Packer fans gutted in the NFC Championship game again.

Me for the rest of day/week:

Another year, and another gutting loss in the NFC Championship. I guess, in a weird way, at least we’re used to this? Our hearts have been ripped out, scarred over, ripped out, scarred over, and ripped out again. Nobody is more prepared to deal with the aftermath of a loss like that than we are. Is this Spin Zone working for you? Nope? Alright.

There is so much to digest, and so much that went sideways yesterday, that we could spend 5,000 words breaking down every single one of them. Davante dropping a pass in the end zone on a play that he makes 99 times out of 100, the offensive line that dominated the #1 defense in the Divisional Round got whipped routinely, Kevin King, Kevin King, Kevin King. To me, the 3 biggest moments were these:

• In my opinion, the 11 play sequence that ended the first half, and started the second half, was the biggest gamechanger. The Packers had the ball down 14-10 with 2 minutes left in the half, and were set to get the ball to begin the second half. That is CLASSIC, ‘score heading into halftime and out of halftime’ territory for this team. They did it all season. After the first down completion to Allen Lazard that put the ball on the Green Bay 40, they drained 30 seconds from the clock, then got sacked. The next play was the interception. The Bucs got aggressive with the time they had left on the clock and INEXPLICABLY the Packers were playing man-coverage on the touchdown heave from Brady to Scotty Miller. Then, 3 plays into the first drive of the second half, Aaron Jones fumbles, one play later, the Bucs score again. Going from having the ball down 14-10, to being down 28-10 in about 2 minutes of game time is hard to fathom.
• Two straight 3 and outs following two Jaire Alexander interceptions. After all of what we detailed in the previous bullet, the Packers fought back and put themselves in a position to get the lead. The defense which looked PUTRID in the 1st half, rallied and intercepted Tom Brady on three straight possessions. They capitalized on the first pick with the Davante touchdown (and a bad drop by EQ on the two point conversion), but couldn’t do anything with the other two interceptions. Hard to believe for how good the Packer offense had been all season. It doesn’t all come down to Rodgers, but he had the ball twice after turnovers with a chance to take the lead, at home, in the NFC Championship game. They couldn’t do it. If you would have told me before the game that the defense would pick Brady off three times, I would have thought we’d win by 10+.
• The decision to go for a field goal on the last offensive drive of the game. I was BESIDE MYSELF when they brought Crosby out for that field goal. Look, I get it, you kick the field goal, hope your defense can get a stop, then score a touchdown to win the game. I can understand the logic there. But you’ve got Tom Brady on the other sideline. You’re going to willingly give TOM BRADY, a man who’s entire reputation has been made on making big plays in big games, the ball back only needing ONE first down to win the game? I just don’t get it. You’ve got to trust Rodgers in that situation and go for it on 4th and goal. He’s the MVP. It’s Lambeau Field. The Super Bowl is on the line. Don’t take the ball out of his hands and put it in Tom Brady’s. If they don’t score a touchdown and get the 2-point conversion, so be it. You’ve still got your timeouts, and the Bucs would have been inside their own 10 yard line. Maybe you get another chance, maybe you don’t. And hey, maybe they score a touchdown, get the 2-point conversion, and Brady gets the Bucs down the field for a game winning field goal. But I will never agree with holstering Rodgers in that situation. What happened to, ‘all gas no brakes.’

Of course, another element of yesterday’s game was the penalty on Kevin King that essentially ended the game. By the letter of the law, that was pass interference. The infuriating part is that they weren’t calling that type of contact all afternoon. So to decide to call it in THAT situation is beyond aggravating. Bucs corner, Sean Murphy-Bunting, had the EXACT same type of contact on Allen Lazard on his interception at the end of the first half and it wasn’t called. So I get that people are upset over the flag, I am too. But at the end of the day, there are always going to be 50/50 bad calls in any NFL game. The Packers had plenty of chances to avoid being in that scenario and couldn’t get it done. I’m more frustrated with the fact that the team wasn’t on their A-game on the biggest stage than I am about that flag.

Then, of course, there was Aaron Rodgers’ post game press conference, where he talked about a lot of ‘futures being up in the air, including mine.’ This set Packers Twitter into a TIZZY. Let me say this as clearly as I can: There is a 0.0% chance that Aaron Rodgers is not the starting quarterback next season. I think he was frustrated about the way the game played out, I think he was disappointed in the 4th down decision, I think he realizes that he may not have a better chance to get back to the Super Bowl, and I think that all hit him less than an hour after a gutting loss. But in no way do I think that Rodgers was hinting that the Packers might move on from him. Matt LaFleur summed it up nicely about 15 minutes later:

I doubt that LaFleur would say something like that if he and Gutekunst have had substantive conversations about going to Jordan Love. Rodgers has three years left on his contract, he’s about to be the reigning MVP, the only way he’s not playing in Green Bay next season is if he retires, and he’s a guy who has routinely said he wants to play into his 40’s.

So, here we sit again. I don’t think this hurts as much as 2014, considering they had the lead in that game all day until the last few minutes, but it’s close. It’s just so tough to get things set up they way they did this year, winning 13 games, relatively healthy, home field advantage, I don’t know what the likelihood is that they can get that ALL to go their way again.

But, with the state of the NFC North, barring a MAJOR move, they’ll be the favorites again to win the division. Rodgers will be the reigning MVP, and his stable of wide receivers suddenly looks pretty good. Adams is under contract, Lazard will hopefully be healthy all year, and MVS is starting to look REAL good. Honestly he might have had the best game of anyone wearing a Packer jersey yesterday. And not only yesterday, but his last 6-8 weeks looked very promising. Those three wide receivers with Tonyan as the tight end are formidable weapons. Hoping I’m wrong, but my guess is yesterday was the last game in Green Bay for Aaron Jones. I don’t hate maybe signing Jamaal Williams to a more manageable deal and working him and Dillon as a 1-2 punch. Losing Corey Linsley will hurt but the Packers have a history of being able to find above average centers (Frankie Winters to Mike Flannagan, Flanagan to Scott Wells, etc.). Jaire Alexander is proving to be one of the best corners in the league, just need to find someone to play on the other side. Darnell Savage really came into his own and formed a talented combo with Adrian Amos (who is still under contract with reasonable money). There will be roster turnover like any other year, but there’s no reason to think the Packers won’t win 11-12 games and have home playoff games again next year, just need to find a way to lock in when the games get to the level of yesterday’s.

PS: I literally spent 1 solid hour eating summer sausage and cheese after the game yesterday. It was maybe the most Wisconsin grieving process of all time. Ope.