Shy of the Packers' Run Game, Team Limiting Ground Impact

On Sunday, the Green Bay Packers put together one of their worst performances through the air in a long time during a 21-13 loss in Buffalo. According to Packer Report's Bill Huber, it was Aaron Rodgers' worst game, judging by passer rating, when he's thrown at least 12 passes in a match.

Only four times in his career had he performed poor enough to land himself in the 50s in the efficiency stat, but against the Buffalo Bills, he graded out for a 34.3 day, 21.6 points behind his previous worst mark of his career.

Now, the production he had doesn't totally lay on his back alone. His receivers also dropped a single-game high of seven passes, good for the most since 2008, over a half a decade ago, per ESPN Stats & Info (via Acme Packing Co.'s Aron Yohannes).

It makes sense that Green Bay would want to move the ball via the air. It's worked out so far this season. Receiver Jordy Nelson already set his career high for yardage, Randall Cobb is looking to be on his way to his first Pro Bowl and Davante Adams is having what some think is the best rookie year by a Rodgers-era target.

Those targets couldn't get it done during the game, though. Rodgers, who had three interceptions coming into the match, added another two against the Bills. Both of them, according to Bleacher Report's Michelle Burton, were off the hands of receivers. Therefore only one of Rodgers' 2014 interceptions occurred without the assistance of some luck variable.

So, if the Packers shouldn't have passed so often with a low efficiency established early in the game, then the alternative would have been to run the ball, correct?

With only 19 carries on the game compared to Rodgers' 42 passes, running backs Eddie Lacy and James Starks did well for themselves on limited touches.

Lacy, who's had a hot streak since his breakout game against the Minnesota Vikings, averaged 6.5 yards per carry and put up six of Green Bay's 13 points on the ground. Starks, who had a 2014-high 75 rushing yards last week, averaged 4.8 yards per carry, a decent efficiency number, which still was higher than Green Bay's average yards-per-pass attempt on the day.

Earlier in the week, the Packers' five offensive linemen, fullback John Kuhn and Lacy were named to the initial Pro Bowl watch list sent out by the league. For as impressive as the passing game of the squad has been down the stretch, the running game was no weakness for the team as of late.

Considering that the previous three games coming into the week featured three of Lacy's four best performances in terms of yardage, all while in one-score contests, it's truly surprising the Packers limited him to so few carries.

For example, his 6.5 yards per carry average was better than any individual game during that three game streak, but his touches didn't match up with said streak, when all three featured him with at least 18 touches in those games.

Had Green Bay continued to run the ball, after seeing from the first drive on that it was going to be effective, the fluke results in the passing game may have gone away.

If the Packers throw fewer passes, maybe Rodgers' receivers don't drop such a tremendous number of balls, wasting in-game snaps. If Rodgers throws fewer passes, maybe two passes don't slip off the hands of his targets and land into the hands of defensive backs.

Either way, despite the loss and performance of the air game, the Packers have proven over this stretch of games that they can rely on their two premier running backs to get the job done on the ground. That's an incredibly valuable weapon, if the Packers choose to use it.

It's a possibility that the Packers leaned on the running game too much the previous weeks, and they believed they needed to tone it down heading into the playoffs either for keeping the backs fresh or for limiting tape on the unit, but aesthetically during the game, it wasn't pretty.

Now second in the NFC North due to a lost tiebreaker to the 10-4 Detroit Lions, the Packers are looking at the sixth seed in the NFC overall, when they could have taken the lead for the No. 1 seed had they won and the Arizona Cardinals lost.

In a new level of the playoff race, Green Bay must survive to advance. If the backs get hot, the team will feast on a victory. Now is not the time for the squad to make huge mistakes in key games as it did in its performance against Buffalo. One more of those, and the Packers might be watching the playoffs at home this winter.