After Sunday’s 27-10 home loss to the New York Jets, one week after losing to the New York Giants, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers called for the team to “simplify” some things on offense. That topic came up during Monday’s press conference with Packers coach Matt LaFleur.
“Were you surprised to hear how much Aaron wants to simplify the offense?” LaFleur was asked. His answer was somewhat surprising.
“I don’t know what that means,” LaFleur said. “So, no, we talked about it. It’s just — any time that there’s a lack of execution, and certainly we’ve got to coach better, no doubt about it. We’ve got to put our guys in better positions, just communication from top down and then out on the field, you know, has got to be better. We’ve got to get everybody on the same page. And then, to me, it’s more about digging at the details of what we’re doing. Because I think you could see that, and it falls on everybody. Certainly, you know, again, it always starts with us as coaches, trying to do a better job of getting guys to understand all the little intricacies, because I think that’s really what separates a lot of plays in this league. And it really doesn’t matter what we do schematically. If we don’t block better, it’s hard to do anything. And I think that was the number one issue yesterday.”
LaFleur then was asked more about how to simplify the offense. His answer focused more on execution than complexity, or not, of the offense.
“Again, I think it’s just executing the details,” LaFleur said. “There’s a lot of things we can do from a technique standpoint that have got to be better. And then I think, you know, just what are we asking our guys to do? That’s what you always look at critically. I know every time we come out of a game and you look at every play critically, you always ask yourself, ‘Did you give your guys a chance?’ You know, what is the opposition doing to us that is trying to take away certain things or whatever it may be?”
LaFleur said that the Jets, for example, used more man-to-man coverage than they had shown on film in the preceding five weeks.
Still, the comments from the quarterback focused specifically on his belief that some things on offense need to be simplified. Given that LaFleur reacted like Bill O’Reilly after he was told that Sting is going “to play us out,” it’s definitely an unexpected wrinkle that bears watching in the broader relationship between coach and quarterback,