Packers Snap Counts: Lazard doesn’t miss a beat

The Green Bay Packers were without their best receiver on the field Sunday night, as Davante Adams was forced to watch from the sidelines in New Orleans after suffering a hamstring injury in Week 2.

But it certainly didn’t look like it.

Allen Lazard filled in naturally as Aaron Rodgers’ top target in the passing game, having a career day with six receptions for 146 yards and a score in the Packers’ 37-30 victory over the Saints. It was Lazard’s second career 100-yard performance.

Early in the second quarter, Rodgers dropped a dime in the hands of Lazard for a 48-yard diving catch, which brought the ball inside the 10-yard line and set up Lazard’s five-yard touchdown grab two plays later. However, that 48-yard reception wouldn’t be a career milestone for long.

On the third play from scrimmage of the second half and Green Bay facing a third-and-10, Rodgers targeted Lazard again. The third-year receiver hauled in the 43-yard pass and ran it 29 yards closer to the goal line for a career-best 72-yard catch.

Going DEEP to @AllenLazard!

A 72-yard gain!#GBvsNO | #GoPackGo

? NBC
? https://t.co/2UxGSiVlvn pic.twitter.com/xhNfXMsZQr

— Green Bay Packers (@packers) September 28, 2020

And how about another key play? Facing third-and-3 from the Saints’ 15-yard line with under four minutes to play, Lazard drew a Janoris Jenkins pass interference penalty to move the ball to the one-yard line, which eventually resulted in a one-yard score by tight end Robert Tonyan to make it 37-27.

Lazard made all of those plays because, well, he was rarely on the sidelines. The Iowa State product was on the field for 59 of Green Bay’s 62 offensive snaps Sunday, adding up to a career-high 95% clip.

Marquez Valdes-Scantling, by the way, played 92% of the offensive snaps but hauled in just one of his four targets for five yards.

The 59 offensive plays were the second-most snaps Lazard has seen in his career, trailing Week 17 last season against Detroit in which Lazard played 67 of the Packers’ 88 plays – a busy day for the offense.

Other notes from Sunday’s snap counts:

— The Packers lost their leading tackler Christian Kirksey in the second quarter. Ty Summers, a seventh-round pick by Green Bay in 2019, filled in for Kirksey at linebacker and saw his first career defensive snaps. (Summers spent all of last season on special teams.) He finished the game with nine tackles — six solo — while playing in 72% of the defensive snaps.

— Green Bay signed defensive tackle Billy Winn to the practice squad Sept. 16 and promoted him to the gameday roster before Sunday’s contest. Winn hadn’t appeared in an NFL game in three seasons. His last game was Jan. 1, 2017 – 1,365 days ago. Winn played six snaps and recorded a pass defensed.

— Second-round pick A.J. Dillon did not appear in a single snap. Running back Aaron Jones played 71% of the snaps, followed by Jamaal Williams (31%).

— Kingsley Keke, a 2019 fifth-round pick, had a game to remember. While appearing in 46% of the snaps, Keke tallied two tackles, one tackle for loss, two quarterback hits, one forced fumble, one pass defensed and two sacks — the first two sacks of his career.