The Packers' Ground Game Is Historically Bad — and November Won't Be Forgiving

Green Bay is 5-2-1, so this is not a panic piece. But the Packers are doing something almost statistically impossible at the same time: they have the least productive rushing attack in the NFL, and the calendar is about to stop being polite about it.

The numbers are not a slump — they're a category of their own

Through eight games the Packers have run for 485 yards on 170 attempts. That's 2.9 yards per carry and 60.6 per game, the lowest total in the league by a wide margin — the next-closest team (Cincinnati, 562) has 77 more yards on the ground. Green Bay's rushing EPA sits at minus-42.0 while its passing EPA is plus-46.2. There is no ambiguity in that split.

It has been bad in every conceivable context. The Packers have not cracked 100 rushing yards in a single game; their high-water mark is 98, back in Week 4 against Tampa Bay. They have three explosive runs — 20-plus yards — all season. In Thursday's 27-19 win over Carolina, a Panthers defense that ranks 30th in EPA allowed per rush held them to 66 yards on 26 carries. The "get-right" game came and went without a get-right.

The backfield split tells the same story. Josh Jacobs has 32 carries for 75 yards (2.3 per attempt) across three games and has done his real damage as a receiver (11 catches, two scores). MarShawn Lloyd has absorbed the bigger workload — 57 carries — for 149 yards, or 2.6 a pop. Nobody is averaging three yards a carry.

Why it's happening, and why it matters

The offensive line is the obvious place to start, and it's currently missing bodies: Sean Rhyan (ankle) and Travis Glover (knee) are both out, thinning a front that was already struggling to generate movement on first down.

The downstream cost is a passing game carrying the entire offense. Jordan Love has already thrown 312 passes in eight games — a 600-plus attempt pace — for 2,246 yards, 16 touchdowns, six interceptions and a 92.4 rating. He's been pressured on 21 percent of his dropbacks and sacked 14 times, and Green Bay's third-down conversion rate sits at 38.3 percent, in part because it is never in manageable down-and-distance. Love has been good. He has also been asked to be the whole offense, and he's dealing with a back issue that showed up on the injury report earlier this month.

The defense has been the counterweight: 22 sacks (top ten in the league) and 10 interceptions, with opponents averaging 20.1 points. But the season-long point differential is just plus-1.2. This team's margin is thin enough that a one-dimensional offense is a real structural risk, not a cosmetic flaw.

The road ahead

Sunday's trip to New England is the next test, and the setup is not favorable. The Patriots offense averages 123.1 rushing yards per game — more than double Green Bay's — and 376.8 total yards. The one soft spot is that New England has allowed 3.82 yards per rush on 190 carries, which on paper is an invitation. But we just watched the Packers fail to exploit a far worse run defense, so the invitation may go unanswered.

After that comes Minnesota at home, then the Rams and Saints indoors, then Buffalo and Miami at Lambeau — a stretch that includes the division's best team and two of the AFC's better defenses. Cold-weather, late-season football rewards teams that can shorten a game and stay on schedule. Green Bay currently can do neither on the ground.

None of this means the season is lost. A 5-2-1 team with a top-ten pass rush and a quarterback playing well is a real playoff team. But the Packers are winning in spite of a flaw that the standings usually punish eventually — and the schedule is about to make sure they can't hide it.