Because not even the Packers themselves are aware of who their really greatest receiver is, the Packers are unbeatable on defense.
KaVonte Turpin, who caught 12 of 18 targets for 127 yards and 3 touchdowns during the 2023 regular season, is the Dallas Cowboys’ fifth highest targeted receiver. Along with 11 carries for 110 yards and a touchdown, he also receives a good number of end arounds and jet sweeps. That’s not too awful!
Turpin, who measured at the combine at almost 5-9 and an almost astounding 158 pounds, is mostly a gadget player and kick returner. With all those touchdowns, the second-year player proved to be very productive in his short sample size addition to the Cowboys receiving corps. However, at 27 years old and in his first season in the NFL, he will never be expected to contribute as a regular receiver due to his stature. Since it may occasionally be simpler to provide special teams value than real on-field value, several teams utilize the end of their squad for pure special teamers/gadget players like Turpin.
Luke Schoonmaker, a rookie, is the second tight end for the Cowboys after Jake Ferguson. He has caught 8 of his 15 targets this season for a pitiful 8.1 yards per catch. Pro Football Focus is likewise unimpressed with his blocking. When the Cowboys are on the field, you can expect to see a lot of Ceedee Lamb, a healthy helping of Ferguson, and some Brandin Cooks, who is currently 30 years old and obviously out of step from his days in Houston, Los Angeles, New England, and New Orleans. And you cover Lamb first, then you cover the Cowboys. You commit resources to Lamb. After that, you assist the men on Lamb. Then Ferguson comes to mind. That’s basically it.
On the other side, Bo Melton, a wide receiver selected by the Green Bay Packers in the seventh round out of Rutgers, who was first selected by Seattle in the 2022 draft, has the fifth most targets for the team. After making his way onto the Packers practice squad, Melton replaced the underwhelming Samori Touré on the active roster. Despite being a little undersized, Melton is a fantastic athlete who is closer in stature to a standard slot receiver than Turpin.
Melton is fifth in targets, but he has only appeared in five offensive games overall, including the Dallas playoff matchup. Melton caught only 16 balls on 24 targets during the regular season, but over the course of 17 games, he was on track to catch 68 balls on 102 targets. More significantly, though, Melton was 18.4% over average in terms of DVOA, a statistic that gauges a player’s effectiveness per play. That would indicate that among pass-catchers, it would be the third-highest number. Melton would rank 13th overall, one position below CeeDee Lamb and his 18.9% DVOA, assuming he had enough catches to qualify.
Melton may be the designated “fifth” receiver for the Packers, but the truth is that neither pundits nor rival defensive coordinators can identify the Packer alpha dog among pass-catchers. With his exceptional physical attributes and high draft status, Christian Watson, a quick outside receiver who recently returned from injury, resembles a classic number one receiver. Dallas committed a lot of their resources to preventing him. Additionally, they took care to avoid losing to Jayden Reed, a second-round pick who had burnt the Bears for 112 yards the week before.
Romeo Doubs, who was the Packers’ de facto top receiver throughout the first half of the season while the offense figured itself out, destroyed them as a result. Now that he is a part of the league’s most equitable receiving group, Doubs has increased his efficiency dramatically and is no longer only facing the best CB on the defense. Doubs only grabbed 56% of his targets between Weeks 1 and 9, averaging just 10.4 yards per reception (5.8 yards per target). Doubs caught a solid 70.3% of his targets from Week 10 until the end of the regular season, averaging 12.7 yards per completion and over 9 yards per target.
Additionally, Dallas failed to fully cover Luke Musgrave, the starting (or second-string, or co-starting) tight end, on a 38-yard touchdown ball from quarterback Josh Love. No receiver this year has been more open on any ball, according to Next Gen Stats, and the Cowboys have been mocked for a screenshot that shows no one within 17 yards of Musgrave. How can one go from being covered by the massive Musgrave?
Possibly a more pertinent query is how a defense determines, in the first place, who the devil to cover from play to play.
With a DVOA of 27.7%, Dontayvion Wicks—who caught a touchdown on Sunday—is third in the NFL, behind only Nico Collins and Brandon Aiyuk. Wicks has participated in 15 games, making 6 starts. He has been compared to Davante Adams for his ability to generate separation off the line, and his 14.9 yards per completion rank second on the team behind only Watson’s 15.1.
Although Reed’s 9.7% DVOA isn’t as impressive as some of his teammates’, it’s still good enough to rank 29th in the league, practically tying Jordan Addison of Minnesota. Due to recurrent lower body problems, Watson has had a rough season. However, teams are aware of his performance from the previous campaign, and when he has been fit, he has demonstrated why they should be. Even a limping
Not even the tight ends have been discussed, where Luke Musgrave battled early on until ultimately maturing into the seam-stretcher he always was before to sustaining a ruptured kidney. He demonstrated against Dallas why you should never let him alone. In his absence, Tucker Kraft developed into one of the top tight ends in the league, ranking third overall in DVOA behind only Isaiah Likely and George Kittle.
Offensive players typically have to make trade-offs while deciding whether to go heavy, spread out in a 5-wide formation, or somewhere in between. Most teams will give up some degree of their ability to block or catch passes. The fact that Green Bay always fields players with talent position who are almost as excellent as their first is what makes them so challenging to stop. Additionally, he will be a much, far superior defensive back or cover linebacker to your previous one. Additionally, the quarterback does not choose sides and is very skilled at sending the ball to the man who is open or has the greatest mismatch, in contrast to more recent iterations of the Packer system headed by Aaron Rodgers. It’s amazing to observe in action, and the main
