Anatomy of a Play: How the Buccaneers fooled Aaron Rodgers for a pick-six

Aaron Rodgers came into Sunday’s game against the Buccaneers’ defense playing as well as he ever had in his first-ballot Hall of Fame career. Through Green Bay’s first four games and five weeks, Rodgers had thrown 13 touchdown passes and no interceptions. He’d been sacked just three times, and pressured on just 31 of his 146 dropbacks. Finally and firmly committed to the structure created by second-year head coach and offensive play-designer Matt LaFleur’s system, Rodgers was having a renaissance season in which he firmly put himself in the MVP discussion. The 4-0 Packers were averaging 38 points pert game, the most in the NFL.

And then, Rodgers and the Packers went up against Tampa Bay’s defense, led by Todd Bowles, and it all fell apart. Rodgers completed just 16 of 35 passes for 160 yards, no touchdowns, and two interception. His quarterback rating of 35.4 was the third-worst of his career, and he’s only had one other game in which he threw two interceptions and no touchdowns — December 14, 2014 against the Bills in a 21-13 loss. This 38-10 embarrassment may have been worse.

How did the Buccaneers do it? With creative coverages and front packages designed by Bowles and his staff. This was completely evident on the interception Rodgers threw to cornerback Jamel Dean with 12:50 left in the first half, and the Packers up, 10-0. Obviously, Green Bay would score no further points after this as Bowles further unleashed his defensive game plan.

The first thing you should notice about this play is how the Buccaneers made the Packers wait to decipher which defensive linemen were standing up, and which had their hands on the ground. Bowles did a brilliant job from snap to snap switching this up, which made it very hard for Rodgers and his linemen to agree on protections. Rodgers was sacked five times and suffered 13 quarterback hits in this game, but it wasn’t just the pressure that was the problem — Rodgers was also confounded by dropping defenders and blitzing defenders from difficult angles. This caused Rodgers to doubt his short and intermediate reads as you will rarely see him do.

“We were able to get after Aaron,” head coach Bruce Arians said. “Once we got the running game shut down it was just a matter of getting after him, and Todd did a great job with multiple looks and coverages.”

On the interception in question, Dean said after the game that when receiver Davante Adams motioned from bunch right to stack left, he understood where Rodgers was likely to throw the ball — to his favorite receiver.

“When I saw the formation and then how everything started to develop, I’m like, ‘I have to make this play because I know what’s coming.'” Dean concluded. “Then, once I saw him throw it, I was like yeah, it’s mine.”

The Buccaneers had five defenders at the line of scrimmage pre-snap with what appeared to be Cover-0 behind — aggressive blitz coverage with no safety help to the deep third. It was a blitz, but not the one Rodgers expected. Safety Antoine Winfield Jr. and linebacker Lavonte David dropped into coverage from the line, and cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting blitzed from the defensive left side. Meanwhile, safeties Mike Edwards and Jordan Whitehead dropped from that alleged pre-snap Cover-0 look to two deep out of Bowles’ big nickel package, and Dean was more than ready to jump Adams’ route.

“I think we needed a kick in the ass a little bit,” Rodgers said after the loss. “There’s a little bit of wake-up to stop feeling ourselves so much and get back to the things that got us to this position. I think this would be, unfortunately but fortunately, something we can really grow from.”

That may be true, but the bigger story than the Packers possibly overlooking Tampa Bay’s defense is that Tampa Bay’s defense has become something that no opponent should ever overlook.