GREEN BAY, Wis. – As the temperature turns colder, the games get bigger. And the tempers grow hotter.
Too hot, at times, in the case of the Green Bay Packers. So, coach Matt LaFleur has a message to his players.
Cool it.
The Packers have a temper problem that’s boiled to the surface ahead of Saturday night’s NFC North rivalry rematch against the Chicago Bears.
In the first game against the Bears, Keisean Nixon was guilty of unnecessary roughness as he retaliated against Bears rookie receiver Luther Burden.
Against the Denver Broncos on Sunday, the Packers were guilty of three unnecessary-roughness penalties in the first half alone. All of them were senseless and two of them were costly.
First, defensive end Kingsley Enagbare took a shot at Denver’s punter. That forced Green Bay to start its possession at the 3.
Next, after Micah Parsons drew a rare holding penalty to make it first-and-20, Javon Bullard was flagged for picking up and slamming down receiver Troy Franklin. The Broncos turned that penalty into a touchdown.
Finally, on the extra point, Karl Brooks was flagged for lining up incorrectly and hitting the center in the head, allowing the Broncos to kick from midfield.
“The unsportsmanlike really bothered me,” LaFleur said of those penalties. “I take those ones personal. Football is a game of emotion, but you can’t allow the emotion of the game to put you in a spot where you go out and do something that costs the team.”
The penalty on Bullard was because Franklin was in a vulnerable position.
“You can’t dump a guy when his feet are off the ground,” LaFleur said. “I didn’t think it was a crazy, egregious penalty.”
If that penalty was about straddling the fine line between aggressive and too aggressive, Enagbare jumped over the line and spit on it.
“I was disappointed with the J.J. penalty because, that’s what I’m talking about, the emotion of the game,” LaFleur continued. “He felt like he was held, didn’t get a call and then he took it out on the punter. You can’t do that. That’s not winning football.
“I certainly addressed that with the guys. Especially in the magnitude of those types of games. Now, ultimately, was it a difference in the game? I would say no. But you’ve got to be disciplined.”
Special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia agreed with LaFleur on the foolishness of the penalty but disagreed on whether it hurt the team.
“It’s a selfish penalty. It goes in the selfish category,” he said. “It’s no place for it. Discipline is ‘Do what you’re supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do it, the way you’re supposed to do it, and do that over and over and over again.’ And I think he has some remorse for that particular penalty. The punter is a protected player, and whether he knew it was the punter or not is just irrelevant. It’s no place for that.
“I know Coach says that sometimes it doesn’t affect the game, but they all affect the game. We put our offense on the 3-yard line after that penalty. Our job is to set the offense and set the defense, and certainly we didn’t do it in that particular instance.”
It’s a troubling trend for the Packers, who had done a good job of controlling their emotions for much of the season. Before the last two games, the Packers had been guilty of one penalty for unnecessary roughness and none for unsportsmanlike conduct. Now, the Packers have five for unnecessary roughness; the league average is 4.72, according to NFL Penalties.
For the season the Packers have been guilty of 92 penalties. That’s exactly the league median. By unit, the breakdown is 37 on the offense (median is 45), 34 on the defense (median is 33) and 21 on the special teams (sixth-most in the NFL; median is 16).
Green Bay’s opponents have been guilty of 81 penalties, making the Packers minus-11. The Eagles are a league-worst minus-22 and Chicago is minus-19.
Offensively, Green Bay has been flagged 21 times for holding, eighth-most in the league. Defensively, it’s been guilty of the ninth-most penalties for defensive holding (six; Detroit leads with nine) and fifth-most for pass interference (nine; Denver leads with 18).
Nixon has been flagged 12 times (10 accepted), tied for the most among all defensive players. Parsons was flagged six times, fourth-most among edge rushers. With four penalties against Denver, left tackle Rasheed Walker has been flagged nine times, 11th-most among offensive linemen.
No penalties are good, but some are worse than others. The first bucket are focus penalties, such as illegal formations and false starts. The second bucket is fundamental and combative penalties, such as holding. The third bucket are the discipline penalties, such as the one by Nixon against Chicago, which led to a brief benching, and Enagbare against Denver.
“You’ve got to control yourself,” LaFleur said. “We had a costly penalty the last time we played these guys. We had a couple of them, but one that I feel like is within our control, and we’ve got to be disciplined. If guys see a guy like losing his mind, they’ve got to grab them.”
As the games get bigger, the emotions grow higher. They’ll be cranked up to 11 on Saturday night. It’s a huge game for both teams. The Packers are chasing the Bears in the NFC North and the Bears desperately want to beat their rivals. There was plenty of pushing and shoving in the last game.
That means a big key will be straddling the fine line between playing aggressive and playing reckless. The team that does that best could take a huge step toward winning the division.
“You’re talking about a rivalry game, an NFC North Division rival,” LaFleur said. “It was chippy last time we played so I would say that’s a pretty good indicator of how it’s going to be and we’ve just got to make sure we maintain our poise. I’m sure they’re saying the exact same thing I’m saying.”
