Garbage time of the Monday night game between the Rams and the Packers included a conversation between the members of the broadcast booth that was anything but.
On Tuesday, Packers coach Matt LaFluer vaguely confirmed the accuracy of comments made on the air by Joe Buck and Troy Aikman of ESPN.
They said LaFleur had told them things began to change when the offense started watching practice film together, and not in individual groups. A reporter asked LaFleur about it.
“Yeah that’s something that just thinking back in previous years, we had done that, most of the time together and then after that first year, again we had a more veteran group of wideouts and we allowed it to, just from an efficiency standpoint and a detail standpoint, allowed the position groups to meet independently of one another in some instances,” LaFleur said, via Kalyh Kahler of TheAthletic.com. “Now, I would say, I can’t remember what week it was, but we decided to start watching . . . every practice together as a whole unit.”
Asked why it took so long, LaFleur said, “That’s just the way it transpired.”
And that directly contributed to the sluggish manner in which the season transpired.
Buck said, via Kahler, that the practice of watching film as an offensive unit helped make an overdue connection between quarterback Aaron Rodgers and rookie receivers Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs.
“LaFleur said it changed when we all started watching tape of both our Wednesday and Thursday practices together as a group, so we could talk and Aaron can hear what Christian Watson is thinking and Romeo Doubs, and not only that but get to know them as people which maybe humanized him and took a little bit of the pressure off,” Buck said.
“When LaFleur said that, I was shocked that they hadn’t been meeting all along,” Aikman replied. “I’ve been on both sides of it, I have had [offensive coordinators] who had it where you always met with your individual position coach and not as a group and I have had others where the whole offense, excluding linemen, met and that worked best. I think that’s the way to go and my guess is LaFleur will do it that way the rest of his time as a head coach. . . . The more time you can have with the skill players, the more you can be in the room watching the practices together and even the opponent film, the better off you are going to be, especially when you are talking about young receivers like Watson and Romeo Doubs.”
It’s obviously right. And it’s amazing that Rodgers wasn’t insisting on it — or (if true) that he was resisting it.
But no one should be surprised. It was Rodgers who stayed away from all of the offseason program, but for a cameo appearance in connection with the mandatory minicamp. And it was Rodgers who didn’t gather his new corps of receivers for informal workouts, like so many other quarterbacks do on an annual basis.
For as smart as Rodgers is (or at least pretends to be), it’s amazing he didn’t realize that young players who literally grew up watching his exploits (Watson was only 11 when Rodgers won his only Super Bowl, and Doubs was only 10) needed to get to know him before getting comfortable around him. Instead, and by all appearances, Rodgers opted to be absent and aloof and perhaps even standoffish in the early days of their NFL experience.
Then training camp started, Rodgers showed up with his Arthur Shelby haircut, and Watson and Doubs had to try to perform while also being naturally in awe of their new quarterback — and also probably a little (or more than a little) intimidated and even afraid of him. Especially after he started calling them out generally for making mistakes or not going above and beyond the call of duty and working when not at work.
It’s a jarring failure of Rodgers either to understand the importance of making a real human connection with his new teammates or to take steps to improve a situation that he actually knew would make it harder for Watson and Doubs to get as comfortable, and in turn as effective, as they can be.
The good news is that it’s finally working. So, better late than never. Unless it was so late that they’ll never make it to the playoffs this season.
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