Last year, a late-season calf injury to Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers forced coach Mike McCarthy to rely at times on the pistol formation, given the limitations on Rodgers’ mobility. McCarthy plans to use it more in 2015.
“I like the pistol,” McCarthy said in Arizona this week at the league meetings, via Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I think there’s a lot of value regardless of the injury to Aaron. I know he likes it. There’s a place for it year-round in your offense.”
The Packers wouldn’t use it as a tool for allowing Rodgers to run the read-option, but as a way to introduce more variables into the defensive effort to crack the code of the team’s tendencies.
“I liked it from a self-scout standpoint,” McCarthy said. “It gives you another self-scout variable when you’re in the gun, but you also have the tailback behind you. [There are a] lot of benefits to it.”
With a quarterback like Rodgers, it’s hard to imagine the Green Bay offense struggling in any formation. Still, look for the pistol to be a more prevalent formation for the Packers.