We’ve been tracking the Packers’ pace of play for a while. I wrote about it a couple of times last year,including this midseason piece, and our Paul Noonan was on the case all the way back in 2020.
Generally speaking, under Matt LaFleur the Packers have run a pretty slow-paced offense, snapping the ball relatively few times per game even as the rest of the league runs fewer and fewer plays right along with them.
There are many reasons for the glacially slow pace in Green Bay and across the league.
Motion and pre-snap shifts were once an occasional tool but now feature into virtually every offensive play. Teams soak up more and more of the play clock trying to force the defense into tipping its hand, all the while players are moving around like clockwork getting into just the right spot before the quarterback finally agrees to get things started.
But this year, the bottom has truly fallen out in Green Bay, and it’s not actually for any of the above reasons. It’s because the Packers just can’t stay on the field on offense.
The Packers have averaged just 58.75 plays per game across their first four games, more than three full plays below the league average of 61.79.
The Packers are averaging just 5.5 plays per drive (26th most in the league and the fewest of the Matt LaFleur era) and are tied for sixth in the league with 12 three-and-out drives.
I don’t intend to argue here that “playing fast” or running more plays would fix the Packers’ offense, but this is just pointing out that the Packers’ relatively few plays per game is a symptom of how badly the offense is playing overall.
The Packers’ best offensive performance — to a point — came in Week 1, when the Packers really only had two of their first eight drives stall out before their failed fourth down attempt turned things around for the Vikings. I think we can largely set that game aside.
But in Week 2, the Packers’ opened the game with three straight three-and-out drives and ran no more than three offensive plays on five of their first seven possessions. Their eighth drive ended with a fumble on the first play. It’s easy to see how they found themselves in a hole against the Jets.
Week 3 was much the same. The Packers had four straight drives in the first half that ended after four plays or fewer, and the Falcons took advantage of a gassed Packers defense by reeling off four consecutive drives of their own where they never ran fewer than seven plays. They scored two touchdowns and a field goal in the process, taking advantage of a gassed Packers defense.
The Packers finally cleaned things up a bit in Week 4, where they never had consecutive three-and-out drives at any point. Unsurprisingly, this was one of their better offensive games, which doesn’t say much, but we’ll take what we can get.
Again, this isn’t meant as an argument that the Packers should just find a way to run more plays, but rather another data point for how the offense has struggled to this point. When we start seeing more sustained drives and fewer dead-on-arrival possessions, we’ll know things are heading in the right direction. Until then, the Packers’ offense is going to be spending more time on the sideline than anyone would like.
