The Green Bay Packers Are Green and Growing
The 2023 season is over for the Green Bay Packers, yet their future remains brighter than it has looked in quite some time.
And just like that, the 2023 season is over for the Green Bay Packers.
A heartbreaking 24-21 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs has shut the door on a year that no Packers fan saw coming. The agony, the waiting for answers, and in just a blink, the fast gestation and development from a Packers team that is largely made up of players who are experiencing life in the NFL for the first time. A team that ultimately came within a few minutes of reaching the NFC Championship shows how far they have come in six months and how far they have yet to go beyond this season.
On its face, a 9-8 season is hardly one to be worth celebrating to any effect. The Packers rode through the rollercoaster, veering into danger and disaster for large stretches of the season, before climbing towards the apex when there was no more room for error. They did well enough to clinch a playoff berth on the last week of the regular season. To spoil the Dallas Cowboys season in the Wild Card round and emerge as the youngest team to win a playoff game. And to make the 49ers work hard for a win that should have come a lot easier to them, at least on paper.
The saving grace to this year was always little to no expectations, at least from the outside. Green Bay had the youth, the inexperience, and the bundle of recent draft picks placed at multiple starting positions that gave everyone pause to think whether they could make noise throughout the year. The victories would come in small gains, reps for all of the youngsters who were all growing together.
The reality of accomplishing what they did this year generates higher expectations moving forward. Soon enough, the Packers will be projected to win and win bigger. We've all been through this before and have seen first-hand how the expectations of achieving Super Bowl success can distort the journey to get there, or back there, in the first place.
If nothing else, this year has been vindication for the biggest questions facing three key figures in particular.
For one, Jordan Love is the franchise quarterback the Packers thought he could be when they drafted him nearly four years ago. The lasting image of Love throwing an off-platform throw into double coverage for the game-sealing interception is not representative of the great strides that he had made to carry the Packers into the playoffs. Love is the building block the Packers will build around and he will surely be rewarded with a new deal in the offseason too.
Second, this is vindication for head coach Matt LaFleur. For as much Kyle Shanahan has been LaFleur’s biggest Achilles heel come the postseason, LaFleur was incredibly deft leading a young Green Bay team through adversity all throughout the year. Even when things were at their lowest, when questions surfaced over whether LaFleur could guide such a young roster to play the way he wants to play, the process eventually yielded the results to ensure LaFleur won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
Last, but certainly not least, Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst heard all of the criticism in recent years. His draft record, practically from the Love selection onwards, was constantly cast into question. He did everything to support a legendary quarterback and his final MVP years with the franchise, and even then, it was still not enough in the court of public opinion when the Packers fell short.
Instead, Gutey presided over a much-needed youth movement that expedited a Packers rebuild into a season that gave us all a glimpse into what the future could look like. They drafted, they developed, and they stuck to a plan that showed just how quickly it’s possible to build, virtually on the fly. And most of all, the hardest part in any rebuild has been answered with a franchise quarterback in place.
Make no mistake, the sting from the loss the Packers endured to the 49ers will linger on all offseason. For fans, the players, the coaches, the front office. This Packers team got a taste of the playoff experience and all that it has to offer. It creates a new standard by which they will be measured by going into next season.
There are steps to success, to quote a famous Greek philosopher and two-time MVP of the Milwaukee Bucks. This Packers team hit the fast track and surpassed many checkpoints that are far greater than what any 9-8 team and seventh seed has ever accomplished.
It won’t get better cheering for a Packers team that didn’t know what they didn’t know, and defied expectations in the end. Where the journey takes them from here remains to be seen, but the future at 1265 Lombardi Avenue is a lot brighter than it has been for some time.