How Important is Eddie Lacy to a Packers Offensive Rejuvenation?

It says something about the expectations for a football team when 10 wins and a wild-card berth is considered a disappointment. But that’s the word many would use to describe the 2015 Green Bay Packers.

Most of the Pack’s problems last year can be traced to an offense that stunned fans and pundits by free-falling from sixth in the NFL in 2014 to 23rd in 2015.

The loss (and return) of wide receiver Jordy Nelson is widely considered both the cause of Green Bay’s offensive woes last season and the solution to their problems this year. But there’s another key—a factor that will be just as critical to the team’s offensive success in 2016.

The Packers need to get more from Eddie Lacy by seeing less of Eddie Lacy.

As Peter King of Sports Illustrated tweeted, all eyes were on Lacy as the Packers kicked off training camp:

GREEN BAY-So it begins, for the new-look Eddie Lacy, on the first day of Packers’ camp. pic.twitter.com/fJKWL6tphP

— Peter King (@SI_PeterKing) July 26, 2016

It’s that “new look” part that’s important with Lacy. The fact that he’s a bit harder to see this summer than last. As Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com wrote, Lacy’s exact weight wasn’t divulged, but he appeared a bit slimmer than during OTAs, when Lacy weighed in around the 240s.

That, in turn, is a good 15-20 pounds lighter than last season, when Lacy was—how shall I put this—paunchy. Rotund, even.

Now, Lacy’s a big power back. He weighed 231 pounds at the scouting combine in 2013. And by no stretch of the imagination is this intended as an exercise in fat-shaming. Ninety-nine times out of 100 it’s no one’s business what someone weighs.

But Lacy is a professional athlete. And last year, weighing in the 250s, Lacy’s level of play dropped off a cliff.

His yards per carry dropped a full half-yard. His ranking among tailbacks at Pro Football Focus dropped from third in 2014 to 15th last year. For the first time in his three NFL seasons, Lacy failed to gain 1,000 yards on the ground—largely because his usage dropped considerably as he fell out of favor with head coach Mike McCarthy.

In fact, McCarthy was put off enough by his tailback’s weight that, as Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk reported, he brought it up publicly at the end of the season.

“Eddie’s got a lot of work to do,” McCarthy said. “I’m stating the obvious. His offseason last year was not what it should be and he never recovered from it. He cannot play at the weight he did this year.”

Lacy told Pete Dougherty of USA Today (via the Milwaukee Journal …

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