If the game Sunday against the Carolina Panthers doesn’t illuminate why the Green Bay Packers never are going to get the most yards possible from their running game, few others will.
The fickle finger of blame for not running it enough almost always points to coach Mike McCarthy, the guy who sends in the plays to quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
It seems like more weeks than not, McCarthy explains that he intended to run the ball more in the previous game, but circumstances led to Rodgers keeping the ball in his own hands over giving it to the running backs.
In the 31-24 loss to the Panthers, for instance, Packers running backs had 13 carries for 77 yards (5.9 average).
On Monday, McCarthy said he would have liked to “get the ball handed off five or six more times”, which had the per-carry average held up would have put the Packers over the 100-yard mark. Given rookie Aaron Jones had gains of 23 and 20 yards on two of his three runs, it’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t have wanted Jones to get 20 carries himself.
What McCarthy didn’t reveal is how many times Rodgers changed the play at the line of scrimmage from a run to a pass. It’s not clear how many plays McCarthy sent in that were “run-pass options” or RPOs, but the ability to change plays based on the defense’s positioning is a staple of the offense.
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Tom Silverstein wrote: