GREEN BAY — There must be some sort of NFL code that the rest of us civilians aren’t privy to.

Otherwise, how else do we explain why general manager Brian Gutekunst steadfastly refused to acknowledge the obvious: That the Green Bay Packers’ 2025 season was — at least in part — derailed by injuries sustained by their two biggest stars?

There’s a fine line between an excuse and an explanation, of course. And there were certainly some inexcusable mistakes and squandered opportunities that can’t be chalked solely up to injury-related absences.

And losing five straight games to end the year — the nadir coming on Jan. 10 in a 31-27 NFC wild card playoff loss to the archrival Chicago Bears in which they blew a 21-3 halftime lead and let the Bears score 25 points in the fourth quarter — cannot entirely be explained by said injuries.

“I fully expected where we were in the middle of the playoff game, to win that game and be heading to Seattle and win that game,” Gutekunst said. “You know?”

That gut-wrenching loss to the Bears came after the Packers had gone 9-3-1 heading into a Dec. 14 road game against a Denver Broncos team that had at the time won 10 in a row.

Which makes it awfully hard not to wonder what might’ve been. For everyone except Gutekunst, apparently.

The Packers had their own four-game winning streak going when they arrived in Denver, and had a four-point lead entering the fourth quarter of that game, but they watched No. 1 wide receiver Christian Watson leave the stadium in an ambulance after suffering a chest injury, then lost first-team All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons to a torn ACL in his left knee later in the game.

“We were 9-3-1, and I didn’t think we had played particularly great football during the season. I thought we had moments, but I thought we had an opportunity to round into form there in the second half of the season,” Gutekunst said during a nearly 40-minute Q&A session with reporters at Lambeau Field on Wednesday afternoon — the first time he’d spoken to the media since the season ended. “And obviously it didn’t work out that way.”

While Watson returned to action the following week, Parsons was lost for the season, just as the team had lost emerging star tight end Tucker Kraft to an ACL tear in his right knee in a Nov. 2 loss to the Carolina Panthers.

If there were two players the Packers absolutely could not live without, they were Kraft, who was emerging as one of the NFL’s best tight ends and coming off the best game of his career a week earlier in Pittsburgh, and Parsons, who’d been a transformational player from the moment he arrived in an Aug. 28 trade with the Dallas Cowboys.

But time and again on Wednesday, Gutekunst insisted Kraft’s and Parsons’ injuries weren’t the primary reason for the Packers’ late-season collapse. He likened the 2025 team’s injuries to the 2010 team’s injury woes, pointing out that that team overcame a long list of players on injured reserve to win Super Bowl XLV.

“I just think it’s like, I don’t know, the mindset,” Gutekunst replied when asked why he wouldn’t entertain the idea that injuries caused the team’s late-season swoon. “I mean, I got one ring since I’ve been doing this. And it was the year that we had more injuries than I think any other, right? So, like, it’s nothing against any other teams here. But you never feel like, ‘Hey, we can’t go win this game.’

“That’s the thing that makes this job, as tough as those moments are, it’s what draws us a lot to it — the competitive nature of it. In those moments, that’s where your leaders better step up and be ready to go. Not only your players, but your coaches, and myself included.

“So, yeah, those things suck. You never want to lose good players. But it’s part of the nature of the business.”

All this said, the Packers’ 2026 Super Bowl hopes don’t rest solely on getting Kraft and Parsons back and staying healthier than they did this past season.

Although new Packers team president/CEO Ed Policy signed Gutekunst, head coach Matt LaFleur and executive vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball to multi-year contract extensions late last week, a sign that he believes the team is still headed in the right direction, Gutekunst has his work cut out for him this offseason.

Not only did they lost defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, who departed to become the Miami Dolphins head coach, but they have a number of starters and key contributors from their 2022 draft class set to hit free agency in March.

Those players who could depart include left tackle Rasheed Walker, middle linebacker Quay Walker, center Sean Rhyan and wide receiver Romeo Doubs. Prized backup quarterback Malik Willis, who played well in place of an injured Jordan Love whenever called upon, is also a free agent and is expected to land a starting opportunity elsewhere.

“We have one goal here, and we never run from it. We’re here to win championships,” Gutekunst said. “And I think this team is capable of that.

“[The] 2026 [team] will be a different team, but the expectations won’t change. Again, I thought there’s some really good things during the [2025] season. There also were some major disappointments. But I really do like the guys we have in that locker room, the guys that are coming back, and we’ll continue to add to that. And we’re all excited to get at it.”

The Packers haven’t reached the Super Bowl since that 2010 team — assembled by GM Ted Thompson, coached by Mike McCarthy and quarterbacked by four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers — won Super Bowl XLV. And the team has won only one playoff game since losing the 2020 NFC Championship Game to Tom Brady and the eventual Super Bowl-champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“In every season, there’s successes, and there’s failures and there’s disappointments,” Gutekunst said. “I was proud of our team in a lot of areas this year, but finishing games is certainly something that we got to concentrate on as we head into 2026.”

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