My perception had also been that we were not running as nearly as often as in past years. I also haven't been happy with McCarthy's playcalling all along in that I felt he abandoned the run too quickly. I liked the Mike Sherman run-it-down-their-throat days, daring them to stop us.
So I went back and looked at the stats (just % of runs vs passes) from 2003 to present (2003 was THE year where we ran the ball more than 50% of the time). I didn't look at the circumstances of the runs, but I was pretty sure we had more games in the preceding years where we got a lead and then started running out the clock than we've faced this year.
I was sure the stats (especially including 2003) would show we were running less.
Here's the stats for the last 8 years. Someone had commented that Rodger's runs were skewing the stats, so I subtracted out the QB runs and the % at the end are the number of RB rushes vs Pass Attempts.
Year =Year, PA = Pass Attempts, Rush = Rushes, PA/G = Pass Attempts/Game, R/GA = Rushes/Game, %PA=%Pass Attempts, %R=%Rushes, QB = QB Runs, RB = RB Runs, % RB Rus + % RB Rushes
Year PA Rush PA/G R/G %PA %Run QB RB %RB Rush
2010168 113 33.6 22.6 0.597 0.402 19 94 0.358
2009 553 438 34.6 27.4 0.558 0.441 58 380 0.407
2008 541 437 33.8 27.3 0.553 0.446 56 381 0.413
2007 578 388 36.1 24.2 0.598 0.401 29 359 0.383
2006 630 431 39.4 26.9 0.593 0.406 23 408 0.393
2005 626 398 39.1 24.9 0.611 0.388 18 380 0.377
2004 598 441 37.4 27.6 0.575 0.424 16 425 0.415
2003 473 507 29.5 31.6 0.482 0.517 18 489 0.508
2010 #s are a little low, but a very little low. If GB had run 10 more times in the 1st 5 games (only 2 attempts per game), our Rush % would have been right up there with the preceding years. That's 1 attempt each half. Our overall numbers (22.7 rushes per game is down 4-5 attempts over most years, but our pass attempts are down, too, a sign our offense isn't doing as well overall).
With Favre running less, the QB runs for 03-07 are a lot lower than 08-10 (in fact, Rodgers has run more in 2+ years than Favre in 5 years). But even factoring that in, here's Rodgers vs Favres #s:
QB PA Rush PA/G R/G %PA %Rush QB RB % RB Rush
R 1262 988 34.1 26.7 0.560 0.439 133 855 0.403
F 2905 2165 36.3 27.0 0.572 0.427 104 2061 0.415
Now, these #s only reflect 3 years of Mike Sherman vs 4+ years of McCarthy, but the % rush vs pass are virtually identical. So, as much as I hate to admit it, I was wrong.