Over the last month-plus of football, the Green Bay Packers offense has found very little success. However, one aspect where they’ve been somewhat effective is when they enter hurry-up mode.
In the first half of the Packers’ last five games, they have been outscored 73-9. Overall, this season, they are averaging a measly 4.9 yards per play, which ranks 24th in the NFL. However, in the second half of games, Green Bay actually leads all of football, scoring 15.9 points in the third and fourth quarters on average.
It’s in that second half when we’ve seen the Packers rely the most on their hurry-up offense–often out of necessity in an effort to conserve time because they have been down by multiple scores.
“I think we have a good feel for the two-minute play,” said Jordan Love on Wednesday. “We have so many reps with those plays we run in two-minute. We do it every week in practice—we rep two-minute situations. I think everybody has a really good feel for those plays, understanding where to go with the ball and things like that. I think also once we get going, get that play started, getting rid of the ball fast, we kind of get that rhythm that we need.”
Finding a rhythm is not something that this Packers’ offense has been able to do as of late, especially early on in games. Too often, either penalties, an inability to run the ball, or some other early down blunder has put them behind the sticks and in obvious passing situations and not allowed them to truly get into their offense or the game plan they’ve put together for the week.
For Green Bay’s young contingent of pass catchers, there definitely seems to be an added comfortability when playing more quickly. It also puts added stress on the defense by not allowing them to substitute, get their play calls in, or disguise coverages–something that has given this young offense fits this season. In general, it simplifies what the defense is doing and allows Green Bay to be the one doing the dictating.
“For the defense,” added Love, “it’s hard for defenses when the offense is playing fast. It limits the amount of calls they have. It puts a little bit more pressure on them. I would say, for the most part, it’s that rhythm. Once we get into two-minute, we get the ball rolling and the confidence, and we just get into that positive rhythm.”
The two-minute, hurry-up offense is supposed to be a tool in the offense’s tool belt. It isn’t meant to be the entire offense’s identity. Matt LaFleur mentioned following the Vikings game that the offense spent about half the game in two-minute mode and that what they worked on all week from a game plan perspective was not able to be fully utilized because they were living in third-and-long situations and quickly trailing once again.
However, while going hurry-up won’t be a cure-all for all of the Packers offensive woes, for an offense that can’t seem to find even a little bit of success in the first half, perhaps there is something to be said for starting the game in hurry-up as a way to at least move the chains early on and potentially put themselves in scoring position so that Green Bay isn’t immediately playing from behind.
At this point, given how the last five games have gone, why not?
“We’ve kicked around basically everything.” said offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich on Thursday. “The hurry-up stuff, it does dumb defenses down to some degree when you’re going fast. They can’t make their calls and disguise and all of that. That’s definitely some things we’ve talked about, using tempo to get it going to get these guys playing fast.”