Staying Alive: Why the Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears

Ty breaks through

For the majority of 2016, the running game remained a vast pit of despair for the Packers and their fans.

The expected top option Eddie Lacy made it only five games before injuries ended his year. His planned backup James Starks dealt with his own injuries, and has had little positive consistency when he has been on the field. Don Jackson and Knile Davis did nothing before they were put on IR and cut, respectively.

With those issues, the balance of the offense leaned heavier towards the passing game than ever before (for certain stretches, more than three-quarters of Green Bay’s offensive plays were passes), and for thirteen weeks Green Bay’s top two leading rushers were Lacy (360 yards) and Rodgers (295).

Little did we know, Green Bay had an actual lead option waiting to get his chance to shine.

Ty Montgomery had been seeing some usage at running back across the season due to the injury/ineffectiveness problems plaguing the position, but until the past few weeks it was mostly as a last-ditch option. Many people have taken their hand at diving into this subject in the aftermath of this game (including Danny Kelly of The Ringer, Matt Bowen of ESPN, and Pro Football Focus in a variety of articles), and it’s no wonder why.

Montgomery had run well in a few games this season (since Week 7, Montgomery had four games with at least 40 rushing yards at a 4.6 yard per carry clip) but in none of those outings did he reach 10 carries. Despite the strong production, he was still being used as a complimentary piece and not the lead guy (outside of that Week 7 Chicago game — where the running back injuries hit their peak — he had not seen a single contest with more than 36 offensive snaps).

He may have finally forced the Packers’ hands now however.

Against Chicago, Montgomery carried the ball 16 times; on those, he picked up a ridiculous 162 yards. This is even more incredible when you consider how he picked those up. Of those yards, 156 came after initial contact, with Montgomery making a habit of not only busting past arm tackles down the field but breaking through defenders who had gotten through his offensive line. Of his runs, five of them went at least 13 yards — of those, four went at least 26 yards, with his 61 yarder in the first half being his best showing. He also blasted into the endzone twice on short-yardage carries.

I don’t know if I’m as sold as others have become on Montgomery being a bonafide high-workload rusher like this every week just yet, but I definitely think seeing him get about 15-20 chances per game between rushing and receiving (coupled with a steady dose of Christine Michael) is the sort of gameplan which will help this team succeed the rest of this year.