Matt LaFleur admits huge mistake that made Packers win harder than it should've been
The Green Bay Packers won 30-13 against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday Night Football. The score tells the game wasn't close, but there was a time during the second half where it became somewhat dangerous. That could have been avoided with a touchdown instead of a field goal late in the second quarter, but a […]
The Green Bay Packers won 30-13 against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday Night Football. The score tells the game wasn't close, but there was a time during the second half where it became somewhat dangerous.
That could have been avoided with a touchdown instead of a field goal late in the second quarter, but a wild sequence of questionable management cost the team. The Packers allowed several plays to run off before getting a big defensive pass interference with four seconds left. At that point, head coach Matt LaFleur was conservative, choosing to kick the field goal to secure three points.
The head coach took the blame for how the entire situation was managed.
"I totally mismanaged the end of the half, that was 100% on me," LaFleur said. "Just being too indecisive, putting it on Jordan (Love), giving him a call at the line of scrimmage, just took far too long. That's something that can't happen, that can cost us if it was a tighter game. That was on me."
With the benefit of hindsight, LaFleur said he should've called a timeout earlier, since the Packers had two left, to give them more time to operate.
Overall, it was a conservative game for him. Outside of a failed fourth-down try late in the game, Green Bay kicked the field goal late in the second quarter, took the points again with a 4th & 1 in the second half, and then punted on 4th & 3 near midfield.
At that moment of the game, beyond scoring, not giving the possession back to the Seahawks ended up being too high of a priority.
"I think it was a moment I was indecisive, didn't want to call a timeout, because it had taken too much time off the clock," LaFleur explained. "I should have called a timeout and didn't. It was just poor management, and something like that can't happen."
Despite the bad sequence, the game was never in too much of a risk for the Packers. In the second half, Geno Smith suffered a knee injury, and Green Bay was able to control the game and put it away with a late Romeo Doubs touchdown.
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