«We’re a mess right now,» Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said after his team lost to Minnesota last week.
They’d have better luck buying Mega Millions tickets than scoring first half points.
Their run defense is sieve-like, their ground game is stuck in first gear, and they’re the NFL’s most penalized team.
“We’re a mess right now,” Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said after his team lost to Minnesota last week.
Amidst the bevy of problems LaFleur & Co. face, they were dealt a new one this week: keeping morale up.
The Packers, mired in a four-game losing streak and sitting with the sixth-worst record in football, became sellers at the NFL’s trade deadline.
General manager Brian Gutekunst traded Rasul Douglas — his best cornerback and arguably top defender — to Buffalo in a clear sign that 2023 isn’t nearly as important to him as 2024 and beyond.
Needless to say, the move wasn’t warmly received in the locker room.
“I mean I understand it’s a business, but I’m still sick to my stomach, honestly,” cornerback/return ace Keisean Nixon said.
He wasn’t the only one.
Douglas — plucked from Arizona’s practice squad in Oct. 2021 — was one of the greatest rags-to-riches stories in recent Packer history.
Douglas led Green Bay with five interceptions in 2021 and returned two of those for scores. He made 28 starts over the last two-plus seasons and played all 487 of Green Bay’s defensive snaps this fall.
As good as Douglas was on the field, he might have been better off of it. He was a leader on a team devoid of veterans. And the younger players continually turned to the 29-year-old Douglas for advice with their games — and their lives.
“It’s hard to kind of look past it,” Packers wideout Christian Watson said of Douglas being traded.
