Life in the NFL: From Ultimate High to Ultimate Low

For the Green Bay Packers, Saturday’s preseason victory over the Seattle Seahawks is what football is all about. Unfortunately, so are Tuesday’s roster cuts.

Benny Sapp’s interception made him the hero of the game. Like all the undrafted rookies and perceived long shots to make the 53-man roster, Sapp’s locker is in a room adjacent to the main locker room. In the cramped aisle after the game, Sapp was surrounded by reporters who wanted to talk to the man of the moment.

But first, they had to wait for Rasul Douglas.

Standing behind reporters, nobody in the locker room was more excited than Douglas, who joined the group of reporters to shout his congratulations for about a half-minute.

Yeah, it’s only preseason, but it was a poignant moment and a reminder of what football is all about. Depending on what happens with Tuesday’s roster cuts, there’s a chance Douglas will never see Sapp again. And yet, there was Douglas, a veteran, starter and team leader, there to enjoy the moment with a teammate.

“It’s the family. We built something here,” Douglas said afterward. “We’ve seen him work through OTAs and camp. He grinded with us. No matter what happens here, these relationships you build, they’re for life. I still talk to guys who were with me at the Combine, who were with me at pro day, who were there when I was a rookie. Those relationships, they never end.”

The moment wasn’t lost on coach Matt LaFleur, either. The game was won by those players in the back room – Section 8, as some of them call it. Alex McGough led the winning drive. Jadakis Bonds had the big catch on that drive. Cody Chrest had a key catch, too. Sapp had the interception.

“I think you saw at the end of the game just in terms of guys making plays, the reaction on the sideline,” LaFleur said on Sunday. “I always like watching our film and seeing how guys react when guys make plays. And I think you saw when Jadakis made that big catch down the sideline, you saw the sidelines kind of going crazy for him, supporting him. Certainly at the end of the game when Benny made that interception, to see all the guys go off behind our bench, huddling around Benny, I thought that was really cool.

“So, these guys, there’s a respect there for how these guys work and show up on a daily basis. Quite frankly, those guys have earned that respect by how they practice, by the teammates that they are. We’ve got a really good locker room.”

Then, LaFleur continued with the brutal reality of the situation. About 48 hours after speaking on Sunday, about three-dozen players would be told that their best wasn’t quite good enough. Up to 16 players can be re-signed to the practice squad, but that still left a large group of players who would never be inside an NFL locker room again.

The thrill of victory in a meaningless game on Saturday crushed by the devastating reality on Tuesday.

“It doesn’t matter,” Douglas said. “You’ve got to respect people’s craft. Sometimes you’re in a position where there are people who are on a higher spot than you on the depth chart, but you’ve still got to come in and work. These guys did it. I don’t think any game that you suit up in is meaningless. You’re playing for every team in the NFL. This is your shot to play for another team, if it’s not going to be this one, so another team will come grab you.”