Green Bay Displays Balance in Downing Tampa Bay

By Eric Goska

The Packers have sorely missed
Josh Jacobs (8) this season.
(photos by Eric Goska)

Coaches and players often talk about stacking wins.

In Tampa, Green Bay stacked running plays.

The Packers ran a season-high 25 times in defeating the Buccaneers 17-14 Sunday at Raymond James Stadium. In doing so, Green Bay increased its commitment to the ground game and avoided tying an unwanted team record.

That the Packers have struggled to run the football is no secret. Play-by-play announcer Chris Meyers and color commentator Jonathan Vilma touched on that subject throughout the game.

In the second quarter, a cutaway informed that Green Bay was the only team in the league to have had three different starting offensive line combinations. In addition, the club’s 146 rushing yards were the fewest through three games in franchise history.

Vilma, a former linebacker for the Jets and Saints, cut to the chase in the opening minutes of the game.

“And that’s (running the ball) going to be one thing I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye out on. It’s not necessarily all the rush yards for the Packers. It’s really about the rush attempts. How many times are they going to force the issue because, yes, they’re last in the league in rush yards, but they also are last in attempts.

“You have to force the issue and make these defenders believe that you’re going to run the football. That’ll open up the play-action pass for Jordan Love.”

Last in rushing attempts. That signals a coach – in this case Green Bay’s Matt LaFleur – has little confidence in his running attack.

Prior to Sunday, the Packers had only once run the ball more than two times in succession this season. That came in the third quarter of the opener in Minnesota, where MarShawn Lloyd gained 6, 4 and 1 before Chris Brooks chipped in 5 yards. Jordan Love then ended the streak when he passed to Jonnu Smith for 43 yards.

Over the next nine quarters, the Green and Gold never ran more than two times consecutively. They had six instances of two in a row in a 20-17 overtime win against the Jets and just one in a 35-14 loss to the Falcons.

Historically, when the Packers fail to string together more than two running plays in a game—let’s call them two-fers—they lose. Since 1954, the team is 9-54 (0.143) in such games (regular-season only).

The team of 2016 is the only one to have endured three consecutive two-fer games.  During those three Sundays, Green Bay demonstrated nothing more than a passing commitment to its running game (never more than two consecutive runs) in falling to the Colts, Titans and Redskins.

In Tampa, the Packers of 2026 quickly ensured they would not be lumped together with their counterparts of 10 years ago. On the team’s second possession, Brooks burst off left tackle for 27, Love scrambled for 4 and Lloyd hit right guard for no gain.

A three-fer.

Later, on the same drive, Lloyd got 1, Tucker Kraft gained 3 on a tush-push and Brooks grabbed 3 to end the first quarter.

Another three-fer.

Tucker Kraft converted fourth down
with a 3-yard push late in the first quarter.

Love then capped the advance with a 2-yard touchdown pass to Matthew Golden early in the second period. Nine of the 16 plays used to reach the end zone were runs.

The Packers went one better in posting their second touchdown: a 2-yard pass to Kraft that put them up 17-7. Lloyd got 5 on third-and-one before giving way to Kaleb Johnson who reeled off gains of 5, 31 and 3 yards.

And just like that, the team had its second four-fer of the season.

With his effort, Lloyd became the first Packer this season to convert a third down by rushing, another sign of how neglected the running game had become.

In the end, Green Bay’s 86 yards on 25 rushes won’t turn heads (3.4 average), but the increased workload proved enough to set up a last-minute three-for that never gets old: back-to-back-to-back kneel-downs by Love to close out a victory.

Extra Point

Sunday marked the 68^th regular-season game since 1954 in which the Packers reeled off two runs of 25 or more yards (Brooks 27; Johnson 31), but just the second in which the team failed to rush for 100 or more yards when doing so. The last sub-100 game featuring at least two runs of 25 or more yards occurred on Dec. 30, 1990, when Darrell Thompson had gains of 28 and 27 yards and Green Bay managed but 88 yards on the ground.