Game Overview ::
By HILOW >>
- The Packers placed TE Luke Musgrave on injured reserve this week, removing all doubts as to who the primary option is at the position (although Tucker Kraft had already played over him in every game this season).
- CB Jaire Alexander appears ready to return from two missed games after getting in a limited session Wednesday.
- The Packers lead the league with 14 total takeaways this season, with S Xavier McKinney serving as a true difference-maker with a pick in each game and a fumble recovery.
- We saw (or were reminded of) how the Packers would prefer to approach games in Week 5 against the Rams. This situation sets up to be eerily similar.
- The Cardinals are not typically a team to push the game environment on their own, and they continue to have a poorly structured pass game.
- Both the Packers and the Cardinals rank in the bottom six in pass rate over expectation (PROE) through five weeks.
How arizona Will Try To Win ::
The Cardinals rank 24th in average time of possession, 28th in PROE, 14th in yards per game, and 24th in pass yards per game, but they rank 12th in points per game (24.0). That is after they averaged 19.0 points per game in 2023. I regurgitate all those statistics to show that the Cardinals are likely outperforming their expectations through the first five weeks of the 2024 season. That should also serve to highlight how poorly this offense is structured and coached – well, not all of it. The Cardinals rank fourth in the league with 156.4 rush yards per game and we’ve continually brought up the fact that offensive coordinator Drew Petzing has one of the better run schemes in the league while having an atrocious pass scheme this season. But that’s how this team wants to try to win games, they want to emphasize the run behind the third best run-blocking offensive line, try to control the time of possession battle, and hide a defense that does not have the personnel to be competitive at present. Head coach Jonathan Gannon is a solid defensive mind and has proven capable in scheming around those personnel shortcomings, but we’ve also seen how that can break down against competent opposition. The Packers are very much competent opposition.
Expect the Cardinals to start the game with a run-leaning approach designed to shorten the game as much as possible, which plays into the volume expectation of James Conner. Conner ranks 10th in snap share (70.7%), 11th in team opportunity share (70.5%), sixth in carries (83, or 16.6 per game), and seventh in rush yards (379). That said, he has seen only 10 total targets through five games, leaving him as a prototypical yardage-and-touchdown back. The clearest path to a robust workload for Conner is for the Cardinals to keep this game close, although he is typically less dependent on game environment than other yardage-and-touchdown backs due to Petzing’s offensive tendencies. Conner saw 20 opportunities in a Week 1 loss to the Bills, 22 opportunities in a Week 2 blowout win against the Rams, 10 opportunities in a nightmare matchup on the ground against the Lions in Week 3, 19 opportunities in a blowout loss to the Commanders in Week 4, and 22 opportunities in the last-minute win over the 49ers in Week 5. All of that to say, Conner is likely to see 20 opportunities in all but the worst matchups on the ground, in almost any game environment. Emari Demercado has operated as the preferred change-of-pace back but has seen just eight carries and four targets this season. This is Conner’s backfield. The Packers present a non-prohibitive-but-not-elite matchup after allowing 4.4 yards per carry behind 1.50 yards allowed before contact through five weeks.
The pass game is highly concentrated amongst rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. (25.4% target share and 28.6% red-zone target share) and tight end Trey McBride (league-leading 25.9% target share and 25.0% red-zone target share), but this pass offense remains so static and uninspiring that the path to upside for either is much more muddied than others with similarly high involvement. Arizona ranks 26th in pass attempts per game at 27.6, clearly indicating where the emphasis of this offense rests. Second-year wide receiver Michael Wilson is the only other pass catcher to see a consistent role in this offense, with Greg Dortch’s snaps and involvement largely defined by their 12-personnel usage (which is robust, to say the least). The Packers are near the middle of the pack (get it?) in most metrics against the pass, allowing 6.6 yards per pass attempt (18th) through five weeks. But again, they lead the league in takeaways per game at 2.8, doing so largely through a complex defensive scheme that utilizes a solid mix of Cover-1, Cover-3, Cover-4, and Cover-6. There isn’t a ton to get overly excited about from this Arizona pass game in a standard week, with the clear caveat that Kyler Murray, Harrison Jr., and McBride are all capable of overcoming their offensive coordinator out of structure.
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