The Green Bay Packers defense has taken its lumps this season, but as a whole, they’ve been really good at generating quarterback pressures. Unfortunately, oftentimes pressure hasn’t turned into sacks.
Green Bay enters Week 9 of the regular season seventh in pressure rate as a team, led by Rashan Gary, Preston Smith, and Kenny Clark. Gary and Clark both rank sixth in total pressures this season among their respective position groups, while Smith ranks 22nd out of all edge rushers.
As former Packers outside linebacker coach Mike Smith often said, he will take consistent pressures over sporadic sacks every day of the week. Matt LaFleur has echoed similar sentiments, recently saying that they use pressures as their measuring stick, not sacks.
Over the last two games, in particular, the Packers have been excellent at pressuring the opposing quarterback. They were credited with a whopping 29 pressures against Washington and another 20 against Buffalo. According to PFF, Taylor Heinicke was pressured on 51.4% of his dropbacks, while Josh Allen was under duress 53.3% of the time.
However, out of 49 potential sack opportunities, the Packers converted only three. In fact, despite ranking seventh in pressure rate, they rank 18th in total sacks this season – below average.
Pressure, even without a sack, can still disrupt the play, and it did these past two weeks. Both Heinicke and Allen’s completion rates were well below the mark from when they were throwing from a clean pocket. Pressure also helped the Packers’ defense generate two interceptions.
With that said, being just a half-step shy of bringing the quarterback down also led to some big plays for the offense. Allen averaged an impressive 12.8 yards per attempt when under pressure, with a pair of touchdowns. Heinicke, meanwhile, completed seven passes at 11.5 yards per completion, including a third-down conversion that effectively ended the game. He also had defenders around him on the 37-yard touchdown pass to Terry McLaurin.
It goes without saying, but not every pressure is going to turn into a sack, and some of these big plays are still going to happen. Credit also needs to be given to Allen and Heinicke for their play under duress.
But for a Packers team that has such a small margin of error, converting a few more of these pressure opportunities into sacks could certainly have an impact on the outcome of the game. More disciplined rushing lanes and the edge rushers not getting too far upfield and basically taking themselves out of the play could take away some of the opportunities that the quarterbacks have to extend plays. Soft coverages from the secondary have also provided the quarterbacks with easy outlets at times.
This season the Packers have given themselves plenty of opportunities to get after the quarterback, which is always a good thing, but an extra sack or two per game could go a long way for an underperforming defensive unit.
