The Green Bay Packers have found a lot of success under head coach Matt LaFleur. However, they have had their fair share of struggles early on in the season. In the last two years, it has been especially ugly.
“We got our ass kicked,” LaFleur bluntly put it recently. He certainly isn’t wrong as the Packers lost in the 2021 season opener to the New Orleans Saints 38-3 and last season to the Minnesota Vikings 23-7.
Looking to avoid that happening for a third straight year, the Packers put a new plan into place this offseason. With Jordan Love replacing Aaron Rodgers as the starting quarterback, this was the perfect time to try something new.
This year, LaFleur changed how the team approached training camp and preseason games. After years of the regulars not taking part in the exhibitions, everyone who was healthy enough to play got in the games.
“A lot of the discussion after the last couple preseasons with Matt and I have been, ‘OK maybe it’s time to do something different in preseason,’” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst told ESPN. “Then certainly once we started putting the team together and it looked like it did, it was like, ‘OK these guys really do need as many reps as we can get.’ I think we probably played them even a little bit more just because of the makeup of our football team.”
Left tackle David Bakhtiari, who is on a specialized plan to keep him healthy for the regular season, was the only offensive starter to not see a snap in the preseason. Defensively, cornerback Jaire Alexander, who fought some injury ailments, and edge rusher Rashan Gary, who is recovering from an ACL tear, were the only players to not get into a game.
The Packers are hopeful that getting some live snaps in during the offseason will help turn the tide in Week 1, avoiding a sluggish start. The only real concern about playing the regulars in the preseason was injuries.
Unfortunately, Green Bay didn’t make it through unscathed. Tight end Tyler Davis, who is a key cog on special teams and was heading toward a bigger role offensively, tore his ACL in the first game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
“Other than that, I did really like the way we went through preseason this year, and hopefully that will benefit us early,” Gutekunst said. “We’ll see, but I think we’re in a better spot than [we] had been in the past.”
It is something that the players were happy to take part in. Defensive lineman Kenny Clark, who hadn’t appeared in a preseason game since 2019, was all for the change if it meant getting off to a better start in the regular season.
“I felt like it helped me,” Clark said. “At practice, you get it a little bit, that anxious feeling, but when you’re out there on the game field, it just feels different — your breathing, all that kind of stuff — I think that’s definitely going to help us that a lot of us played in the preseason.
“I was happy I did. I was out there breathing fast, breathing hard. You can’t simulate that. As hard as we go at practice, it’s different when you’re out there.”
A new era is upon the Packers, with the overarching storyline of the season being Love replacing Rodgers. LaFleur and Gutekunst saw an opportunity to shake up more than just the lineup and are hoping it pays off in the long run.
