The Green Bay Packers offense has been inconsistent for the better part of Jordan Love’s tenure, but it seems like the blame keeps falling in all the wrong places.

The biggest culprit in the Packers’ lack of offensive inspiration is their pace, and the coaching staff finally appears to be ready to do something about it.

Pedal to the Medal

One of the most frustrating parts about Green Bay Packers football these past couple of seasons has been their inability to finish games, and there’s been a lot of conversation this pre-season on how to fix that.

A couple of weeks ago, head coach Matt LaFleur emphasized a renewed focus on letting Jordan Love “cook” in 2026, and I think that commitment, as well as pace of play, are going to be critical to the season’s success.

The only problem?

That’s going to require a big change in philosophy.

When push comes to shove, the Packers play a very conservative style of football.

For a team that has an undeniably top ten quarterback in Jordan Love, Green Bay is remarkably run-heavy.

That’s not to say that they don’t have talent in the backfield, because they absolutely do, but moving forward, this offense will only be as good as the stable of receiving weapons that we’ve built around QB1.

On paper, Christian Watson, Matthew Golden, Jayden Reed, and Tucker Kraft are one of the most fearsome foursome’s in the NFL, but at times, the Packers’ own preconceptions can dampen their potential.

Last season, the team was bottom five in the NFL in passing play percentage at 52.31%, and it often felt like you could predict Matt LaFleur’s play-calling from the comfort of your couch.

In many games, we saw the offense struggle to get off the ground in the first half, and the coaching staff’s inability to simply trust in the pass game was a huge reason for that.

The Packers were also top ten in first down run percentage in addition to their lack of throwing, which combined to create a lot of rinse and repeat sequences.

As a result, the Green Bay Packers were one of the NFL’s slowest teams in terms of pace, and while that can work for some, like the Patriots, who made a Super Bowl appearance last year, it’s simply not the answer for this squad.

When you take several drives to get through your opening script, like Green Bay often seemed to last season, you’re going to pay the price, both strategically and on the scoreboard.

The vanilla nature of the play selection becomes predictable, and not consistently supporting a defense that is generating a stop on 77% of the opponent’s first quarter drives makes the margin for error become razor-thin throughout the rest of the game.

That will only be more pronounced to begin 2026.

Without Micah Parsons, the defense is going to be what it is until at least week six, and in that time, Green Bay needs to figure out how to better generate consistent scoring support.

If they want to be Super Bowl contenders, they can’t be getting into dogfights with teams like Cleveland, Arizona, or Carolina, like they did last year.

That means taking more risks and keeping the foot on the gas.

The Green Bay Packers had the lowest average number of possessions per game—not including kneel downs—by any team since 1999 in 2025, and while there is certainly something to be said for the clock-management aspect of things, I think that refining the game down to the metric of pace, at least from a coaching perspective, is entirely too limiting to the team.

While long, methodical drives are certainly beneficial to wearing down defenses, and fewer offensive possessions can also work to limit the amount of time that the opponent spends with the ball, they too often led to the offense be forced to settle for field goals, which were less than automatic last year.

Rookie kicker Trey Smack proved in the preseason opener versus the Steelers that he can hit from anywhere, but it’d be nice to not have to rely on that too heavily, especially as he gets his feet wet in the NFL.

With the athleticism that now defines the Packers’ pass-catching corps, there should be more opportunity for boom or bust plays, which Green Bay seemed to lack last year unless they were in dire straights.

On all fronts, the team is better when Jordan Love is gun-slinging, and even though it creates a far more variable set of outcomes, that should be the focus heading into the regular season.

The Green Bay Packers have the potential to be a far more explosive team in 2026, and all it will take is a little leaning in.