Finally after 13 weeks of watching the Packer’s offense go from average to struggling to sputtering to dead, Mike McCarthy took back the play calling and came to Sunday’s game with his over-sized laminated menu of plays ready to order up a hot bowl of whoopass for the Dallas Cowboys’ defense. I don’t want to come off as over-reacting, but there were several obvious (at least obvious to me) differences in the way the offense looked, performed and executed. I’d like to share them with you.
Let me first make the disclaimer that I was one of those on the get McCarthy OFF the play calling duties last year. A person might be tempted to call me a hypocrite, but I don’t think that would be accurate. I believe it took McCarthy to watch and have to endure the poor play calling of someone else for him to realize some of the same poor play calling of his own.
The first two things that jumped out for me go hand in hand. I saw more run plays called with Rodgers under center and Lacy running between the tackles. Not a whole lot of shotgun pitches to the edge. That’s just not the best way to use Lacy. Starks has a little more shimmy and shake to him, so he should be the one they test the outside defense with and that’s what McCarthy did for the most part.
Halfback screen plays and slants. Call the FBI and take their faces off the milk cartons. The Packers have found their two long lost staples of the offense. The screen on the Starks scoring pass was perfection. More quick hitters over the middle + less bubble screens lead to fewer momentum killing negative plays and kept drives in manageable down and distances.
Only one time out used to prevent a delay of game, which I think was Aaron trying to get the defense to jump more so than running out of time. It also looked like the plays called were more in sync with what was going on the field. It appeared that Aaron need to check out of plays or alter calls far less this game.
Let’s face it, the offense looked better and performed better. Is it because McCarthy was calling the plays or were they just motivated to execute better? Time will tell, but until then, if it was broke and you did something that looks like it fixed it, do it again!
Badger State Sports 