pick on a player who thrived as a man cover corner in college.
Now, it’s not as if Barry was completely rigid and didn’t make any adjustments either. Although man coverage was never a staple for this defense last season, we did see Alexander with the opportunity to travel more with the opponent’s top receiver towards the end of the year. Not to mention that, as Daire Carragher of Packer Report would write, during the defense’s best stretch of football in those final few weeks, the Packers saw a huge increase in their usage of Cover-2 and Cover-6. Those are still primarily zone coverages, but adjustments, nonetheless.
It’s also not as if Stokes, Douglas, and Alexander graded out poorly as zone defenders, either. That same chart from PFF that I highlighted above shows them maintaining good zone coverage separation grades–although in Alexander’s case, at least by this metric, he was much better in man. A number of the issues that the Packers ran into last season either came from being too soft with the zone coverage alignments or coverage breakdowns, which included the passing off of pass catchers from one zone to the next or just being in the wrong spot, and on many occasions, led to big plays for the offense.
For the coaching staff, the offseason is a time to reevaluate what went right, what went wrong, and to put a plan in place for the upcoming season. I certainly don’t expect to see the Packers all of a sudden become a heavy man coverage team; again, that’s not the M.O. of this defensive system. But after an inconsistent 2022 season defensively, could we see more of it, with man coverage being a clear strength of this cornerback room? It’s now or never for Barry and his defense.
