It’s not really Broadway Joe guaranteeing a win in Super Bowl III, but up until this point the only thing Mike McCarthy could guarantee is he was going to get outcoached by a superior tactician at some point (see: Jim Harbaugh, Tom Coughlin, et al.).
Well, McCarthy made another guarantee on Tuesday — the Green Bay Packers running game will be better this season.
“We’ll be better; I promise you. You can write that down,” he said, per the Packers’ official website.
Couldn’t be much worse than last season!
In 2012, DuJuan Harris was the only highlight and he only played in four games, rushing for 157 yards and two touchdowns on 34 carries. Alex Green led the Packers with 464 yards rushing, but averaged a pretty terrible 3.4 yards per carry. Aaron Rodgers was the team’s second-leading rusher.
So the Packers went out and drafted Eddie Lacy and Johnathan Franklin. They’re still learning, but McCarthy says the running game is ahead of where it was last year.
The reason appears to be the mix of the new blood, Green returning to 100 percent for the first time since 2011 and hefty competition. Harris hasn’t participated in offseason activities thus far because he had a cyst removed after the season. In his absence, Green and the oft-forgotten James Starks have been getting reps with the No. 1 unit.
Realistically, it looks like the Packers have five guys who could be capable of starting. How they hell they plan on splitting carries here may be the biggest question.