Green Bay Packers

Prepare To Finally Meet the 2022 Packers

Photo Credit: Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready to meet the 2022 Green Bay Packers!

That idea may seem like a warm, comforting dream in the cold depths of winter. A forgettable season, successfully forgotten. Five-game losing streak? What five-game losing streak? That was just a figment of our imaginations, the Ghost of Football Yet To Come. You there, boy, go fetch the finest Christmas goose they have in the window at ALDI. No more bah humbug, we’ve learned the true meaning of December football! Merry Packers to all, and to all a good playoffs!

Alas, all the 2022 records stand. Green Bay still sits at 5-8, with a chance of making the playoffs hovering in the single digits, daring the temperature to try to sink lower. Yet the Monday night game against the Los Angeles Rams might be the world’s first glimpse at what the 2022 Packers were supposed to be.

Green Bay’s season was always poised on a razor’s edge. They were recovering from long-term injury situations to key offensive linemen and reeling from the loss of superstar wideout Davante Adams. But Matt LaFleur had a plan: Lean on the two-headed ground attack while the back-to-back NFL MVP got used to throwing dimes to an aspirational wide receiver corps replenished with a pair of promising rookies and one-time almost-star Sammy Watkins.

The trouble is, we never got a great look at that plan. It started to come together after a shaky start against the Minnesota Vikings, but then Aaron Rodgers broke his thumb — before injuring his ribs. The thumb injury, which the team kept quiet for a while, significantly affected Rodgers’ play. Unsurprising, given that even the best of the best can’t overcome a broken digit on their throwing hand. Our own Wendell Ferreira recently noted the dip in Rodgers’ effectiveness as correlated to the timeline of his injury.

Meanwhile, those rookie receivers were developing on a timeline that was almost perfectly opposite of Rodgers’ injury situation. Christian Watson was hurt early, which dramatically hindered his development until he recently starting gifting fans touchdowns like Oprah on a bender. (“You get six points! And you get six points!”) Romeo Doubs showed more promise than a fourth-rounder has any right to, then he got hurt just as Watson was getting well.

Could it be this whole, mostly abysmal season was largely a victim of circumstance?

Okay, maybe not entirely. The team has spent plenty of draft capital on an overhyped defense that has been objectively disappointing. Joe Barry no es bueno. Watkins, whose talent could never outpace his injury woes, turned out not to be so bueno himself. And Brian Gutekunst might as well convert the tight end room into a home theater so the fellas can re-watch Avatar before they go see the sequel.

But all those shortcomings listed above? Those are the problems the Packers should have been working through as their offense came together. And that offense is coming together…just a month or so too late for it to really matter.

That’s cold comfort in 2022 — but what does it portend for 2023?

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing but expecting different results. (Editor’s note: This is absolutely not the clinical definition of insanity, but go with it.) Yet, looking at the totality of Green Bay’s first 14 weeks, it seems as though they might well be able to field essentially the same team next year and yield significant success.

We’ll find out just how likely that is over the next several weeks, starting with the showdown in Los Angeles. Rodgers, Watson, and Doubs are all finally healthy at the same time, ready to unleash a passing attack that will only open up more space for the ground game.  The line is finally solidifying, with injuries abating and rookie Zach Tom getting comfortable. These might be the waning days of the 2022 season, but they’re also a sneak peek at the possibilities of 2023, which suddenly seems a lot less bleak than it did in October and November.

Imagine the team that beat the Dallas Cowboys, Tennessee Titans, and Chicago Bears over the last four weeks playing out a whole 17-game slate. Now imagine them with a stud rookie draft pick and maybe one or two free-agent acquisitions here and there. (Go ahead and imagine yourself a new defensive coordinator while you’re at it.)

Suddenly the doom-and-gloom talk about the end of an era seems hasty. In fact, 2022 might be more of a bump in the road than a dead-end street. Fans can lament the lost opportunities of this season, but maybe they can do so while still realistically anticipating an exciting 2023.

Is that Packer Pollyanna talk, or a plausible scenario? We’re about to find out, starting this weekend.

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