GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Now we know how Matt LaFleur gets the Green Bay Packers' offense ready for just about any situation. Thanks to Aaron Rodgers, we have a good idea what the second-year coach will be doing right before Sunday's NFC Championship Game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
And no, it's not too much information.
LaFleur apparently doesn't believe in TMI.
It was a conversation right before the closing drive of the first half in Green Bay's 32-18 win Saturday over the Los Angeles Rams in the divisional round of the playoffs that Rodgers said after the game went like this:
"He was telling me before the two-minute drive, 'Hey I was watching two-minute [film cut-ups] before the game,'" Rodgers said. "And I was like, 'What? That's what you're doing before the game?'
"But that's the beauty in him and his style and the staff that we have, there's no stone left unturned, and sometimes there's -- like the kids say -- TMI, but most of the time the information really helps."
It certainly seemed to help the top-seeded Packers do what so few teams had done this season: steamroller the Rams' defense. In matchup of the NFL's top scoring offense against the No. 1 scoring defense, the Packers proved offense can win in the playoffs.
It marked the third time Rodgers has faced the regular season's No. 1 scoring defense in the playoffs. He improved to 2-1 and scored 30-plus points in both wins -- Saturday night and Super Bowl XLV against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The only loss came in the 2014 NFC title game at Seattle (28-22 in overtime). Rodgers became just the second quarterback since the AFL-NFL merger to score 30-plus points multiple times in the postseason against the top scoring defense.
It left two questions to answer:
How did Rodgers & Co. do it?
And if the Rams couldn't stop the Packers, then who can?
"Nobody," receiver Davante Adams said in answering the latter.
Adams maintained that only the Packers themselves -- as in their own mistakes -- can stop them.
"I think that's been proven at this point," he said. "[The Rams] have got a lot of guys who do things at a high level and some of the best at their position, but the way we come together is just different than anybody else."
There were some tense moments when the Packers did just what Adams said. On the same third-quarter drive, Rodgers overthrew Marquez Valdes-Scantling for what might have been a 92-yard touchdown, and then Allen Lazard dropped what could have been a 60-yard score. The Rams scored on the ensuing possession to make it a one-score game.
1:06
Davante Adams explains to the media what he told Jalen Ramsey before the game and clears the air about the confrontation.
In the fourth quarter, LaFleur and Rodgers went back to the same play that Lazard dropped, and that time, it was a 58-yard, game-clinching touchdown -- one of two 50-plus-yard plays in the game, after the Rams had allowed only one all season.
"To respond is amazing and was great," Adams said of Lazard. "The way our standard is in that room, this team, is to make all of them. I kind of got in his s--- a little bit on the sideline just to remind him, like, 'Hey, man, I'm saying this to you because I know who you are as a person, I know the way you respond.' He's not too worried about. I knew he was going to feel my passion and be able to come back and respond."
The Buccaneers, who travel to Lambeau Field for Sunday's NFC Championship Game (3:05 p.m. ET, FOX), came the closest to stopping the Packers this season, but even that was some of Green Bay's own doing. Up 10-0 in that game, Rodgers threw a pick-six -- just the third of his career and one of two interceptions on the day -- leading to a run of 38 straight points for the Bucs.
As for how the Packers dismantled Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey and the rest of the Rams' once-impenetrable defense, it started with the run.
The Packers rushed for 188 yards, their most in a playoff game under Rodgers. Aaron Jones got 99 of those, including 60 on the opening play of the third quarter.
They nullified Donald, who played barely more than half (39) of the Rams' defensive snaps (72) because of a rib injury, with double-teams. They doubled him on 15 of his 21 pass rushes, according to NFL Next Gen Stats, and he failed to record a pass-rush win for just the second time since ESPN began tracking that stat in 2017.
They still managed to get Adams nine catches (for 66 yards and a touchdown), although he didn't get Ramsey the whole game like he wanted.
And of course, LaFleur used his trademark pre-snap motion and play-action. Rodgers' touchdown to Adams was set up by motion, and the touchdown to Lazard was a deep shot off play-action.
"I think it just shows that we're a good offense," Jones said.
That might be understating it.
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January 18, 2021 at 06:09PM
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