Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur said a substitution error early in Friday’s season-opening loss to the Philadelphia Eagles cost the team a touchdown.
After a tiny second-down run by Josh Jacobs, the Packers tried to catch the Eagles on transition before a 3rd-and-6. Jordan Love got his team to the line of scrimmage and made a play before the Eagles could end the transition, creating a free play that he used to pass to Jayden Reed down the field for a 38-yard touchdown pass.
The problem? The Packers incorrectly tried to replace a pre-snap, so compensating penalties for 12 players on the field negated the touchdown.
LaFleur credited the mistake as part of a series of errors made by the staff in communicating with the Eagles.
“It was evident on the first drive when we were called with 12 down, trying to hurry up and catch them with 12 down. We can’t make a substitution in that situation,” LaFleur said Monday. “We’re trying to stick with our subs. But we’ll have to see the huddle. There were some communication issues on the headsets.”
By rule, the defense has time to adjust the substitution if the offense changes personnel, so the officials shouldn’t have even allowed the Packers to pass the ball. If the Packers had kept their backups, the offense would have had 11 on the field and the free-play touchdown would have counted.
The balancing penalties ruined what could have been a signature play early in the season for the Packers. Love caught the Eagles, who were rotating in a different personnel group, snapped the ball in time to create a free play and hit Reed on a vertical route, and Reed forced a fumble in the open field for a touchdown. The 38-yard score would have given the Packers a 7-0 lead with a little less than 12 minutes left in the first quarter. Instead, Love and Christian Watson failed to connect on the play after the balancing penalties, and the Packers kicked the ball away.
LaFleur also said the coaching message was not properly conveyed to Keisean Nixon to stay in the end zone on the final kickoff return. Nixon made an awkward catch about six yards into the end zone and still threw the ball away, costing the Packers field position and time.
“Obviously, it wasn’t communicated clearly what we wanted to do in that situation. We never want, if the kick is seven yards deep and we have to dive to catch it … it’s a timing thing. You get the ball on the 30-yard line. We were just trying to get into Hail Mary range, and those are precious seconds. Obviously, I wasn’t sure what we wanted, so it won’t happen again.”
