What are the 2024 Packers, anyway?

I can’t shake the Packers’ loss to the Bears.

It’s a weird feeling for a game that meant nothing and could only have meant something if the Washington Commanders had fallen on their faces against the Cowboys. But they didn’t, and it renders the Packers’ own faceplant against the Bears irrelevant.

That’s what I keep trying to tell myself. With no Romeo Doubs, only a quarter or so of Josh Jacobs for rest purposes, a quarter-ish of Jordan Love due to his elbow injury, and 10 plays of Christian Watson before his catastrophic knee injury, it’s easy to make the case that the game was more or less negotiated away by the Packers. They were only competitive because they’re just that much better than the Bears. Even without their keystone players, they still took the Bears to the wire.

So, burn the tape and move on. Assume this is nothing new about the Packers. Assume that even if they don’t win in the playoffs, they’ll still be the same team they’ve been all year: competitive, if self-destructive, able to handle the best teams in the league right to the wire.

I’d love to, but for this nagging voice in the back of my mind, voiced eloquently by podcast listener Alex L.

“I’ve agreed with all your ‘burn the tape’ game assessments this year Jon, but how many burn the tape games does a team get in a season?” Alex writes. “It feels like the Packers have a ton, and you can make an argument four of them are against NFC North teams. At what point does the tape not get burned because that is what you are?”

What are the Packers, anyway? What does this all mean, in the grand scheme of the 2024 season? In terms of standings, nothing. Because of factors in other games, they couldn’t get to the sixth seed, no matter what they did on Sunday, and a loss did nothing for their NFC North standing. They’re still ahead of the Bears, even with their identical (yikes) divisional records.

In terms of what it says about this team…the answer still might be nothing. There are so many caveats to the Packers’ performance that there simply may not be a big takeaway to be had here. It just might not exist. 

But then…what are the Packers? I’m almost afraid I know the answer, and the answer might be “a team that just can’t get out of its own way.”

More succinctly, they might be doomed. They may have an in-baked flaw of self-sabotage. Where did it come from? Youth? Inexperience? Coaching? All of those factors? None of them? Is the Packers’ inability to just play one normal football game in 2024 hard-wired into their existence, a ticking time bomb of their own design, destined to pop off a couple of times every Sunday at the most inopportune moments?

I think there is a lot to like about this Packers team. As disappointing as every one of their six losses has been, they’ve been competitive in all of them. Even their ten-point defeat at the hands of the Lions in Week 9 could have turned out quite differently if not for a couple of weather-altered trips into the red zone. They have talent, even if it’s inconsistent. They have good coaches, even if Matt LaFleur is determined to look out of his depth in one high-leverage situation at least once a week? 

But they’re so maddeningly committed to getting in their own way. They cannot not do it. They cannot just play football. They have to put things on tape that drive themselves crazy.

So, maybe don’t burn the tape. Maybe that’s what the 2024 Packers are: a team you just have to watch, then shake your head, and say “yeah, I don’t know, man” quietly to yourself.