GREEN BAY, Wis. – When Ahman Green left the Green Bay Packers in free agency to sign with the Houston Texans in 2007, he was just 46 yards shy of breaking Jim Taylor’s career franchise rushing record.
When he re-signed with the Packers in 2009, he had designs on getting the record a certain way.
“My plan was to try to get it on one carry,” Green recalled recently. “There wasn’t much to go.”
That’s not how it happened. Green carried two times and netted just 1 yard in his first game back with the Packers. The next week, in a loss at Tampa Bay on Nov. 8, 2009, Green rushed six times for 45 yards. The record breaker came on a 2-yard run. Green went on to rush for 160 yards in eight games in that final season with the Packers and in the NFL to finish with 8,322 yards.
Taylor’s franchise record stood for 43 years.
The way the Packers have cycled through running backs since Green’s career ended, it may stand for another 43 years.
Think about it this way: As much as Green said he was impressed by Montgomery’s conversion from receiver to running back last season, Montgomery, the Packers’ leading returning rusher, is 7,851 yards short of Green’s mark.
Or this way: Even if Eddie Lacy, who signed with the Seattle Seahawks last month, pulled a Green and returned to the Packers later in his career, he wouldn’t even be halfway to the franchise record. Lacy rushed for 3,435 yards in his four seasons in Green Bay.
Ryan Grant’s six seasons as the Packers running back netted him 4,143 yards, which also didn’t come halfway to Green’s record.
Will the Packers’ career rushing record ever be broken?
“At this rate, no because it’s a different NFL,” Green said last week before he took part in the Packers annual Tailgate Tour.
Then Green seemed to reverse course.
“Unless they draft some phenomenal running back out of college, until that time happens I’d say it’s going to be secure,” he said. “I don’t believe it’s going to be secure for 43 years like it was between [Taylor] and I, but I think it will eventually get broken.”
This could be the year the Packers draft a running back in the first round, something they haven't done since 1990. With only Montgomery, Christine Michael and Don Jackson on the running back depth chart, coach Mike McCarthy and general manager Ted Thompson acknowledged they they need to make some additions to that spot.
Green would have put the mark even further out of reach had he not signed with Houston, where he rushed for just 554 yards in parts of two seasons (both of which were cut short by knee injuries).
Green also holds the Packers’ single-season rushing record of 1,883 yards in 2003. That’s more than 400 yards higher than the second-best season in team history (1,474 yards by Taylor in 1962).
“He was so steady and under [coach Mike] Sherman’s kind of philosophy of offense, we rode Ahman,” former Packers kicker Ryan Longwell said. “Obviously we had Brett [Favre] at quarterback and everything, but Ahman was the workhorse. And that’s the way Sherm wanted to play the games – closer to the vest and run Ahman as much as you could which set up Brett to do his thing.”