By Tori Wittenbrock
Associate Sports Editor
GREEN BAY — After a devastating loss on Thursday, Sept. 28, to the Detroit Lions at home, Green Bay Packers Head Coach Matt LaFleur said that the team’s main focus going forward is to find a way to run the ball effectively.
“In every area there is a lot of improvement out there for us,” said LaFleur. “I think anytime you go out there and you can’t effectively run the football, and conversely you can’t stop the run, that’s a recipe for losing football,” said LaFleur.
The Packers had a difficult time gaining any rushing yards in the game, facing a 27-211 disadvantage to the Lions.
“It was very humbling, and sometimes that happens, but we just can’t continue to go backwards. We keep going backwards and getting in third and long situations,” said LaFleur.
“As the game went on we were able to get some stuff going, but it was way too little too late.”
Although there were obvious blunders on the team, both offensively and defensively, LaFleur took much of the blame on himself, stating that it is his job to give the players what they need to succeed.
“I’m always going to look at myself, first and foremost, and what kind of positions we are putting our offense in, and it wasn’t good enough.”
Despite the Packers dealing with an extensive injury report full of experienced veterans and valuable players, LaFleur said that it should not be a factor in whether they win or lose.
“It is what it is. I don’t think anyone is feeling sorry for ourselves. We’ve got to get better and we’ve got to look at what we are asking our guys to do and just everything wasn’t good enough. The plan wasn’t good enough and that was humiliating,” said LaFleur.
As the Packers head into the coming days of training before their matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders on Monday, Oct. 9, LaFleur said that they are looking to correct and adjust from what went wrong in their game against the Lions.
“We’ve got to look at when it’s not going right… How do you flip the momentum and get it going in your favor?” questioned LaFleur. “We’re going to have to do something different, because it’s insane to do the same things over and over again and expect a different result.”
Even though the team faced a difficult loss, LaFleur said that there were a few positives that he could pull from what he saw out of his team.
“I’m proud of our guys. I feel like we went out there and we competed in the second half. We were in such a hole and that’s two weeks in a row we put ourselves in a bad situation. We were very fortunate (…) to come out of it. Tonight against a really good team, it was just an impossible hole to overcome.”
Accountability, however, will fall to players, coaches and staff all across the board.
“We’ve got to look at some of the things we are asking these guys to do and make sure it is the right things for this football team,” said LaFleur. “We’ve got to find a much better way to run the football, because I think if you can do that, you take pressure off everybody. We haven’t been very successful at it up to this point.”