A Key at Running Back: Enough Carries to Go Around?
GREEN BAY, Wis. – You’ve got to appreciate the honesty of Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst and coach Matt LaFleur.
Speaking before the Scouting Combine, Gutekunst not only said he’d consider drafting the right quarterback but he’d consider drafting one in the first round. Sure enough, with the first-round pick, he traded up for Jordan Love. At the Scouting Combine, LaFleur said the Packers needed to draft another running back.
“I think anytime you look at the running back position, it’s such a long season, and those guys take on a ton of punishment,” LaFleur said. “I think that’s one of the tougher positions to play in terms of physicality, and I think you always need multiple guys to get to that finish line. Certainly, we’d like to play one more game than we did last season, and we’re going to need not only those two guys but I do think we’re going to need a third guy to put into that mix moving forward.”
Sure enough, with the second-round pick, Gutekunst drafted Boston College’s AJ Dillon.
With the bruising Dillon joining the fourth-year tandem of electric Aaron Jones and do-it-all Jamaal Williams, the Packers have a potential three-headed monster to carry the rock in what figures to be more of a run-centric offense than the team has fielded in years. However, there are only so many touches to go around in the running game. Last season, Baltimore averaged a league-high 37.3 rushing attempts per game, though that was obviously skewed by the running ability of quarterback Lamar Jackson. Among teams with traditional attacks, San Francisco led the league with 31.1 rushing attempts per game.
Even if LaFleur changes offensive gears and Green Bay goes from last year’s 25.7 rushing attempts per game to 31.7, how will he divide about two-and-a-half dozen carries between Jones, Williams and Dillon? Last season, Jones averaged 14.8 carries per game. If he stays healthy, there’s no reason whatsoever to give one of the team’s few proven playmakers less work. Most backs require a decent number of attempts to get into the flow. If Jones averages 16 carries per game and the Packers average 30, will those remaining 14 carries be enough to get Williams and/or Dillon off and running?
“That’s a really exciting room right now,” offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett said recently. “You’ve got Aaron and Jamaal. You got ‘Swerve’ (returner Tyler Ervin). You got a lot of different people there. It’s going to be interesting to see how we utilize all those things.”
One option would be trading Williams, who is scheduled to become a free agent at the end of the season, and going with Jones, Dillon and either Ervin or Dexter Williams as the third back. The truncated offseason, however, could be a roadblock because it might be foolhardy to trade an established, proven player such as Jamaal Williams if Dillon isn’t ready to go when the regular season begins. While Jones emerged as a star, Williams had a quietly strong year that included five receiving touchdowns and a career-high 4.3 yards per carry.
“Jamaal rises to competition,” Jones said in a Zoom call with reporters on May 27. “Every day we go to practice, we bring the best out of each other. Just because another person is coming in doesn’t mean he’s going to stop doing what he does. He’s going to continue to work. He’s going to continue to work on his craft and continue to compete and get better and push the guys around him.”
