There are a lot of things that happen every game that can contribute to a win. We don’t need to get into all of them here, but we will be focusing on one huge factor today: explosive plays. Explosives are defined as a pass play that gains 16+ yards or a run play that gains 12+ yards.

In Brian Billick’s Developing an Offensive Gameplan (quite possibly my favorite football scheme book I’ve read), he focuses on the power of explosive plays. In his book, he has four main factors that he attributes to making the biggest impact on winning a game: Turnovers, Explosive Plays, First-Down efficiency and Red zone efficiency. On Explosives, Billick found that, “a team with a +2 or greater advantage in explosives won the game between 80-85% of the time.”

So, today, we’re hunting for explosives for the Packers offense against this Steelers defense. And what do you know? The numbers look really favorable for the Packers.

For the season, the Steelers are giving up 8.7 explosive plays per game on defense, the highest rate of explosives per game in the league. The Packers offense is generating 8.0 explosive plays per game on offense, the second-highest rate in the league (behind the Broncos at 8.3).

If we flip that around, the Steelers are generating 5.2 explosives per game on offense (28th in the league) while the Packers are giving up 4.3 explosives per game on defense (1st in the league).

Since I tend to focus on the passing game, I looked at those numbers. The Packers are generating 6.0 explosive passing plays per game on offense (1st in the league) while the Steelers are giving up 5.8 explosive passing plays per game on defense (32nd in the league).

So how can the Packers’ passing offense attack this Steelers defense? (I’m so glad you asked.) The best way to attack this Steelers defense through the air is by attacking the linebackers. Not just the linebackers: the entire box area is up for grabs. They like to cover grass, allowing a lot of plays to go over their heads. There’s not even a whole lot of manipulation of the linebackers that needs to be done: have protection hold up for 2.5 seconds, and you’ll likely find a man with free space in the middle of the field.

You may need to fit a throw into a tight window, but the windows are predictable. With a well-timed offense, you can hit these.

If the safeties start sinking down to take these throws away, well, you can take advantage of that as well.

Get a TE attached to the line, and you can find a few ways to attack this defense. They’ve proven themselves susceptible to PA Boot.

Just for the record, Tucker Kraft has scored TDs off this concept in each of the last two weeks.

If you want to keep your TE in-line and attack a different way, they’ve had issues with a TE option route.

And if the play breaks down and Jordan Love is forced to make something happen outside of structure? As I mentioned, the Steelers have shown themselves to be pretty good at covering specific patches of grass, but that looks worse and worse the longer a play goes.

Everything we’ve looked at is in the Packers playbook, but I’m going to throw one more out there that they can dust off: Bow.

Bow (on the left side of this playbook page) consists of an Arrow route from the inside and a Basic route from the outside. The idea is that the Arrow pins down the linebacker while the Basic wraps over the top. Here are the mechanics, taken from one of Love’s throws against the Eagles in 2022:

And here’s one from last year:

It’s a concept that is still in their playbook, but the usage hasn’t been high (they’ve run it twice this season). That’s mainly been due to the defenses they’ve played, which have made a point to drop the linebackers deep to take away some of these middle-of-the-field throws.

To this point in the season, the Steelers have not shown a willingness (or ability) to do this. I think we’re going to see a lot of concepts designed to attack the intermediate middle of the field this week, and, based on how the Steelers defense has performed in that area of the field so far, the Packers offense should find success.

This isn’t a play you’re generally going to run for an explosive, but I needed to bring it up anyway. If the linebackers do start dropping back a bit, you can run Arches. This is more of a short-yardage, quick-hitter. A shallow drag route combined with an angle route behind it. That angle route can come from an in-line TE (which the Steelers have had issues with) or the backfield.

Run this a couple of times to keep the linebackers honest, then throw it over their heads.

Albums listened to: The Telephone Numbers – Scarecrow II; Granada – Let That Weight Slide Off Your Shoulders; My Lucky Day – All Shimmer in a Day; Starflyer 59 – Leave Here a Stranger