Understandably there was some concern surrounding the Green Bay Packers' wide receiver unit entering Monday Night's game with Atlanta. With no Davante Adams or Allen Lazard, the Packers were left with Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who has had his ups and downs this season, along with the unproven Malik Taylor, Darrius Shepherd, and Reggie Begelton. 
However, unlike year's past, under Matt LaFleur, this offense is as well equipped as it's possibly ever been to handle not having two of its top receivers. 
For my Milwaukee Brewers fans out there, much like Manager Craig Counsell uses the term "out getters" when referring to his pitchers, LaFleur has "pass-catchers" rather than just receivers. In this offense that is pursuing that "illusion of complexity," as LaFleur calls it, they are running similar-looking plays from a wide variety of personnel, which keeps defenses off balance. This requires a versatile skill-set of players and that everyone is involved in the passing game. 
As we've seen under LaFleur, long gone are the days of running five wide and relying on only the receivers in the passing game. Instead, we've seen the [URL=https://www.sharpfootballstats.com/personnel-grouping-frequency.html" target="_blank]Packers' 11 personnel usage[/URL] (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WRs) go from being used 77 percent of the time in Mike McCarthy's final season to just 36 percent in 2020. Meanwhile, their 12 personnel usage (1 RB, 2 TEs, 2 WRs) is up from 16 percent to 25 percent during that same span, while the biggest jump has come in their usage of 21 personnel (2 RBs, 1 TE, 2 WRs) which has gone from one percent under McCarthy to 28 percent under LaFleur this season.
So out of these more diverse personnel groupings, along with the Green Bay Packer receivers, running backs, and tight ends, Rodgers and LaFleur have a plethora of pass-catching options to rely on. Through four games this season, Aaron Rodgers has completed at least one pass to 12 different targets, with only five of those players being receivers. Additionally, he's thrown touchdown passes to six different players, with only three of them being true wide receivers. 
While the numbers from last night's game against Atlanta are a bit inflated since there were no targets for Adams or Lazard, Rodgers was a perfect [URL=https://twitter.com/BenFennell_NFL/status/1313330141691551744" target="_blank]20/20 for 241 yards [/URL]with four touchdowns when targeting his tight ends or running backs in the passing game. This illustrates beautifully just how this offense operates. 
With all of that said, there is certainly no replacing Davante Adams or even Allen Lazard in this offense; however, with LaFleur's philosophy of getting running backs and tight ends involved in the passing game along with his ability to scheme players open, if the Packers are without one or even two of their top playmakers, it is by no means a death sentence for this unit. 
Through four weeks, the Packer offense is second in total yards per game, [URL=https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team/_/table/passing/sort/totalPointsPerGame/dir/desc" target="_blank]first in points[/URL], and second by [URL=https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/nfl/team-offense/2020" target="_blank]Football Outsiders' DVOA metric[/URL]. As always, there are a myriad of reasons behind their success, but one big contributor is that in the passing game, they rely on their pass-catchers and not only their receivers. 
 
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