A season, that left many filled with joy, excitement, and surprise, ended in such an abrupt way, that many fans, me included, felt sad, angry, and disappointed.Yes, and it's familiar. Here is Vince Lombardi, during training camp in July of 1967, as chronicled by guard Jerry Kramer in Instant Replay. "Take an education, but don't dwell on it. Don't let it affect your play. You will drop passes. You will make mistakes. But not very many if you want to play for the Green Bay Packers."
There’s no doubt, that 2023 was an odd year – many ups, downs, twists, and turns.
Expectations were set low, and, let’s be honest, until Thanksgiving, this team looked dead in the water, until they clearly began to swim again.
Fast forward to this week, and the now sad, angry, and disappointment is met with higher expectations, and on Wednesday, head coach Matt Lafleur made sure to make a statement.
Goodbye, defensive coordinator Joe Barry.
Goodbye strength and conditioning coach, Chris Gizzi, and hello kicking competition already with the signing of a new kicker less than a week after rookie Anders Carlson missed a key try in the team’s three-point defeat.
Many have said LaFleur has always been unable to make the big decisions, that he’s been unable to make bold moves after letdown after letdown, but these are issues that have plagued his teams, and instead of preaching for “continuity,” instead of standing pat, he decided to do something about it and put his foot down to let his young team he means business going forward.
It may seem like an easy choice, but Barry was still under contract with the organization. Players seemed to want to play for “JB”, but LaFleur saw the outcome on the field, he knew it was under-performing, and he decided to make a move knowing this team could be something special in the years to come.
The message is simple – You don’t perform, you don’t belong here. It’s a strong message to the league’s youngest team.
Vince Lombardi started establishing that culture in training camp, fining a player for sitting on his bunk in his skivvies at bed check. Command is like that, as Vince Gallery explained. "The word gets around, 'No more foolishness — this man means business.' In the first week a few heads will roll, the slack rigging is set taut, and the former weak sister is a fighting unit."
In Green Bay, it might be that the coach opted to be worthy of the players. The players are assuming leadership.
Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones believes the 2023 team set the groundwork for something special entering 2024.When the locker room takes ownership of the mission, and the coaching staff grasps what the mission is, the prospects for future high performance are great.
Internal expectations are now high after the Packers revived their season, beat top teams like the Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs down the stretch, made the playoffs after winning three-straight games to close the regular season, upset the Cowboys in Dallas to open the postseason and nearly knocked of the top-seeded 49ers in the divisional round.
“I feel like what we’re building here is special,” Jones told Larry McCarren of Packers.com. “You can feel it. You can see it. The chemistry. The bond. The standard that we’ve set. I feel like with the standard we’ve set, we know what our expectations are when we come back next year. Our standard is high. We have no reason not to reach that standard every day because we’ve shown that we can do it this year, and we showed we can do it game after game after game, we can put it together. We’re going to be dangerous, we’re going to be special.”
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