The tundra will not yet be frozen, and the snow may or may not fall. Weather conditions may not necessarily require a high dosage of running the ball, but don’t expect to see the same pass-wacky game that saw the Packers and Saints combine for over 550 yards through the air on Monday Night.
Coach Mike McCarthy will tell you, as he has told you all year, that the Packers need to run the ball more. This was a Packers team that came into the season expecting to pride itself on shutdown defense and a running game that would set up the pass. Instead, the defense has been inconsistent,, and Aaron Rodgers has carried this team on his shoulders, injured or not, throughout the season,
“I think we have definitely improved over where we were the first month of the season, so I'm very, very happy about that,” McCarthy said on Wednesday. “The production has been good when we get the attempts, so I think we're definitely headed down the right road as far as the way we want to play this time of year.”
The problem has been the attempts. Ryan Grant and Brandon Jackson have combined for 249 attempts on the year, with Grant getting a bulk of the load with 216 carries. Grant is on pace for 314 carries on his own, which is a reasonable number that will keep a running back fresh in the short- and long-term. Jackson, however, is only projected to have 48 rushing attempts on the year. Throw in a few called plays for Aaron Rodgers to run the ball, and the Packers are only looking at about 375 rushing attempts on the year, which would amount to about 40 percent of the called plays. Now is as good a time as ever to beef up the rushing numbers with an early commitment to the running game. The Panthers’ average rush defense (17th in the league) provides the perfect opportunity for the Packers to see where they’re at with their ground attack.
On the flip-side, the Packers also need to stop the run. Green Bay is on the bottom third of the league in terms of run defense, and it has been an Achilles heel that has seen Adrian Peterson, Michael Turner, Marion Barber and even Dominic Rhodes gain substantial yardage in games at Lambeau Field. The Packers face a two-headed monster in the backfield this week when the Panthers bring DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart to town.
Williams, in his third year in the league, has rushed for 883 yards and seven scores. He has really turned it on of late, having rushed for 100-plus yards in the last four contests. His 5.1 yards per carry is second only to Brandon Jacobs of the New York Giants for running backs that have at least 100 carries on the year.
The other half of the Carolina backfield is rookie running back Jonathan Stewart. While Williams has gotten more carries this year, Stewart has been an above-average substitute, running for 528 yards on 123 carries for six touchdowns. Plus, at 5-10 and 235 pounds, he is not an easy back to bring down, especially late in games.
Especially alarming is that the two running backs have excelled against porous run defenses. The tandem’s best games have come against the league’s current 12th, 21st, 29th, 31st and 32nd run defenses. Coming into week 13, the Packers are currently 26th in the NFL in terms of stopping the run. If the Packers can stop the run, the defense should be able to shut down and frustrate Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme, an average quarterback who is having a below-average year. If not, it will be a long day at Lambeau for Aaron Rodgers, who will likely have to bring his team from behind once again.
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