Despite the poor year they’re having, the Green Bay Packers are still standing in the NFC playoff race. Kinda.
The bye week was good to the Packers, who now have an impressive 6% chance of making the playoffs, according to FiveThirtyEight. The NFC is so aggressively mediocre that even the lackluster Packers are still technically in the race.
And so the Green and Gold will approach the rest of this season like any other. They intend to win every game and play as if they could go on a Super Bowl run. They probably won’t, but this is the correct attitude to have. Despite the season being “just about over” since mid-October, this team won’t — and shouldn’t — embrace “tank mode.” Fighting to the bitter end is vital to this team’s culture.
With a season this disappointing, it’s easy to think it’s time to phone it in, see what some of your younger and fringe roster players can do, and try to get a premium draft pick. The Packers face some uncertainty heading into the 2023 offseason, especially at quarterback.
No one knows who the Packers will start under center in 2023. Aaron Rodgers could choose to retire or, less likely, be traded. Jordan Love could be the starter, he could be the backup, or he could be traded. The Packers could draft someone. Mitch Trubisky could be the starter, for all we know. It makes sense in a vacuum to look toward the future.
That is especially true after seeing Love play quality football against the NFC’s top-seeded Philadelphia Eagles. Regardless of how you feel about the Love pick, he hasn’t had many opportunities to play actual NFL snaps. Rodgers has played well below his usual standard (which still probably makes him a top-five QB in the NFC this season) and has played through a slew of injuries. There is absolutely a strong case to be made for seeing Love finish out the season.
But it’s probably not going to happen.
Matt LaFleur has stated that as long as Rodgers can play, he’ll be the starting quarterback. Rodgers has made similar comments, although he admitted he would be open to a conversation about sitting out if the team is officially eliminated from the postseason. And last week, Brian Gutekunst claimed the Packers had seen enough from Love to know whether or not they’ll pick up his fifth-year option (cliffhanger!). It’s almost certain Rodgers will finish the season if he can.
If Rodgers is still playing, it stands to reason the rest of the starters will too.
It would be cool to see what some younger players can do in a lost season. But that’s not how NFL coaches and players think. They are competitors, even if the Packers haven’t looked like it at times. Phoning in the rest of the season is disrespectful to the locker room and the players who have fought all season long and are still battling for their jobs.
Gutekunst alluded to this in his recent media availability, where he mentioned winning as a “culture thing.” And it absolutely is. Even when the chips are down, this team must continue fighting and improving. Losing sucks, and a culture of losing can spread a toxic mindset throughout an organization. In a hyper-competitive environment like that of the NFL, it can be disastrously magnified.
The Packers haven’t lost much under LaFleur, but we’ve seen an inability to overcome adversity during the losses. LaFleur still has the locker room. How this team handles losses will determine a lot about its future.
You can learn a lot about how a team plays in a losing environment. Look at our NFC North friends in Detroit. Under Matt Patricia, who was bad, it was clear the players were phoning it in and mired in a losing mentality. Under Dan Campbell, the Detroit Lions still haven’t found sustained success, but every game the team plays their rear ends off for the coach they believe in. The records might not be that different yet, but they have a much better culture now and thus a much brighter future.
Green Bay should not, and will not, embrace a tank. This is Titletown, a community that celebrates success. It might be better to lose every game and get a better draft spot, but doing so would be detrimental to the team and its fanbase. And it’s not like every top-10 draft pick is automatically good. Look at the Cleveland Browns.
Even if they win every game, the Packers have roughly a 60% to make the playoffs. Assuming they can win out, they’re still at the mercy of the broader playoff standings around the NFC. Even knowing this, the Packers should play every game to win. Even if you can’t make the Super Bowl, ruin someone else’s chance. Be the obstacle.
There are a lot of exciting younger players on Green Bay’s roster, and it would be great to see them get a shot. But the starting players on the roster have earned the chance to continue fighting. Maintaining a positive, winning culture during a down year is crucial for the future success of this organization. Even if it might cost the team a chance at a better draft pick, the Packers should not go gently into that good night.
