Packers Film Room: Week 1 blitz of the week

Even though the Green Bay Packers ultimately lost their opening game 39-22 in week one, no one has a leg to stand on if they want to blame the Packers defense for this one. Until the last six minutes of the game, the defense stood firm and kept giving the offense chances with the ball. They only surrendered two late touchdowns to the Minnesota Vikings because of field position surrendered by the offense with turnovers.

On the second play of the young season for the defense, they intercepted Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray on an all-out blitz, giving the Packers the ball at their 47-yard line. The pressure forced Murray to hurry his throw, resulting in an errant pass.

The play call was a quarters coverage hot blitz where the defense shows cover-0 from a zone alignment, the standard way to present cover-0 these days.

Instead of playing straight man-to-man, the corners are reading the route distribution of the receivers and a low hole vision dropper will rob anything short over the middle. The safeties are keying on the inside routes of the slot receivers.

The Vikings are in 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end) shotgun empty running a mirrored curl/seam route concept called "HOSS Y-JUKE".

The Packers defensive shell shows man across the board with a zone alignment but they're actually playing quarters coverage principles in the secondary.

The corners are going to play "man on deep" and let anything shallow go underneath. Once they see the receiver sit, they'll bail to the deep quarter to help the safety. The safeties are going to take anything vertical from the inside receivers.

Up front, the pressure brings six and the Vikings have five in to pass block. That leaves one extra free rusher unaccounted for and means Murray has a hot throw. On this throw in the Shanahan/McVay offense, of which Kevin O'Connell is part of, the hot throws are the seam routes and the trips side 6-yard stop route.

Zaire Franklin (No. 44) is mugged up in the A-gap and blitzes as the interior rusher in that gap. The offensive right guard should pick up the blitzing linebacker, making the furthest edge defender the widest rusher, but he lets Franklin go unopposed up the middle.

This shorter time to pressure causes Murray to heave an errant pass up the seam where it hangs on him and is intercepted by Keisean Nixon , who fell off the shallow curl route to sink under the pass.

This was Jonathan Gannon's most effective pressure call of the game and it gave the Packers the ball at midfield, where they were able to drive into scoring range but only for what ended up being a 59-yard field goal.