Green Bay Packers Week 3 fantasy profile – Who’s up? Who’s down?
By Kenn Korb
RB – Eddie Lacy, James Starks
Week 2 Statistics:
Lacy – 12 carries, 50 rushing yards; 5.00 fantasy points
Starks – 7 carries, 3 rushing yards, 1 catches, 16 yards; 1.90 fantasy points
Despite all the hype coming into this year about Lacy, he’s been stuck in the mud the same way he’s started every season of his career.
Despite his passing game struggling and both contests so far staying close, Lacy has only 111 yards on the ground across two games, with only 50 coming against the Vikings. As he has an awful tendency to do, there has been a lot of hesitant movement from Lacy on his runs, with him dancing around far too often instead of just sticking to his talents and barreling forward.
This could be an even bigger problem than before too; with his lighter weight, he might be feeling like he can make something happen with more of these elusive moves that have rarely worked for him in the past, and that won’t turn out positively.
The bigger issue though may be the amount of carries he has been receiving; in two games, he has 26 rushes total. This isn’t because of time-share issues between him and Starks either, with Starks only garnering 11 of his own while not being used as a weapon in the passing game.
McCarthy has already discussed needing to give him a larger workload, and this would be a good week to do so. The Lions are giving up 5.1 yards per carry to runners so far this year, and as stated earlier are missing key pieces in their front seven.
Letting Lacy barrel through a depleted unit would be a strong strategy on multiple fronts. It could allow him to find a rhythm that’s been absent so far this year. It would also provide the offense a balance they’ve clearly lacked, while taking the burden off a passing game which has yet to find any discernable rhythm. The offensive line might also be able to find a groove in this facet as well (so far, Pro Football Focus’ run blocking grades on the offensive linemen are avergae at best).
If the coaches stick to the running game as they’ve stated they want to, Lacy can have a good game here.
Meanwhile, Starks should see some intermittent series here and there (a role he has proven to work well in previously), and could see an uptick in production if Green Bay reinserts the usage of screen plays into their gameplan.