How Matt LaFleur’s decision to stop playing the ‘young guys’ game changed everything for Packers.
“We’re not even talking that game, that ‘young guys’ game. Whoever’s out there, the expectation is the same. We’ve played, what, seven games now? I’m not interested in that. I think that’s an excuse. We’ll never do that. We’re just going to continue to find ways to keep improving … But we’re not obviously getting the results that anybody wants.”
— a visibly frustrated Matt LaFleur, following his team’s 24-10 loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Oct. 29 at Lambeau Field.
GREEN BAY — Matt LaFleur cut off the question mid-syllable. Those perfect eyebrows of his furrowed. He scowled. And the sharp edge to his voice sliced through the tense Lambeau Field auditorium air.
His team had just lost its fourth consecutive game, dropping its record to 2-5. He and his players had been booed multiple times throughout the afternoon, including at halftime with another 0 looming over them on the scoreboard as they ran up the tunnel to the locker room.
Once again, LaFleur’s offense had been pitiful. First-year starting quarterback Jordan Love appeared to be regressing. On seemingly every other play, one of his young skill-position players would be arriving at the wrong place or at the wrong time, wrecking a scheme predicated on precision.
And yet, fully aware that many of the offense’s issues could be traced to Love’s and his would-be pass catchers’ inexperience, LaFleur knew he needed to change course.
Sure, he’d been telling the truth. No team in the NFL’s Super Bowl era was thought to have assembled such an inexperienced amalgamation of a first-year starting quarterback and exclusively first- and second-year players at wide receiver and tight end.
But as LaFleur had long been fond of saying, no one feels sorry for you in this league. So the this-team-is-so-young narrative had to stop.
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