The Packers’ ground game has been bad through three weeks. Historically bad.
In three games, the Packers have produced just 146 rushing yards as a team, an average of just over 48 yards per game. MarShawn Lloyd has produced the lion’s share of that total, piling up a staggering 68 yards so far this season.
He’s a very small lion.
68 yards through three games puts Lloyd on pace for 385 yards this year, and if you guessed from the setup and headline, that would be one of the worst totals any player in Packers history has produced as the season leader.
Pro Football Focus has stats on the Packers dating back to 1932, and although the numbers may be a bit fuzzy in the especially old days of football, that still gives us nearly a century of football to look at for context. The contest isn’t good.
A player has led the Packers in rushing with under 400 yards on the season 15 times since 1932, and Lloyd’s projected 385 is only the 12th worst on that list. That is to say, there have only been 11 times since 1932 when a player has led the Packers in rushing yards with fewer than what Lloyd is projected to produce.
That would be bad enough, but it gets worse. Of those 11 seasons, only one took place after 1958: Michael Haddix led the Packers with 311 yards in 1990. But basically, once Vince Lombardi arrived in 1959, you could put the Packers down for a player with at least 400 yards, and often a lot more. Not so in 2026, though, where the Packers can hardly buy a yard!
Most of the comps on the list are from the World War II era or earlier, when the Packers were only playing 14 games a season and offenses were a far cry from the sophisticated machines they are today. Outside of the 1990 season, virtually no Packers fan alive today has seen a rushing attack this inept.
But wait! I can make it look even worse. It’s bad enough that Lloyd (and, really, the Packers as a whole) are finding themselves compared to what amounts to primordial football, but it’s worse when he ranks behind everybody but Haddix in one stat: rushing yards per game.
Projected over 17 games, Lloyd’s 385 yards would be an average of just 22.65 yards per game. Only Haddix, whose 19.44 per game is the actual worst in our sample, ranked behind Lloyd. Clark Hinkle, the next player above Lloyd on the list, still managed 25.46 yards per game.
The Packers’ ground game is indeed historically bad.
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