419 Rushing Yards and a 4-2-1 Record: Green Bay Is Winning With a Run Game That Barely Exists

The Green Bay Packers are 4-2-1 and, by the rawest measure available, the worst running team in football. Through seven games they have 419 rushing yards on 144 attempts — 2.9 yards per carry. No other offense in the league is under 487 yards, and the gap between Green Bay and the next-worst team (Cincinnati, 487 yards at 3.6 a pop) is nearly as large as the gap between the Bengals and the team sitting seventh from the bottom.

That is the unlikely shape of this Packers season: a team surviving on Jordan Love's arm and a defense that takes the ball away, while the ground game functions as a wasted down. On first down specifically, Green Bay has run 90 times for 213 yards — 2.37 per attempt — with just nine explosive plays and 31 first downs generated. For a team built to stay on schedule, the first-down run is doing the opposite.

It travels. The struggles aren't a product of one bad matchup. Green Bay has cleared 62 rushing yards in a game only in the loosest sense; the recent five-game average sits at 58.0 per game while the passing game hums along at 285.2. Love has thrown 271 times for 1,958 yards, 13 touchdowns and five interceptions with a 90.3 passer rating, and the efficiency holds up: 7.2 yards per attempt and a 4.8 touchdown rate. Matthew Golden (36 catches, 540 yards, three scores) and Tucker Kraft (29-297-2) have become the down-to-down engines.

The scoring-area math is where the missing run game really bites. Green Bay converts just 40.0 percent of its red-zone trips into touchdowns — fifth-worst in the league, in a cluster with Las Vegas (40.0) and just ahead of the Jets (33.3) and Steelers (36.0). When you cannot move the pile on the goal line, drives that should end in seven end in three, and that's how a team with a plus-5 turnover differential and a defense allowing just 20.3 points per game ends up at a plus-0.3 point differential on the season.

Josh Jacobs' return is the obvious lever. Jacobs has appeared in only two games this year, and in the Week 7 trip to Ford Field he carried 11 times for 36 yards while adding five catches for 55 yards and a touchdown. That is not a fix on its own, but it's more than the Packers have had for most of the fall — and the difference between a functional 3.8-yards-per-carry back and the 2.9 team average is the difference between second-and-6 and second-and-9 for Love every series.

The other side of the ball is holding its end. Green Bay has intercepted nine passes, tied for the league lead, to go with 16 sacks, 41 quarterback hits and 40 tackles for loss. That takeaway rate is what has kept the record afloat through an offense averaging 20.6 points. The concern is depth: linebacker Zaire Franklin is out with a shin injury, and defensive tackle Jordon Riley (Achilles), wideout Miles Melton (back), corner Benjamin St-Juste (hamstring) and guard Aaron Banks (knee) are all listed as questionable. A short week before Thursday's visit from Carolina (3-3, allowing 27.7 points per game) is not the softest landing spot for a thin defense.

Context matters here, too. Minnesota is 6-0 and Chicago is 5-2, so Green Bay's margin for a multi-week offensive slump is thin. The Packers have a home date with the Panthers on Thursday, then a trip to New England, then a home rematch with the Vikings — and a Nov. 10 trade deadline sitting in the middle of it.

The Packers don't need to become a ground-and-pound team. They need the run game to stop being a giveaway down. Until that happens, they'll keep asking Love to throw 40-plus times and asking a ball-hawking defense to bail them out — a formula that has produced a winning record and very little breathing room.