Systems and methods are described herein for processing data packets. An example network adapter may include a network interface operatively coupled to a communication network and a packet processing circuitry operatively coupled to the network interface. The packet processing circuitry may receive, via the network interface, a message; retrieve, via a packet processing circuitry, a work queue element (WQE) index identifying a position of a WQE in a receive queue; determine that the message is associated with a small payload; process the message without consuming the WQE; receive, via the network interface, a subsequent message; and process the subsequent message using the WQE. In this way, the systems and methods describe herein reduce the latency in processing of the data packets.