[size=42]Jets prepare for 'chaos' of Packers' up-tempo offense, which should move faster this week[/size]
By Darryl Slater
FLORHAM PARK – Thursday is the final full day of practice for NFL teams, the time when they fine tune their game plans for the coming Sunday. But Jets coach Rex Ryan wants this Thursday to bring “organized chaos” for his defense.
Ryan’s goal, when taken at face value, seems counterintuitive, and a potential step backward in game preparations. For Ryan, though, it is all part of readying his defensive players for what they will face Sunday at Green Bay, whose no-huddle, up-tempo offense can leave defenses confused and scrambling, even as the ball is snapped into the hands of Aaron Rodgers – one of this generation’s finest quarterbacks.
Ryan hopes to get the chaos out of the way during Thursday’s practice. So he will do what he did last year before the Jets faced the Patriots fast-paced offense. When the scout team offense faces the starting defense in practice, Ryan won’t send in his defensive call until the offensive players have lined up.
He would never send in a call this late during a game, of course. By forcing his defenders into an exaggerated, chaotic situation during practice, he thinks they might be better equipped to handle it Sunday at Lambeau Field.
“That way, when you get in a game, it’s no big deal,” Ryan said.
The Packers hope to run 75 plays per game – faster than they’ve ever been under ninth-year coach Mike McCarthy, who said in the offseason that he wanted to make a concerted effort to increase his offense’s tempo.
Green Bay has gradually increased its pace in recent years. In 2010, when the Packers won the Super Bowl, they ran 62.5 plays per game. That number dipped to 61.8 in 2011. The Packers leaned more on no-huddle plays in the next two years, during which they averaged 65.1 and 67.1 plays per game – 11th in the NFL last year.
More NFL teams are moving faster these days, especially franchises that have elite quarterbacks like Rodgers. In 2012, Tom Brady and the Patriots led the league with 74.4 plays per game. In 2013, they were second, with 71.1, and Denver and Peyton Manning topped the list, with 72.3 plays per game.
Taking into account offensive time of possession, the Patriots last season ran 2.34 plays per minute of possession time. The Packers ran 2.17. The Jets’ defense got experience against this break-neck pace while splitting their meetings with the Patriots in 2013.
In a loss at New England, the Patriots ran 2.46 plays per minute. They were even faster while losing at the Jets in overtime – 2.96 plays per minute – though New England possessed the ball for just 23 minutes and 40 seconds of that game, so it wasn’t a totally exhausting day for the Jets’ defense. But games against frenetically paced teams can tax defenders’ bodies and minds.
“Everybody has to be in shape and know exactly what you’re doing,” said Jets nose tackle Damon Harrison. “When you get tired and you’re in better shape, you don’t resort back to old, bad habits. If you’re a guy that’s in shape, the quick tempo shouldn’t bother you that much. It’s always tough for defensive linemen when guys are running the hurry-up offense. But I think we’ll be fine.”
In the Packers’ 36-16 season-opening loss at Seattle, their tempo was limited. Green Bay ran just 57 plays – 2.14 per minute. The extreme noise level in Seattle “slowed their tempo down drastically,” said Jets coach Rex Ryan. As the Packers return home this week, to a friendlier environment for clear communication at the line of scrimmage, Ryan and his players expect the pace to quicken.
“Them being at home, I’m sure it’ll be a lot easier for them to really get into it,” Harrison said.
Rodgers is the sort of sharp-minded quarterback who perfectly fits a no-huddle offense. The NFL first saw this approach in earnest with quarterback Jim Kelly and the Bills’ K-Gun offense in the early 1990s. Like Kelly then, Rodgers is now in the prime of his career. Rodgers, 30, is beginning his seventh year as the Packers’ starter. Over the past five seasons, he has completed 66.5 percent of his passes for 159 touchdowns and 38 interceptions. The Packers went 52-19 over that span in games he started.
A broken collarbone last season limited Rodgers to nine games, and prevented the Packers’ offense from getting a full season with him running the no-huddle system. Rodgers is responsible for calling most plays at the line of scrimmage, after he surveys the defensive alignment and determines how best to attack it. Being able to see the defense, and then call a play, gives no-huddle teams a better chance of using the optimal play. Or at least that is the goal of this increasingly popular approach.
“It seems like there are more full-time teams that have a higher pace,” said Jets linebacker Jason Babin, an 11th-year veteran.
Babin said Rodgers often does not approach the line and immediately snap the ball. Usually, he surveys the defense, alerts his teammates of the play call and then gets the snap. This gives the Jets’ defense at least some time to adjust and move around, to counter whatever motioning and formation alterations Rodgers calls for.
“For this defense, (pre-snap shifting) is something we’re accustomed to, because there’s a lot of communication, a lot of moving parts,” Babin said. “It won’t be something necessarily that is out of the realm of what we do normally.”
The challenge, Babin said, is trying to determine when Rodgers will take his time at the line, after hurrying to get there, and when he will want the snap instantly after lining up.
“It’s a feel, like: Are they really hurrying up? Or are they trying to look like they’re hurrying up?” Babin said.
This is the sort of game – the sort of tempo – that will test Ryan’s assertion that his team is deeper this season. Babin, for instance, was signed on the eve of training camp to provide pass-rushing depth, as the backup rush outside linebacker behind Quinton Coples. Might this be a game in which Babin sees more than just occasional, situational action, in order to keep Coples fresh?
Defensive substituting can be a challenge against an offense that doesn’t want to substitute a lot, in order to run plays in rapider succession – something McCarthy has stated as a mission. But Ryan expects the Jets to “roll guys in quite a bit” this week.
No, the Jets don’t have to visit Lambeau in the frigid days of December. Ryan said he expects the Packers’ offensive tempo might slow by then, at least in snowy games. The first few weeks of the season, though, are ripe for no-huddle offenses to try to exhaust defenses, Ryan said.
“I think a lot of times, you see it even more so earlier in the season than you do late, because the (players’) conditioning sometimes weighs in,” he said. “It’s hot, humid. We pride ourselves on being in shape. We know it’s going to be a challenge that way.”
Jason Wilde 
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