There were more than a few takeaways for the Green Bay Packers from Sunday’s deflating loss against the Pittsburgh Steelers. For one, it’s that Green Bay had more than its fair share of chances to potentially win their second straight contest following their Week 9 victory over the Los Angeles Rams.
Except that they didn’t.
For head coach Matt LaFleur, one play in particular stands out from Sunday’s 20-17 defeat at the hands of Kenny Pickett and Co. It’s not that the tenured play-caller is pinning all the blame one particular error late in the game, but LaFleur did not hesitate in calling out star running back Aaron Jones for his decision-making in Green Bay’s final drive.
“I thought there was an opportunity to get out of bounds right there, and we didn’t. That was critical because that wasted a ton of time. We would’ve had a couple of opportunities at the end of the game. That was like 20 seconds or so. It felt like forever,” said LaFleur, via Freddie Boston of Lombardi Ave.
LaFleur was referring to Jones’ decision to battle for more yards instead of running out of bounds with less than a minute remaining in the fourth quarter. It was a costly error by the Pro Bowl RB, which shaved 20 seconds off the game clock. Ultimately, it led to the Packers failing to score on their final possession.
LaFleur wasn’t done either. The coach brought up the play again later in his post-game press conference as he discussed his team’s final drive:
“Our guys got up on the ball in a timely fashion, with some urgency, but I really think the play that really hurt us obviously was wasting so much time when we checked it down to Aaron Jones,” said LaFleur.
Yikes. Talk about throwing your own player under the bus, right?
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