Stating the complete obvious, but the Green Bay Packers’ running game has reached a level of hopelessness that seems almost statistically impossible. Coming into Thursday night, the Carolina Panthers ranked a paltry 30th in EPA allowed per rush. If there was ever going to be any sort of “get right” game for the offensive line, it was going to happen against Carolina. They had just been pummeled by Tampa Bay four days earlier, facing 48 carries and allowing a 94th percentile rushing success rate to the Buccaneers.
They were tired, they were on the road, and they are a bad run defense. And it didn’t matter.
Despite starting left guard Aaron Banks returning to the lineup last night, he struggled more than anyone else. In watching all of the Packers’ 25 running back carries, I credited Banks with seven errors or lost blocks that lead to the play not working as intended (either leading to the tackle or disrupting the intended play design). That’s a rate of 28%. His fellow guard Laken Tomlinson, playing on the right side now after Banks’ return, was credited with four errors. Emergency third-string center John Williams was credited with three, including a really bad whiff near the goal line.
The tackles were better, with Belton credited for two, and Morgan’s only error involving missing the linebacker on the Jacobs toss to the left. Bo Melton managed to make two errors in a matter of three plays on the final drive, both missing his crack block (bad) and getting thrown four yards into the backfield against a defensive end (understandable for the small receiver). Of the 25 carries the Packers’ running backs had, I counted a whopping six carries where someone didn’t mess something up. The running game generally requires everyone to do their job to generate positive plays, and if you always have someone messing up, you just can’t get those four, five, or six-yard gains that you need to reliably sustain drives on the ground.
The problem wasn’t entirely isolated to the offensive line, though, even if they were the primary culprit. We also had this vision masterpiece from Marshawn Lloyd.
This may actually be the best blocked play of the entire game and Lloyd somehow manages to screw it up despite this being exactly where he is supposed to run.
Between Lloyd’s vision problems and Josh Jacobs’ complete lack of juice running the ball, the Packers got basically nothing out of their running back room even in the rare instances that things were blocked up relatively well.
Both Jacobs and Lloyd are over one yard worse than expected per carry this season, with Lloyd ranking dead last amongst qualified rushers by a truly incredible .4 yards per carry. Josh Jacobs’ number? It would rank second-worst in the NFL if he had enough carries to qualify. The Packers can’t block, and when they do block, they can’t capitalize on it because the running backs either can’t see the hole, are too slow to leverage the advantage, or go down shortly after first contact.
Matt LaFleur seems to be reaching a loss in how to get the run game going too.
And I can’t blame him. Even if the Packers bring Kevin Zeitler into the fold, that’s only one spot potentially improving. While Laken Tomlinson has been a godsend in comparison to Jacob Monk, Donovan Jennings, and Jager Burton, he’s still been extremely limited in the run game. Aaron Banks just played one of his worst career games in both the run and passing game. John Williams is holding his own, but no one is confusing him for a good center. When your best run blockers are Jordan Morgan and Anthony Belton, there’s only so much you can do. And that’s before you have running backs actively harming the run game. There’s nowhere left to run. Quite literally.
