Packers Film Room: Breaking Down Jordan Love’s Interceptions (Part 2)

If you're here, hopefully that means you read Part 1 of this series. If not, no worries! You can still go back and check it out. I'll wait.

In the first installment, we looked at Jordan Love's first 5 interceptions of the season. We looked at Love's decision-making by looking at what the concept was trying to accomplish and trying to get to the issue behind each one.

In Part 2, we'll be looking at his second 5 interceptions on the season and doing the same thing, then closing things out with a little "what have we learned" section. You ready? I'm ready.

Interception #6: Week 6 Packers are running Bow on the left and Stick on the right. Stick is a 3 step concept and Bow is a 5 step concept, so Love is reading Stick first. If he doesn't like that, he'll transition to his 5-step footwork and fire to Christian Watson [9] on the dig route.

Bo Melton [80] is the inside man on Stick, running a 5 yard out. The defender over Melton is playing 7 yards off and inside, making this an easy read for Love. He hits the top of his drop and fires, only to find that Melton fell victim to the dreaded turf monster.

Sean Murphy-Bunting [23] is dropping with Romeo Doubs [87] on the outside, but is keeping an eye on Melton. The Packers had run some version of Stick on their previous 2 plays, so Murphy-Bunting is looking to trap the quick out.

If Melton stays on his feet, he catches this for a short gain, with Murphy-Bunting in position to tackle him right after the catch. Instead, with Melton on the ground, the ball lands in the arms of Murphy-Bunting.

No issue with the decision here. Good decision. Good throw. Bad luck.

Interception #7: Week 7 Another INT off a Stick look. This one is run differently than the last one we looked at. Packers have Trips to the right side, with the #1 receiver running a vertical route to clear the boundary, while the #2 and #3 receivers are running 5 yard out routes.

Dontayvion Wicks [13] is uncovered from his spot as the #3, with a pass rusher lined extremely wide on his inside shoulder. Jalen Pitre [5] is originally aligned over Wicks' outside shoulder, but he begins shifting over to Romeo Doubs [87] at the #2 before the ball is snapped.

Based on this look, it appears as though Pitre will be covering Doubs while Neville Hewitt [43] will be covering Wicks. That would be easy for Love, as Wicks easily has outside leverage on Hewitt.

At the snap, that's how it's looking like this is playing out. Hewitt is walling off Wicks from the inside, while Pitre is fading with Doubs. Love's decision is made: throw to Wicks.

Unfortunately for him, Pitre is keeping eyes on Love and drives on the pass, knocking it up into the air.

Hewitt comes down with the interception and has a nice return before being brought down at the Packers 11 yard line.

I understand the thought process. He looks at the alignment pre-snap and it looks to be confirmed post-snap. However, he doesn't see Pitre staring right at him and throws into a trap. Love has done a good job of seeing this in the past, but he just missed it here. This goes into the "bad read" bucket.

Interception #8: Week 7 The Packers are running a version of their Cross-Country Dagger concept, but with a twist. Generally, the inside man will run an intermediate crosser while the outside man will run an in-breaker behind it. In that version, the QB reads the inside man first, then works back to the outside man.

In this version, they're looking to get Christian Watson open as the outside man, with the inside man originally running a crossing route then pulling up on a sit route in the middle of the field. Pin down the middle, then hit Watson over the top.

The Packers are in a balanced formation and the Texans are showing a 4 man front. At the snap, the Packers drop into a 5-man protection and the Texans bring an additional defender up the middle on a blitz.

It's blocked up well up the middle, with Josh Jacobs stepping in and getting a solid hit on Neville Hewitt. However, Danielle Hunter [55] is able to get the corner on Zach Tom [50]. Love drifts left to buy time, then throws to Watson while fading to his left.

The pass is floated, giving Calen Bullock [21] a chance to come up with the interception.

Not a bad decision in terms of the read, but a terribly floated pass. These are the ones that will get you with Love. He'll do this same type of thing and drop absolute dime so you hate to take this away from him. It's one of his superpowers.

Maybe a slightly controversial take, but, even as ugly as this one looked, I'm not telling him to rein in this type of play. Yes, you'll get plays like this thrown in, but you'll also get plays like the touchdown to Dontayvion Wicks against the Cowboys in the Wild Card.

So, while this interception is absolutely on Love, I'm not telling him to stop.

Interception #9: Week 8 Out of Trips Left, Ben Sims [89] is running a slant from the #1 spot, Romeo Doubs is running a deep out route from the #2 spot and Tucker Kraft [85] is running a corner route from the #3 spot.

The defender over Doubs is aligned deep, so I think Love is looking that way pre-snap. Sims drags the outside defender to the inside with his route, and I think that's what Love is reading. He hits the top of drop, bounces and throws to Doubs out of the break, only to see Jarrian Jones [22] undercut it.

A cardinal sin of these out-breakers is to throw late and inside. Love doesn't even commit that sin. It's on time and the placement is good. If you want to talk about the execution of it, you can say that there could be a little more zip on this ball and Doubs could come back to it a bit.

But, really, this just seems like a bad read and a bad decision. I think Love is anticipating that defender dropping back as Doubs pushes vertically, which would create space for this throw. But he holds his ground and he's in a great position to make a play on this ball. To me, this looks like a predetermined read based on what the outside defender is doing.

Interception #10: Week 9 And we end, of course, with the pick six against the Lions.

With time winding down in the 1st half, the Packers are running a Mills variant, an old-school West Coast concept which was eventually distilled down to its "huck-it-chuck-it-football" essence by Steve Spurrier. Jayden Reed [11] is running a deep post from his spot in the left slot, while Romeo Doubs is running a deep in-cutter from the right. They're trying to remove the boundary defender on the right side, then get Reed inside leverage on the deep safety, running away from from him down the field.

Unfortunately, the Lions knew that the Packers were likely looking for a long-developing chunk play before the half and they were able to get home with a pretty nifty blitz, showing 7 men at the line of scrimmage and bringing 5 (we'll get into the blitz in a minute). The line does a good job of initially holding up against the blitz. Another half-second and this looks like it would have been a home run.

Instead, Love is forced to his right as Alex Anzalone [34] breaks through the middle. Love tries to salvage the play by getting the ball out to Josh Jacobs, but the ball is thrown behind Jacobs and Kerby Joseph [31] grabs the ball in traffic and takes it to the house.

When I initially watched this, my belief was that Love simply didn't see Joseph lurking. And, while I believe that's true, if this ball is out in front of Jacobs, Joseph doesn't have a chance at it. With a safety descending on the line, it's unlikely Jacobs is able to do anything with this, but it would have been better than a pick-six. That's my hot take.

Alright before we get out of here let's just take a look at this blitz, because it's pretty cool. I know I know, "Packers pick six" and all that, but I'm also a man who appreciates a well-designed blitz.

My favorite aspect of this is mixing in a Coffee House Blitz. For the uninitiated, a Coffee House Blitz is when a defender fakes a drop into coverage, then comes on a delayed blitz. Get the offensive linemen moving on to his next assignment, then come right back on the attack.

We get that here with Alex Anzalone [34], who starts by mugging the A gap, then dropping like he's going to be the hook defender, before going back to attack the same gap as part of a stunt with Alim McNeil [54].

Jeff Hafley please steal this.

What have we learned?

Honestly, I feel a little better about it after going through all of them like this. We've got a couple bad reads in this batch, but both of those are mistakes we don't tend to see him make. On that first INT against Houston, I've seen him move off of that read on several occasions when the defender is leaning.

I thought there would be more that would be chalked up to playing YOLO ball in the face of the rush, but that really only happened a couple times (with one being an interception due to a miscommunication that we looked at in Part 1 ). There were only a couple truly bad reads, with the rest being a mix of inaccuracy, bad luck and/or miscommunication. Certainly some things that could be cleaned up, but trying to strip all of it away takes away part of what makes him special, and I certainly don't want to do that.

Provided he stays healthy down the stretch, I think the interceptions will dry up a bit. That's mainly because I believe Love's process is generally really good, and that will tend to produce good results more often than not. The way he plays will always invite a bit of variance, but, even when throwing these interceptions, he didn't look nearly as bad as I might have thought.

Now I hope when the season is all done, I'm not writing another 2 part series on Love's interceptions in the back-half of the season. I don't think I will be, but we'll just see how all this shakes out.

Albums listened to: Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson - Summer of Fear; Fionn Regan - O Avalanche; TV On the Radio - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes; Metallica - Master of Puppets; Red Strat - Red Strat