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In Sunday’s game against the Chargers, the Packers gave the ball to running back James Starks on their first offensive play.

Starks went on to play more and get the ball more than Eddie Lacy over the course of the afternoon, something that coach Mike McCarthy suggested could be the case again in the weeks to come. McCarthy said that Starks, who finished with 112 yards on 10 carries, being in for the first play “is a production of the way he’s played” and brought up the hot hand when discussing how the work would be split up in the future.

“Eddie is like pretty much our whole football team. He was beat up,” McCarthy said, via the Green Bay Press-Gazette. “I don’t see conditioning as an issue. You have to look at this differently than how we played on offense. James Starks is an outstanding running back. I’m not really interested in running our running backs 20, 25 times a game. It’s not what’s best for them. Eddie has a bruising running style. We looked at the numbers early last year. Then, it worked out at the end of the year pretty well. I’m not concerned there. If one of them gets hot in a game, then they may carry it 20 times.”

Lacy, who picked up just three yards on four carries Sunday, suffered an ankle injury earlier this season and last appeared on the team’s injury report in Week Four. The bye week should help him feel less beat up when the Packers return to face the Broncos, but it seems Starks will have something to say about how much more work he gets.