I, like evad, think that the whole “starter” designation is pretty meaningless. That said, it looks like Starks is a better runner. He’s the guy. He gets to the line of scrimmage faster than Grant, that’s the main thing I took from the Carolina game. I don’t know where I stand on the whole issue of whether he evades tacklers better. I could be convinced with some video evidence but I’m not interested enough to track it down myself. I would also like to see how McCarthy is using each runner, the different alignments, etc, and how the blocking develops in front of them. I have a feeling based on no evidence whatsoever that when Grant is in the game the blocking gets poorer. But maybe that’s just because he’s not getting to the line as quickly as Starks and by the time he gets into the fray things have broken down a bit.

I don’t agree that watching Grant run is somehow a chore. His runs have kept the offense on schedule so far this season which is all to the good. I wish McCarthy would mix runs (with both running backs) in a bit more, to tell the truth. But what do I know? Anyway, I think Grant’s boring 4.1 yards/carry (they are a boring compared to Starks, I admit) mean that when Grant is in the game it doesn’t automatically signal *PASS* to the defense. As the season progresses I think we’ll see more and more Starks and Grant in key situations when we need tough yards and when Starks is tired.

Finally, if Starks got injured in practice tomorrow (knock on wood) I think the Packers would be in pretty good shape with Grant. Not as good of shape, obviously, than if we had both backs, but certainly in better offensive shape than they were last year when Grant went down.

Originally Posted by: Silentio