You’re not imagining things; The Packers take forever to snap the ball

If you’ve ever yelled at your television to “snap the ball,” you’re going to want to give this data a look.

Pro Football Focus’ Timo Riske took a look at the pace of play differences that offenses have operated at under different coaches. It should come to the surprise of no Green Bay Packers fans that head coach Matt LaFleur and former head coach Mike McCarthy had the slowest pace, by 3.6 and 2.2 seconds beyond expected, of any of the active head coaches in the NFL.

In his own words, Riske stated, “LaFleur and McCarthy being top 2 is probably a[n] [Aaron] Rodgers thing.”

To put the pace of play of LaFleur and McCarthy into perspective, the only coach who varied from expectation as much as them was former Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers head coach Chip Kelly, who was known for his rapid-pace offensive style of football that came from the college game. The second-fastest offensive coach behind Kelly is actually McCarthy’s current offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, which means McCarthy’s pace of play was likely much slower in Green Bay than when looking at his overall career, which already ranks second-slowest.

Aaron Rodgers is a great quarterback coming off of back-to-back MVP seasons, but that doesn’t mean he’s above his own flaws. Things have to be on his terms, as we’ve seen over the last few years, which means he might bicker with teammates post-snap about slight route variations or hold onto the snap until the last possible moment to get a tip from the defense.

The next time you see an edge rusher teleport into the backfield because the Packers held the ball until there was :01 on the play clock on third down, just know your frustration is justified. You’d absolutely take the good with the bad with Rodgers’ game, but the way he lingers at the line of scrimmage isn’t normal or particularly helpful.