GREEN BAY − Vince Lombardi had a motto that was the foundation of everything he did while building the Green Bay Packers into a 1960s powerhouse.
His teams would chase perfection, he told them, knowing perfection wasn’t attainable. But along the way, they’d catch excellence.
It was a mindset that produced championships, iconic moments and multiple Hall-of-Famers. The 2023 iteration of the Green Bay Packers sits at 2-5, on a four-game losing streak. All of their sure-fire Hall-of-Famers have moved on, with no one seemingly poised to take their place. And there is a considerable short-fall of excellence that has led the veterans on this team to say they must start chasing perfection again, even if it’s not attainable, and never settle for less.
“You got to be as close to perfect, nobody's perfect, but you can get pretty close, (expletive) near perfect,” running back Aaron Jones said after the Packers 24-10 loss to the Minnesota Vikings. “Gotta get close as you can.”
It’s a directive that is taken even more seriously on the defensive side of the ball. If there’s any chance of the Packers turning their season around, it’s going to fall on the shoulders of a defense that features eight first-round draft picks.
“We gotta be perfect. No one’s perfect but God, but ...” Rasul Douglas said, before trailing off for a few seconds.
So how does one chase perfection?
Football games often are won on Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays. How you practice is how you play, and it’s there the Packers will have to start finding answers.
“We’re just going to continue to find ways to try to keep improving, and it starts in practice,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “Get a good week of practice, then you go out and play well. I do think that the practices have been competitive and such like that, but we’re obviously not getting results that anybody wants.”
Asked what needs to change during the week, Jones said, “just a little more focused on the details. When you get out there, you only get, pretty much each play is one opportunity … each play is critical. You can't get that play back. It's not practice. That's what we practice for.”
A lot of details seemed unfocused Sunday, but one play in particular encapsulated all of the offensive issues. On first-and-5 from the 50-yard line, trying to get something on the scoreboard before halftime, Jordan Love swung a screen pass to tight end Luke Musgrave. The rookie was supposed to follow behind his blocker, second-year receiver Christian Watson. The pass went off Musgrave’s hands, who was behind the ball. On top of that, Watson received a penalty for offensive pass interference, blocking too far downfield.
“I just gotta be a little more patient on it,” Watson said. “There’s a fine line between when you can block and when you can’t, when they call it and when they don’t. I was a little too aggressive on that play.”
Musgrave said the depth on the play, both Watson’s and where Musgrave plays off of Watson, is a feel thing. It’s something to be perfected in practice before being used. Musgrave, for what it’s worth, was out of practice all week with an ankle injury.
"It’s a tough play,” Musgrave said. “It’s a hard play for (Christian). It’s a timing thing and I’ll put that on me. I wasn’t out there at practice this week … we repped it a little bit (earlier in the year), but each defense is different. So that’s a tough play for him.”
Both Watson and Musgrave are young players on a young offense. It’s not an excuse coaches or players are allowing any longer. Yet, their teammates are still quick to point out that they’re still learning.
Another point of emphasis in practice is penalties. Following Sunday’s game, in which the Packers had 11 penalties for 99 yards, Green Bay is averaging 8.9 flags for 60.6 yards per game. It’s a team-wide problem, LaFleur said, and goes back to demanding more from each other leading up to and during the game.
“It’s never one person, it’s never one guy, it’s just collectively as a whole,” LaFleur said. “We’ve got to look each other in the eye, and we’ve got to demand better and we need to get better.”
Demanding better can be hard. It means, to borrow LaFleur’s words, looking a teammate and friend in the eye and telling him he isn’t doing well enough. That sort of communication is the only way the players see their issues being addressed correctly.
“You gotta say the problem first,” Douglas said. “That's the only way you can fix it, first you have to admit there is a problem. Say how you feel, how they feel and then you patch it up. Well, there's a lot of problems and until we say the real problem and not the sugar-coated problem, it’s never gonna get fixed.”
The Packers schedule only gets tougher from here. When they step back onto the practice field Wednesday, Jones wants to see an imperfect team ready to change their fate.
“When your back’s against the wall, got nothing to lose, who's gonna come out fighting, and who's gonna tuck their tails? You find out a lot about people and their character,” Jones said. “So it's going to be telling.”
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October 31, 2023 at 12:35AM
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After another mistake-filled loss, Packers players demand accountability during game preparations - Packers News
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