1) Introduction: After missing his entire senior season at Buffalo due to injury, James Starks fell to the sixth round of the 2010 NFL Draft. The Packers stashed him on the PUP list to start the season before activating him for their week 13 game against the San Francisco 49ers. Starks was the Packers’ starting running back during the team’s run to the Super Bowl in 2010. But in his second season, Starks was nothing more than an average running back on a pass-happy team. He entered 2012 as the team’s starter, but expectations were limited.
2) Profile:
James Darell Starks
- Age: 26
- Born: 02/25/1986, in Niagara Falls, NY
- Height: 6’2″
- Weight: 218
- College: Buffalo
- Rookie Year: 2010
- NFL Experience: 3 years
3) Expectations coming into the season: Starks was the starter coming into the season, playing ahead of second-year player Alex Green. But after a porous performance in the team’s preseason opener in San Diego, the team realized Starks may not be the answer. As a result, the Packers signed veteran Cedric Benson in hopes that he’d help revive a struggling running game.
4) Player’s highlights/low-lights: After the preseason opener against the Chargers on August 9, turf toe kept Starks out of the lineup until October 14 against the Houston Texans. The early-season injury was more of the same for Starks. But with Benson out for the season and Alex Green struggling as the starter, Starks became a more important part of the offense late in the season. The highlight of his 2012 season was against the Minnesota Vikings when he rushed for 66 yards on 15 carries, including a 22-yard touchdown run.
5) Player’s contribution to the overall team success: Starks totaled 255 rushing yards on 71 carries throughout the season. The team’s production in the running game wasn’t anything more than average, and Starks, appearing in just six games, was only a minor contributor to the team’s overall success on the ground.
6) Player’s contributions in the playoffs: Starks missed the team’s last four regular season games and didn’t appear in either of the Packers’ postseason games.
Season Report Card:
(D) Level of expectations met during the season
(D) Contributions to team’s overall success.
(F) Contributions to team during the playoffs
Overall Grade: D-
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Marques is a Journalism student, serving as the Sports Editor of UW-Green Bay\'s campus newspaper The Fourth Estate and a Packers writer at Jersey Al\'s AllGBP.com. Follow Marques on Twitter @MJEversoll.
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If the Packers draft a running back I can’t see Starks being back with the Packers this season.
He’s been with the Packers for three years, and in the first pre-season game, Rodgers yelled at him because he still doesn’t know the plays! He still misses blocks. I’m hoping they let him go, because he just doesn’t want to put in the work to be a good player!
i think starks just got hurt again… brushing his teeth.
i had high hopes for this turd.
he tricked me.
he’s a dud.
saine’s better.
Scott’s got a valid point. Although he can (when healthy) be outstanding at getting yards after contact, he seems to be a liability in pass protect, as if he’s still a rookie & doesn’t understand his responsibilities on a given play. Lack of study or lack of football IQ?
This is the last training camp to impress. Show up or ship out.
Scott & Dan are both right. I hope TT uses the RB’s as bargaining chips to move up in the draft. I also hope that when camp starts TT tells them only 1 will make the team from the current group of RB’s. That includes Kuhn and DeJuan. Let’s have some real competition.
6th round broken down players never become blue chip cow bells. Use the 2nd to get Monte Ball and let’s get a serious running game.
Use the 4th or 5th for the kid from texas. Let’s get TWO RB’s this year. The window for SB’s is about the next seven years.
Get a RB coach who knows what to do.
Just how long do you keep an injured horse alive before you put him out of his misery? Enogh is enough.