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The Packers’ no. 1 wideout launch a brand-new team playoff receiving record against the Seahawks in the divisional round
At a Green Bay practice back in June, Aaron Rodgers was asked about the team’s no. 1 receiver, Davante Adams. Rodgers shed 169 pass attempts to Adams in 2018, one reticent of the most for any pass-catcher, but Rodgers didn’t think that was enough.
”I’d like to throw to Davante more, ” Rodgers told reporters. “He’s that open . … We’ve got to keep finding ways to get him the ball. There’s nothing erroneous with having a go-to guy who’s that dynamic and trying to find ways to get him the ball.”
With Green Bay’s season on the line against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, Adams was the only person Rodgers trusted. Adams finished with eight catches on 11 targets for 160 yards and two touchdowns. The residue of Green Bay’s team combined for eight catches on 11 targets for 83 yards and no receiving touchdowns. Adams’s 160 receiving yards were a franchise playoff record. All six members of his catches that were not touchdowns extended for first downs. Rodgers targeted Adams four times on propels that traveled more than 10 grounds, and Adams caught all four for 107 yards and two values, according to ESPN Stats& Info. Adams and running back Aaron Jones accounted for all four of Green Bay’s touchdowns, though Jones had just 66 total yards on 21 styles( 3.0 gardens per touch ). In Rodgers’s postseason interview after the game–before he started talking about drinking scotch–Rodgers mentioned how clutch Adams was throughout the game.
“He carried us on pique, ” Rodgers told Fox Sports’ Erin Andrews. “His route-running ability is incredible.”
Adams’s route-running begins with his freeing, and that was perceptible on the last of Adams’s six first-down catches. With Green Bay up 28 -2 3 and facing a third-and-8 with 2:19 left, the Packers needed a first down or they’d give the ball back to the Seahawks, “whos had” two timeouts and the two-minute warning to value the game-winning touchdown. Instead Rogers witnessed Adams, who lined up in the slot and used one of his signature jump-breaks to the outside, a mobilize he has been honing for years.
Perfect throw from Aaron Rodgers to Davante Adams … The Packers isolated Adams on rookie Ugo Amadi on a fade street out of the slot. pic.twitter.com/ 7ztxA3dp0P
— Samuel Gold (@ SamuelRGold) January 13, 2020
The 32 -yard gain allowed Packers tight outcome( and former Seahawks tighten resolve) Jimmy Graham to ice the game with a first down three comedies later. Graham, who finished with three catches for 49 gardens, was the only other Packer to have more than one catch.
“Tonight reminds me of the connection that Jordy[ Nelson] and I had for so many years where there was some unspoken things that we have been able to do without even communicating nothing about it “ Rodgers said in his postgame news conference. “Davante represented three or four movements like that tonight, so that was pretty fun.”
The prettiest play of their game came on Adams’s 40 -yard touchdown catch. Up 21 -1 0 midway through the third quarter, Green Bay had the chunk on second-and-6 simply to the left of their logo at midfield. The Packers had three tight goals, one running back, and Adams on the field as the only receiver, a heavy pattern suggesting they were going to run. Rodgers made the grab, turned left, forgery the handoff to running back Aaron Jones, and bootlegged right. He encountered Adams along the left sideline for the long touchdown.
. @Tae15Adams time comes open. 40 -yard TD on the hurl from @AaronRodgers12! #GoPackGo #NFLPlayoffs: #SEAvsGB on FOX: NFL app // Yahoo Sport appWatch free on mobile: https :// t.co /8 lgzlFahDc pic.twitter.com/ 0xS53XExYf
— NFL (@ NFL) January 13, 2020
Adams, starting from the left side of the line of scrimmage, goes upfield and then trims across to the right side. At first it looks a lot like a classic play-action pass that anyone who plays Madden would recognize, with Adams cutting penetrating throughout the middle of the field. Except that isn’t what the Packers did. Time as Seattle’s supporters believed they recognized the play, Adams cut back to the left, where Rodgers reached Adams in mid-air over the 20 on the left of Seahawks territory. Adams acre, stopped, and then outran the overpursuing Seahawks followers to the other side of the field. He ran in the touchdown on the other side of the hash marks from where he caught it. His zig-zag( serpentine !) play is clearest on the NFL Next Gen Stat tracking play expending the tracking chips embedded in players’ shoulder pads.
Davante Adams has been Aaron Rodgers’ go-to receiver tonight, accounting for 68% of the @packers crew breeze gardens and this 40 -yard TD. @tae15adams has had little trouble getting open–Adams has had 3+ yards of breakup on 7 of eight targets( season-high 88% ). #SEAvsGB | #GoPackGo pic.twitter.com/ JgeMAXTebj
— Next Gen Stats (@ NextGenStats) January 13, 2020
Packers head coach and offensive player-caller Matt LaFleur came innovative with not only Adams’s directions downfield, but likewise with what happens behind the line of scrimmage. On the first movement of the second quarter, Rodgers motioned receiver Jake Kumerow, who began sprinting from right of the line to the left. At the cracking the Packers’ entire offense forged a run to the left except for Adams, who sprinted from the left to the right. Rodgers bootlegged and flung the ball to Adams, who caught the projectile just behind the line of scrimmage but was already running at full speed, and Adams passed for an 18 -yard gain.
here’s how Matt LaFleur impedes coming Davante Adams open. ticklish pre-snap motion and play-action freezes SEA safety McDougald exactly long enough for Adams, running away from CB Tre Flowers, to create space for an easy 15 -yard gain pic.twitter.com/ B3RvFQqVyD
— Christian D’Andrea (@ TrainIsland) January 13, 2020
Adams is perhaps the most underrated receiver in the tournament. He is rarely discussed alongside Michael Thomas, DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones, or Odell Beckham Jr. as the league’s best or most talented, but he is on their tier. Adams missed October with a gras toe injury, so Rodgers was not able to target him 170 -plus times like he’d hoped. But after Adams returned, he retook his locate as one of the NFL’s elite. He held his own franchise record for catches in video games( 13) when the Packers beat the Vikings to secure the NFC North on Monday Night Football in Week 16. He has 100 -plus receiving grounds, a touchdown, or both in seven of his last-place eight tournaments. He had 578 receiving grounds and five receiving touchdowns in his final seven games of the regular season, sixth most and bind for second most in the tournament respectively in that span. Now Adams is violating Packers records in the suspend cold at Lambeau, peaking at the perfect era.
“This is where it gets really fun, ” Rodgers said after video games. “There’s only four squads left. We’re one of them, and we’ve got a legitimate chance.”
The last meter the Packers toy the 49 ers, a 37 -8 San Francisco victory in November, Adams caught precisely seven members of 12 targets for 43 gardens and a composition. Expect Rodgers and LaFleur to find more ways to get Adams the ball.
“Obviously, ” said Rodgers, “we’re gonna need another big week out of him next week.”
Read more: theringer.com
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