A method and apparatus for executing instructions. The method includes receiving a first load instruction and a second load instruction. The method also includes issuing the first load instruction and the second load instruction to a cascaded delayed execution pipeline unit having at least a first execution pipeline and a second execution pipeline, wherein the second execution pipeline executes an instruction in a common issue group in a delayed manner relative to another instruction in the common issue group executed in the first execution pipeline. The method also includes accessing a cache by executing the first load instruction and the second load instruction. A delay between execution of the first load instruction and the second load instruction allows the cache to complete the access with the first load instruction before beginning the access with the second load instruction.