We covered this a little bit last week, but I wanted to give you an update on an interesting phenomenon that I’ve found: The Green Bay Packers’ rushing game basically plays up to their opponent’s season-long
averages. This is all to say, we might have the most meh run game in the league, even though the Packers have gone out of their way to get big — not just in the backfield or the offensive line, but also at receiver — to ensure that the team had an advantage on the ground.
Obviously, running back Josh Jacobs’ status going into Week 12, which is questionable at this point, will have an impact on Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings, but I just want to take a look at this season-long trend.
The graph above shows the run defense efficiency of the teams that the Packers have faced this year (Rush EPA Per Attempt in 2025) plotted against the Packers’ actual rushing efficiency in their matchups (Rush EPA Per Attempt vs Packers). If these two were perfectly correlated, this chart would be dots along a 45-degree angle. The data almost gets there, but Green Bay did underperform (to varying degrees) against the last three teams with at least average run defenses (Philadelphia Eagles, Carolina Panthers and Pittsburgh Steelers) that the team has faced.
Why did the Packers have success against the New York Giants, Dallas Cowboys and Cincinnati Bengals? It probably had nothing to do with Green Bay! Those are just the three worst rushing defenses in the league. The table below ranks the best to worst run defenses in the NFL right now, based on expected points added (EPA).
Outside of these three terrible run-stoppers (the 29th-ranked Buffalo Bills are about three times better than the New York Giants this year in stopping the run, for perspective), the Packers are just 4-3 in the record book this year. They don’t get these teams to end the year, and are in a position where they must finish better than at least one of the Detroit Lions, San Francisco 49ers and Chicago Bears to make the postseason in the NFC. Going .500-ish probably won’t cut it.
Every single opponent that Green Bay faces for the rest of the season is in the negatives in terms of EPA per rush attempt surrendered, meaning that the average carry is a win for the defense. That’s not good, when the Packers have mostly performed to their opponent’s season-long averages.
Look for Green Bay’s run game to continue to be a factor down the stretch of the 2025 season. Hopefully, they catch fire and figure something out. As of right now, though, they’re staring down the long barrel of some second and long runs, setting up hero ball time for quarterback Jordan Love on third downs. On paper, this is how the end of the Packers’ season should play out.
