This may not sound like it makes any sense, but it actually makes total sense. The Seattle Seahawks’ focus for defeating the Green Bay Packers on Sunday is to stop their running game.
But Aaron Rodgers!
Precisely. If the Seahawks bottle up Eddie Lacy and crew, they’re then facing a one-dimensional offense. Knowing the Packers are going to throw the ball puts you ahead of the curve. So while you’re not going to stop Aaron Rodgers, you can frustrate him and slow him down.
“If the offense can run the ball, anybody can beat us,” linebacker K.J. Wright said on Wednesday. “… It don’t matter who’s back there at quarterback, stop the run first and everything else, you can play ball from there.”
The Seahawks did exactly that when the two teams met back in week 1. They limited Lacy to just 34 yards on 12 attempts, which was a season low for Ed.
While virtually nothing has changed for Seattle since then, a lot has changed for the Packers. Their offensive line is playing much better and Lacy isn’t running tentatively like he was early in the season.
If you look at the first half of the season versus the second half, it’s night and day for Lacy. He had just one game with more than 70 rushing yards in the Packers’ first eight games. He had six such games in the final six. Seven when you include last week’s playoff win.
That fact is not lost on the Seahawks.
“From the first eight games to the second eight games, their rushing stats have flip flopped and that’s a big change in their approach,” head coach Pete Carroll said.
So the question is, can the Packers run the ball on Seattle, who had the third-ranked rushing defense in the NFL?
The answer is yes, despite their failure in the first match-up.
Remember that in week 17 the Packers gouged Detroit, the league’s No. 1 rushing defense, for 152 yards on the ground. That’s the most rushing yards the Lions gave up all season.
We’re confident in saying the Packers can run on anyone right now.