GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The calf injury that dogged Aaron Rodgers late last season might have been good for one thing: It showed Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy how effective the pistol formation can be in his offense.

Before Rodgers strained his left calf muscle in the Week 16 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, McCarthy almost never employed that formation, which puts the quarterback in variation of the shotgun but closer to the line of scrimmage than in a true shotgun formation.

According to ESPN Stats & Information, 88.9 percent of the Packers' use of the pistol formation last season came after Rodgers' injury. It helped alleviate the strain on Rodgers' injury because he rarely had to backpedal like he would from under center.

"I like the pistol," McCarthy told reporters this week at the NFL annual meetings in Phoenix. "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."

Use of the pistol in the NFL has increased as more teams have used the read-option as part of their offense. In 2011, NFL teams used the pistol on a combined 56 total plays the entire season, according to ESPN Stats & Info. That number increased to 535 in 2012 and then jumped to 1,641 in 2013. Last season, teams used it on a combined 1,159 snaps.

"I would say this is about the third year it’s been part of our pace and installation," McCarthy said. "Really when we moved to it exclusively there at the end of the year it really wasn't a change for us. I liked it from a self-scout standpoint. It gives you another self-scout variable when you’re in the gun, but you also have the tailback behind you."

Running back Eddie Lacy seemed to like it, too. His yards-per-carry average over the last four games, including playoffs, stayed nearly the same (4.5) as it was the first 14 games of the season (4.6).

Unlike in the shotgun, when the running back is either right in front of the quarterback or next to him, the pistol formation allows the back to play from behind the quarterback, thus giving him a running start like he would get on a play with the quarterback under center.

"The obvious thing it does is it allows him to run from the dot, from his natural position if the quarterback were under center," Packers quarterbacks coach Alex Van Pelt said late last season. "So a lot of the tracks and everything remains the same for the backs from the pistol as they would from under center."