Greg Jennings, Jermichael Finley, and Jordy Nelson were targeted 23 times during Sunday’s game against the Giants. They combined to gain 116 yards.
That’s an average of 5.04 yards-per-attempt on throws by Aaron Rodgers to his three best receivers.
To put that in perspective, Blaine Gabbert was dead last in the NFL by a wide margin with a 5.36 yards-per-attempt average this season. So what happened?
Drops were huge. Tight end Jermichael Finley also said the timing of the offense was off.
“It was the worst I’ve seen,” Finley told Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
Jason Pierre-Paul hit Finley coming off the line of scrimmage often. The Giants secondary did a good job bumping Green Bay’s other receivers. One of the remarkable aspects to the Giants victory is that New York’s pass rush wasn’t that effective for the first three quarters. New York beat Green Bay with consistent man coverage, despite all the injuries in their secondary.
“Tonight, our guys covered great,” linebacker Chase Blackburn told McGinn. “Usually, it’s the other way around. We didn’t try to take anyone away. We singled them up on the outside with the safeties playing over the top. The secondary gave the rush time to get there.”
You can blame the layoff for the Packers, but the other three teams coming off byes won. You can point to the emotional week in Green Bay following Michael Philbin’s death, but only those inside that building know what effect that had. You could even blame the cold weather for the drops.
Whatever the reason, the best players on the best passing attack in the league were extremely inefficient Sunday.