Eddie Lacy was too sick to talk to reporters after the game.
Which makes what he did during the game that much more impressive.
Lacy pushed through an illness to run for 125 yards on 25 carries, a season high and the only time he’s topped 17 carries on the year. That, more than the passing of Aaron Rodgers, propelled them to a grind-it-out road win at Minnesota.
“That’s what we get paid for, man,” Packers right guard T.J. Lang said, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com. “That’s what we take a lot of pride in, is being able to run the ball when everybody in the damned stadium knows you’re going to run it.”
That doesn’t mean it was easy. Of Lacy’s 125 yards, 70 came after contact, showing the kind of determination he was playing with. And on a day when Aaron Rodgers passed for just 209 yards, it’s the kind of performance that caused him to trust his back with a late audible which gave them a game-clinching first down.
“The way that Eddie was running the football, and the line, you have to give the line a voice,” Rodgers said. “Those guys know the pulse of the game there, especially late in the game there. They felt like a run was something we could get. Came to the sidelines and kind of had the choice there, but I liked the play to Eddie, the inside handoff, and he did a good job of getting the necessary yards.”
Having that physical element will also come in handy next week against the Patriots, who are no strangers to grinding away at teams either.