How one against-the-odds completion showed the Packers’ wideouts that their luck is changing
GREEN BAY — Jordan Love still doesn’t know how his throw got through the miniscule window.
“Somehow, it just worked out,” Love said. “I’m not even sure how the ball got in there.”
Jayden Reed still isn’t sure how he caught it.
“Trust me. I barely knew the ball was in my hands,” Reed said. “He zipped it in there. You don’t see too many throws like that every day.”
Nearly a week removed from their improbable — impossible? — touchdown connection that kick-started the Green Bay Packers’ Thanksgiving Day victory over the Detroit Lions, the quarterback who threw the ball and the receiver who caught it still are awestruck that it happened at all.
“Something crazy like that, I don’t know,” Reed said. “That’s something you rarely see.”
But while Love and Reed remain mystified by their 10-yard touchdown pitch-and-catch, Packers wide receivers coach Jason Vrable has a different thought: He can’t believe it took his guys this long to finally have a ball bounce — or not bounce, in this case, since it miraculously got through traffic without being deflected at all — in their favor.
Of course, that’s not what Vrable was thinking in the moment as he watched Christian Watson run the wrong route, putting him and Reed (and their respective defenders) all in close proximity to each other to create that mind-bending touchdown.
“In real time, all I said was, ‘WHAT WAS (NO.) 9 DOING?’” Vrable recounted as the Packers turned their attention from their signature 29-22 win over the Lions to this Sunday night’s matchup with the defending Super Bowl LVII-champion Kansas City Chiefs.
Watson, Vrable explained, thought that Love had changed the play at the line of scrimmage, thereby changing Watson’s slant route to the inside to an out-breaking route. And so, instead of drawing defenders away from Reed, who was matched up with Lions defensive back Brian Branch, Watson and his defender, Kerby Joseph, were within inches of Reed and Branch as Love’s throw whizzed past them.
“That’s just luck, you know? Because, really, (Watson) shouldn’t even have been there,” Vrable acknowledged. “But that was a good moment. That one, the ball went our way.”
And that was Vrable’s point. For most of the first half of this season, he’d felt like his young charges — second-year wide receivers Romeo Doubs, Samori Touré and Watson, and rookies Dontayvion Wicks, Malik Heath and Reed — couldn’t catch a break.
Not only were they making their own mistakes — dropping passes, running routes at the wrong speed or improper depth, or sometimes the wrong route altogether — but their problems were compounded by extenuating circumstances and sometimes flat-out bad luck.
For example, Vrable cited the defeat-clinching interception Love threw at the end of the Packers’ Oct. 9 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, part of a four-game losing streak during which Love looked indecisive and inaccurate. Watson beats his defender badly off the snap, but with pressure in his face almost immediately, Love underthrows the ball in the end zone. While Watson was at fault, too, for not fighting harder for the 50/50 ball, the play is almost certainly a go-ahead touchdown if Love isn’t pressured.
“Sometimes, the ball just doesn’t bounce the right way,” Vrable said. “Guys were competing so hard at practice, and they were mad because the results weren’t going (their way). I’m like, ‘Listen, guys, it’s always going to be a process. ... I’m telling you guys, it’s going to start clicking. You’ve just got to stay positive, you’ve got to stay together, you can’t let the outside world and all the other people saying stuff bring you down.’
“The cohesiveness with Jordan and our group, I could just feel it.”
Want proof? For as well as Love has played of late — he enters Sunday night’s game having completed 65.2% of his passes for 1,107 yards with eight touchdowns and two interceptions for a 103.1 quarterback rating over the past four games — his receivers’ growth and improved consistency have been major factors in their quarterback’s improvement.
“We’re definitely operating at a much higher level. Jordan’s doing a really nice job. (But) I think the guys around him are helping that situation, as well,” head coach Matt LaFleur said. “I just think the mindset is a little bit different. We as coaches have a much better idea of what these guys are capable of doing and trying to really put them in position for success, But ultimately, they have to go out there and execute. And that’s what our guys have been doing.”
And when they haven’t executed, the football gods have cut them a little slack, like on the Reed touchdown — part of a three-touchdown first-quarter outburst that fueled the previously slow-starting Packers’ most impressive win of the year.
Now, Love said, they must sustain it.
“We actually messed that play up, but it was great by J-Reed being able to concentrate when there was like three dudes right in that window,” Love recalled. “Like we’ve said, it’s not going to be perfect. But when you just go out there and make these plays come to life, execute and come up with a big play (like that one) right there, it’s huge.”
Tight end added
With starting tight end Luke Musgrave on injured reserve with a lacerated kidney and veteran tight end/fullback Josiah Deguara having missed the Lions game with a hip injury, the Packers added tight end Joel Wilson to the practice squad and released cornerback Anthony Johnson from the practice squad.
The 6-foot-4, 242-pound Wilson, an undrafted rookie from Central Michigan, spent the first nine weeks of the season on the Buffalo Bills’ practice squad. In 34 games (23 starters) for the Chippewas, Wilson caught 82 passes for 874 yards (10.7 avg.) and 12 touchdowns.
The Packers had only two true tight ends active against the Lions — rookies Tucker Kraft and Ben Sims. Rookie fullback Henry Pearson was called up from the practice squad as a game-day elevation as well.
Photos: View the Packers' win over the Lions on Thanksgiving DayPackers vs. Chiefs
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