By JERRY TAPP
In the Packers pre-season game versus the Redskins on August 19, the
Aaron Rodgers-led first-team offense scored in the first quarter on their
first possession. It was a 15-play, 75-yards drive with Rodgers completing a
TD pass to Martellus Bennett for the TD. The Pack went on to take a 7-3
lead at the end of the first quarter and won the game, 21-17.
Scoring in the first quarter has been an important part of the Packers game
over the past decade. Last season, the Packers scored in the first quarter in
12 of the 16 regular season games, tied for second most in the NFL (the
Patriots scored in the first quarter in 14 of their 16 games in 2016). Green
Bay was 8-4 in those games (.667 winning percentage).
NFL teams that score in the first quarter were 195-127-2 last season (.605
winning percentage).
Since Rodgers took over as the starting QB (in the 2008 season), the Packers
have scored in the first quarter in 104 games, tied for second most in the
league (New England was first on the list with 108). The Pack was 71-32-1
(.688) in those games. The league average from 2008-16 when teams scored
in the first quarter was .593.
In the last 30 games where the Packers scored in the first quarter, they are
22-8 (.733).
About The Author
Jerry Tapp is a freelance writer from Racine, WI with a major concentration on sports statistics and numbers that define sports teams and players. He began his foray into sports stats-focused writing as a regular contributor to the “Numbers” column in Inside Sports magazine in the mid-1980’s and then began writing a weekly “Stats on Tapp” column for the Racine Journal Times. That column was eventually nationally syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate. He later wrote sports stats items for the Washington Post under the “Stat of the Day” heading.
After launching his blog, www.statsontapp.com in 2011, Jerry turned his sports stats attention to sports websites. He wrote regularly for Bleacher Report, BallHyped, football.com and Heavy.com. Today he keeps busy writing weekly columns of stats-centric articles for three sports websites, Today’s Pigskin (NFL), Today’s Knuckleball (MLB) and Today’s Fastbreak (NBA), and as a monthly contributor to the Milwaukee Brewers “GameDay” publication that is distributed to fans attending games at Miller Park.
