Postgame locker rooms for a losing team are never a pleasant place to be. Players are sullen, exhausted, often edgy about the loss and sometimes quite angry. The coaches of the losing teams typically keep things collected and save the tongue-lashing and visible frustration for when the cameras and reporters are gone, however.
That was not what happened in Green Bay after Thursday night’s 34-20 road win by the Lions. Packers head coach Matt LaFleur was animatedly angry with the performance of his team, which fell behind 27-3 and was nearly run into nearby Lake Michigan by the visitors from Detroit.
LaFleur was quick to give the Lions credit in his postgame press conference, and he started out by sprinkling in some praise for his team’s better performance in the second half.
“Give Detroit a lot of credit. They came in and whooped us pretty good,” LaFleur said. “I was pleased with our team’s effort in the second half. I challenged them at halftime to just continue to go out and compete and I felt we did that. We had an opportunity; we were down 10 and we had a bad penalty to make it a three-possession game. But, every area, there’s a lot of improvement out there for us. I think any time you go out there and you can’t effectively run the football and conversely can’t stop the run, that’s a recipe for losing football and that’s what happened tonight.
Give Detroit credit. We knew they were a tough opponent, but they manhandled us really in every phase.”
The longer he talked and the more he thought about the whooping from a divisional rival, the more LaFleur’s tone changed.
“I mean, you saw it. We got our ass kicked,” LaFleur said, blood pressure visibly rising when asked about being annihilated in the first half. “If I knew, it wouldn’t have happened. It wasn’t good enough. They whipped us. They manhandled us. Again, if I knew the answer to that, it wouldn’t have happened.”
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