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A few hours after calling the play, back home in Green Bay, Packers coach Matt LaFleur admitted it was one he “struggled with.”
LaFleur had noticed, the last few times his team played Detroit, that the Lions were playing a safety low against his offense—almost daring the Packers to take a shot. But last week’s Thanksgiving game meant a short week for Green Bay, and with a first-year starting quarterback and a young group of wideouts, putting in the shot play LaFleur wanted to carried risk.
The coach went through with it, with one big caveat.
On the morning of the game, he gave Christian Watson a specific set of instructions.
“I just told him before the game, Listen, there’s a good chance this ball goes to you. I just want you to run as fast as you can. If you get an opportunity to go up for this ball, you attack the football,” LaFleur said Thursday night. “He did exactly that.”
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The play, the Packers’ first from scrimmage Thursday, was good for 53 yards. But intrinsically, it was worth so much more.
It ignited the Packers, who would score four plays later and lead until the clock ran out. It ignited Watson, who flashed his enormous potential to lead all Green Bay receivers in catches and yards versus the Lions. It ignited Jordan Love, who stacked another efficient, explosive performance onto the one he put on against the Chargers four days earlier. And it brought to life a Packers team that’s blended a veteran defense with a young offense, and now suddenly finds itself in the thick of the NFC playoff picture—just one game out of the last wild-card spot.
“That first play set the tone for us,” LaFleur says. “The touchdown was huge. [Watson] beat bad leverage. The guy was outside leverage. He beat it, and he made a hell of a hands catch. I was really happy for him and what he was able to accomplish. He’s a guy that cares a lot. He works his ass off, really intelligent player. You can throw him anywhere, and we move him around quite a bit and put a lot on his plate. You know he can handle it. He’s a great kid.”
And the cool thing for LaFleur, as the calendar turns to December, is the coach can sing the same kind of praise for a lot of players on his roster.
For obvious reasons, this season was always going to be a different one for the Packers organization. They were letting a legend go in trading Aaron Rodgers, and with the quarterback went a lot of reliable Packers, particularly on offense. The good news was that, over the last few years, LaFleur and GM Brian Gutekunst had started to prepare for what was coming.
So against the Lions, Green Bay had the developmental seventh-round tackle it took in 2022, Rasheed Walker, rotating in with veteran Yosh Nijman at David Bakhtiari’s old left tackle spot. It also had one rookie, Tucker Kraft, filling in for another rookie, Luke Musgrave, where Robert Tonyan used to play at tight end. To go along with Watson (a ’22 second-rounder), the Packers have Romeo Doubs (a ’22 fourth-rounder), Jayden Reed (a rookie second-rounder) and Malik Heath (an undrafted rookie playing in place of fifth-round rookie Dontayvion Wicks).
These players, together now, are coming up not as Rodgers’s guys, but as Love’s guys. For both the quarterback and all the other young players, there’s a benefit to that.
“You learn and grow together,” LaFleur says. “You fight through adversity. Any time that you have to go through something that’s a struggle and you can get out the other side, you’re better for it. I told them tonight, I’m sure there’s going to be more struggle along the way. We just gotta keep working. That’s what I know [Love will] do. The guys love him. They believe in him. I know our coaches believe in him. It’s been a fun process just to see the growth of all these young guys.”
Which is not to say that it’s better or worse—just different than it had been in Green Bay for a long time.
The Packers’ development has been pretty consistent as the year has gone on, even as tough times hit with a 1–5 skid, and the four-game losing streak that led into the win over the Chargers. That growth finally started to manifest on the field in Week 12, with Love’s big shot to Watson only the first in a series of plays that showed it.
Another came just four plays later, when Love fit the ball into a microscopic window on a slant to Reed.
“That was a busted play, so we dodged a bullet there,” LaFleur says. “Jordan threw to that tight ass window. Jayden Reed ran the right route. … It wasn’t exactly how you draw it up, but I will say Jayden ran the right route. It was kind of like a distraction drill catch, and Jayden made that play. He’s made so many plays for us this year.”
On the Packers’ next possession, Love, again, showed a feel for the game that may not have been there earlier in the year—let alone during the first three years of his career.
It came on a third-and-1 from the Lions’ 9-yard line, with 3:13 left. Kraft threw a block on Detroit’s Aidan Hutchinson, then leaked out to the flat. That left both Hutchinson and a blitzing Tracy Walker III bearing down on Love. The quarterback calmly faded to his right, saw how open Kraft had come and feathered the ball into the flat for the easy touchdown.
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What makes it even more impressive? LaFleur thought the Packers had picked up the first down on the previous play, and therefore had to scramble to pull that play out for third-and-short. An assistant asked whether the coach wanted a timeout. He said no, figuring it’d be good for his team, and young quarterback, to hustle through it. And in doing so, the Packers saw something new from Love.
“I don’t know, if that’s earlier this year, he makes that throw, just the air he put under it and allowing Tucker to make the play,” LaFleur says. “We’d been in a few situations where he hasn’t always done that. I think that just speaks to the growth that he’s showing. There’s something every week the guy does that you’re just like, Oh wow, that was pretty cool. That was one of those plays. Obviously, we needed it.”
And that’s just the offense. Green Bay’s defense held an explosive, creative Lions attack to 22 points while also creating three turnovers—one of which the Packers wound up scoring on (that came off a strip-sack from Rashan Gary, who had a three-sack performance on the field he blew his knee out on last year). The Packers also did so without Jaire Alexander, De’Vondre Campbell, Rudy Ford or Darnell Savage Jr.
As we talked, flipping to that side of the ball, LaFleur started rattling off names that, well, you might be less familiar with—such as Carrington Valentine, Corey Ballentine, Isaiah McDuffie, Jonathan Owens, Colby Wooden and Karl Brooks—who were pressed into action and did the job they were asked to. “There’s just so many dudes that have made an impact on this team,” LaFleur says.
That all those players made it happen against the NFC North leaders only made it more significant and more encouraging in terms of where the group can go.
“It’s enjoyable when you come to work every day, and these guys are eager to get to work,” LaFleur says. “That is fun. They’re coachable. They just grind. They go out there and they keep their head down. They keep swinging. That’s all we’ve asked them to do. The guys, they’ve responded. It’s always fun to work with people that want to get better. I would say, this group, that’s what they’re all about.
“It’s not just the young guys. It’s the veterans as well—guys like Kenny Clark and De’Vondre Campbell. Preston Smith, he’s had an unbelievable year for us. Savage, although it’s been a tough year for him in terms of having to go on IR. Guys like Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon, who continue to improve. Elgton Jenkins. Those veterans, too, they’ve kind of helped keep this s--- together. It’s not easy in this league. There’s so much attention in this league. It’s a blessing and a curse. There’s a lot of eyes on everybody.
“It’s great when you’re doing well and it’s not great when you’re not doing well. They’ve stayed resilient. They’ve stayed together, which has been huge for us.”
And the results of that were obvious against Detroit—right from the start.
