5 Big Things from the Green Bay Packers road win in Tampa Bay

The Green Bay Packers stick with the run despite the lack of success

Prior to this game, in my Big Questions article, I mentioned that the Packers sticking with the run game if things got tough was one of my biggest concerns.

In previous years, when the Packers either fall behind or aren’t finding much success on the ground, we see Green Bay abandon the run game — oftentimes too early — and become pass-heavy. Rodgers even mentioned that this was the case in the Packers’ Week 1 matchup with Minnesota. This one-dimensional approach rarely has led to much success; in fact, it’s often ended quite poorly.

But on Sunday, we saw the run game struggle, and the Packers stick with it. Jones and Dillon would rush for only 68 total yards and 2.8 yards per rush. However, they did each touch the ball 12 times for a total of 24 carries.

While averaging 5.0 yards per carry is obviously better than 2.8, having that level of success is also not a requirement for defenses to respect the run game either. The opponent just has to believe that the Packers are willing to run the football in a given situation, and Green Bay can benefit from some of those positive effects that the run game brings–such as LaFleur diving deeper into his playbook and Rodgers having a little more time on passing plays.

The results weren’t the same going up against one of the NFL’s top defenses, but we saw Green Bay stick with a similar road map offensively that they deployed against Chicago. There was a decent run-pass mix, Jones and Dillon were heavily involved, the ball was spread around in the passing game, and they utilized RPOs. This is who the offense needs to be this year in order to be successful, and it’s great that they stuck with it, even though it was tough sledding for much of the game.