GREEN BAY, Wis. – The phrase “3 yards and a cloud of dust” to describe a rushing attack goes back at least 70 years. It’s a fitting sentence to lead off a story about the Green Bay Packers’ rushing attack.

One, the Packers’ rushing attack isn’t just bad. It’s historically bad. And, two, coach Matt LaFleur might let his eyebrows grow out of control for a 3-yard rushing average given how the first half of this season went.

The Packers’ ground game is impossibly horrible. With Week 8 almost complete, they’re the worst in the league with 60.6 rushing yards per game and 2.85 rushing yards per carry. The Raiders are next-to-last in both categories with 77.3 yards per game and 2.99 yards per carry.

Packers are averaging 60.6 yards rushing/game and 2.85 yards/carry. That's lowest per carry thru 8 games since 2016 Vikings at 2.71 and lowest per game since 2019 Bengals were at 59.5

The only team in last 80 seasons to be that low in both thru 8 games was Washington in 1961…

— Josh Dubow (@JoshDubowAP) October 30, 2026

It’s not as if they’ve faced a series of powerhouse defenses. On Thursday night, the Packers rushed for 66 yards and averaged 2.54 yards per carry against the Panthers, who were last in the league against the run at the time. A couple weeks earlier, they rushed for 57 yards and averaged 2.19 yards per carry against the Cowboys, who were last in the league against the run at the time and are again after giving up 202 rushing yards against Arizona on Sunday.

Against Carolina, after 13 of their 26 carries gained 1 yard or less, LaFleur was asked if he’d seen anything to make him optimistic about the rushing attack.

“I mean, if I’m being honest, not a lot right now,” he said, “and that’s our job as coaches. We got to figure it out, because it’s not good enough.”

Record-Setting Pace

The Packers have gained a league-worst 485 rushing yards in eight games. That’s 77 yards behind Cincinnati, which has played seven games.

Green Bay’s 60.625-yard average equates to 1,031 yards for the season. Unbelievably, that would be the lowest season-ending number for any team since 1961, when the NFL moved to a 14-game season.

And if that’s not enough, going back to 1947 – the year in which the NFL stopped subtracting sack yardage from rushing totals – Green Bay’s 17-game pace would be the second-lowest season-ending number behind the 1947 Boston Patriots, who rushed for 973 yards in 12 games.

The lowest per-game average since 1947 belongs to the 2000 San Diego Chargers, who went 1-15 while averaging 66.4 yards per game. The Packers would have to average 71.6 rushing yards the rest of the season to not set that dubious record.

Consistently Horrendous

The Packers’ best rushing game of the season was 86 yards against Tampa Bay in Week 4. That was the debut of a new offensive line, which led to some optimism. So much for that. They haven’t gotten past 70 yards since. In two games with Josh Jacobs, they rushed for 60 yards with a 3.2-yard average against Detroit and 66 yards with a 2.5-yard average against Carolina.

Their eight-game streak of failing to reach 90 rushing yards in a game ranks as the sixth-longest single-season streak since the historically significant 1947 season. The Falcons in 1994 and the Colts in 1990 hold the record with 10. Only the Cols have a longer streak to start a season.

Since 1947, the Packers’ 485 rushing yards are the seventh-fewest for any team in the first eight games of a season. The Packers have a 5-3 record. Those other teams were a combined 6-42; the 2005 Eagles had four wins and four teams had zero wins.

The Packers’ best rushing game this season in terms of yards per carry was their 3.50-yard average against the Jets in Week 2. If that best game represented their season average, they’d be 30th in the league behind the aforementioned Raiders and Packers.

Those are all big-picture numbers. How about from an individual play perspective? 

A “run stuff” is a running play tackled at or behind the line of scrimmage. For Green Bay, 24.7 percent of its running plays have been stuffed; only the Raiders (28.0 percent) have been worse. On the other hand, they also have a league-low 11 runs of 10-plus yards; the league median is 20.

On first-and-10, the league average is 4.27 yards per carry. The Packers are last with a 2.39-yard average – an incredible half-yard worse than any other team and 1.14 yards worse than 29 teams. Green Bay averaged 2.64 yards per carry on first down against Carolina, highlighted by Savion Williams’ 18-yarder on an end-around. Otherwise, the other 13 carries gained 19 yards.

From an EPA standpoint, the Packers are 32nd in expected points per carry and 31st in success rate, according to Sumer Sports.

Josh Jacobs Definitely Not to the Rescue

Would the return of Josh Jacobs help save the running game? His eye for the smallest creases and his pile-pushing history suggested that, yes, he would at least get the running game out of neutral.

That definitely has not been the case.

Jacobs carried the ball 21 times for 39 yards against Carolina with a long run of just 6 yards. During the LaFleur era, which started in 2019, it was the fourth-fewest yards in the league by a back with at least 21 carries. (Also, and semi-related, Jacobs caught six passes for 13 yards, giving him 27 touches for 52 yards. It was the fewest scrimmage yards with 27-plus touches in three decades.)

“It wasn’t a lot out there,” he said after the game.

Still, the Packers are 5-3. Dating to the advent of a 16-game season in 1978, only four of the 36 teams that finished with less than 80 rushing yards per game posted a winning record. So, the Packers have been beating the odds.

“I honestly don't know,” Jacobs said if the team’s success without a running game is sustainable. “I've never been in this situation. But I mean it's a lot of hope. I would say that.

“I see the way that these guys work, the way that they’re intentional. We'll go have meetings without no coaches, just the O-line and the running backs, and we go over what we see and what they're thinking and what I'm thinking and the design of the play and little things like that. So, I think it’s only a matter of time before it gets cleaned up.”

So, Now What?

Eight games is a large sample size. The Packers’ run game was terrible in Week 1, it was terrible in Week 8 and it was terrible in every game in between.

It was terrible with MarShawn Lloyd and it’s been terrible with Josh Jacobs. It was terrible with Brian Gutekunst’s hand-picked offensive line and it’s been terrible with his veteran additions. There have been six starting offensive line combinations and 11 individual starters. Nothing has made a difference.

With an opportunity to run out the clock against Carolina, the Packers failed. Against a quality opponent in a do-or-die game late in the season, that could end their season. With a stretch of late-season home games, the elements might dictate that the Packers have to run the ball.

Now, with Jacobs’ future perhaps in limbo again, there are additional questions about the state of the rushing attack.

The trade deadline is set for Nov. 10. Trading for Jonathan Taylor, especially with the new uncertainty surrounding Jacobs, could help, but probably not as much as landing a people-moving offensive lineman.

If it’s not the personnel, it must be the coaching. Fortunately for LaFleur, he had three extra days to sort through all the issues. Then again, he had three extra days after the Atlanta game and it didn’t help a bit.

The legendary Vince Lombardi famously said: "Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence. I am not remotely interested in just being good.”

At this point, catching mediocrity would be a huge win.

Jordan Love was responsible for 81.4 percent of the Packers' yards vs. Carolina. It's a familiar sight (and not a great one), writes @JacobWestendorf. ⬇️https://t.co/DN9QoD8k3X

— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) November 1, 2026