PACKER DISREGARDED INSTRUCTION TO TAKE A KNEE
We’ve all heard the clichés. How victories come down to players just doing their jobs. And doing the little things right. Well, it’s true.
When players for whatever reason deviate from assigned tasks, you can lose. As Green Bay did Sunday, 29-27, at the Los Angeles Rams.
With just over two minutes left and Green Bay trailing by two, Packers returner Ty Montgomery fielded a kickoff two yards deep in the end zone but decided to bring it out.
He fumbled. Green Bay never got the ball back for QB Aaron Rodgers to weave his late-game magic.
According to NFL Network’s Mike Silver, coaches and some Packers players — including Rodgers — were spitting mad
that Montgomery didn’t take a knee. Because everyone involved knew that that’s what coaches told him to do.
“The plan there is to stay in the end zone,” Packers head coach Mike McCarthy confirmed afterward. “We actually talked about it as a team. But that’s what those games come down to … We wanted to put the ball in Aaron’s hands.”
Silver reported that Montgomery had “thrown a tantrum” during Green Bay’s previous offensive series, “becoming noticeably enraged on the sidelines after being removed from the game. At least one player believed there was carryover from that incident to Montgomery’s decision to disregard his coaches’ instruction.”
Silver quoted an unnamed Green Bay player as saying Montgomery “ran it out anyway. You know what that was? That was him saying, ‘I’m gonna do me.’ It’s a f---ing joke.”