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Miami, Florida: the final destination.
These are the trips of the Packers Green Bay 2019. Their mission (twenty) game: exploit the weakness of their opponents, seek victory at all costs and go boldly where only George Siefert and the 1989 San Francisco 49ers have gone before : Super Bowl with a rookie head coach.
This is Matt LaFleur's ultimate task as he prepares for his first field trip as head coach tonight as his Green Bay Packers face the Chicago Bears for the 100th season. of the NFL.
So what will the Packers have to do this season to say "go that way" to a fifth Lombardi Trophy?
It starts with the head coach. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers is in the spotlight and it will always be, but this season, the same goes for his coach and his intensity is even more intense. Rodgers begins a season during which he will turn 36 in December. The team has just replaced senior coach Mike McCarthy with a young, hard-working genius at LaFleur and, the year before, by general manager Ted Thompson with a younger hybrid version of himself and his mentor Ron Wolf by Brian Gutekunst .
Although Gutekunst has left its mark on the franchise route thanks to its more assertive approach to the free agency and the acquisition of players in general, it will be LaFleur who will ultimately determine the final destination of the 2019 campaign. That's a lot to ask a 39-year-old in his first head coaching job, but many rookie coaches do not inherit one of the best quarterbacks to have played the game at Rodgers, the best left tackler of the league in, David Bakhtiari and one of the top five receivers at Davante Adams.
When you take these players and insert them into the LaFleur system, a modern offensive that organizes the players up and plays a lot against the isolation routes like McCarthy's during his last years, and he There is something to be excited about. Seeing the attack from Rodgers and Adams in order to make life easier for the quarterback is something that Packers fans want to see for years and they will finally have their chance.
Of course, when you change your head coach for the first time in 13 years and he installs a completely new offense for your generational quarterback, there are many unknowns and the unknown can be terrifying. There has been a lot of talk about "the audible thing" that has been motivated by reckless speculation in the media, but you can not deny that there are a lot of things going on between Rodgers and LaFleur who find themselves on the same page. There is a rhythm of calling pieces that they will have to develop and a confidence that will have to grow. LaFleur made it clear that he wanted to make Rodgers' life as simple as possible and the quarterback would be well advised to listen to him.
The Packers found themselves where they were in the last few seasons, almost only because Rodgers wanted them there. Thompson's latest failures in his project and McCarthy's increasingly stagnant offensive system paralyzed the team, but they were still competing almost exclusively with Rodgers' right arm and brain. This resulted in a boastful speech about Rodgers who exudes confidence, but has also rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, according to several reports during the off season.
Rodgers, buying what LaFleur sells, will be crucial. Rodgers took outside sources all year round knowing that he had the goal of catapulting himself into another historical landmark and that smart money said he would, but you will not know it until the beginning of the year. games.
There is also the unknown of how LaFleur will handle adversity in a season of 16 games. At some point, the Packers will find themselves at a crossroads. Can the 53 men in the training watch LaFleur in the eye and see whoever will lead them to the end and lead them where they want to be? The answer to this question could begin to be revealed tonight. Soldier Field will be at the party and his defense will test his new attack all night long. The reaction of LaFleur under this pressure will give a preliminary indication of his capacity to withstand the pressures of work.
With all these unknowns, what do we know exactly? For one, the Packers will run the ball more often. LaFleur has repeatedly mentioned his desire to "marry the race with the pass", which means feed Aaron Jones, what fans have been asking for since the start of last season, when McCarthy sometimes forgot that number 33 was even on the list. Jones was one of the best half-players in football at the end of last season before a knee injury went off the rails for an otherwise promising campaign. He intensified his activities during the off-season and eliminated the treats from his diet. Rodgers noted that the running half was in the best shape of his career.
Unpredictability is also something that will come out of the Packers' offense this year, which is a serious breach of McCarthy's offense. The LaFleur system stems from what Mike Shanahan did in Denver and the fact that his son Kyle runs in San Francisco, as well as what a lot of Sean McVay uses with the Los Angeles Rams. The offense specializes in doing many different things from the same look. The Packers could be in a staggered I formation with a quick pass for Jones on a goal and play, then get out of the same formation later and then have him go to Jones on a wheeled path. He keeps the defenses conquering and when you add Rodgers' intelligence to the line of scrimmage, there's a recipe for something good.
The word "potential" is often used at this time of the year because there is simply not enough data to logically conclude. The current logic would be that the Packers are better than they were a year ago, but until more evidence is provided, the best thing to do would be to hope for the best.
Who knows? Maybe at the end of the game tonight, fans will look at the Packers' performance tonight, raise an eyebrow and say "Fascinating".
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