Say this for the Green Bay Packers and defensive coordinator Joe Barry: he has been throwing every idea he has out there in the past few weeks. Over the team’s four-game winning streak heading into week 18, the team had used a number of different alignments and moved to more two-deep safety looks with man coverage, and they brought out another interesting wrinkle on Sunday night against the Detroit Lions.
That wrinkle is a nickel personnel grouping known as “Mint,” which pulls an edge rusher off the field instead of a defensive lineman to bring on an extra defensive back.