{"id":679515,"date":"2026-01-15T15:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T15:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/679515\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T15:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T15:19:12","slug":"its-undeniable-at-this-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/679515\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s undeniable at this point"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Richard from Caledonia, WI<\/p>\n<p>Great article about Kraft. Love him and his positive attitude and candid approach. <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break: break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.packers.com\/news\/packers-te-tucker-kraft-will-remain-hungry-for-every-snap-in-2026-jan-13\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">His comments and other players<\/a>&#8216; about Coach LaFleur resonate a positive view for at least allowing him to complete his current contract. Still have reservations about a longer extension given the five-game end-of-season stretch! Your insights? Injuries certainly a factor but lots to clean up, too!?<\/p>\n<p>Sure, but this team&#8217;s captains and returning veterans are confident in their ability to do it. Like Kraft said, the team lost many of the weapons the offense and defense were built around. That&#8217;s fine if you don&#8217;t believe that to be the case, but Kraft, Parsons, <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break: break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.packers.com\/team\/players-roster\/devonte-wyatt\/\" title=\"Devonte Wyatt\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Devonte Wyatt<\/a> and so many others get another swing at proving doubters wrong next season.<\/p>\n<p>Eric from Wrightstown, WI<\/p>\n<p>Nothing like an intense rivalry between roughly equal teams. That said, Ben Johnson seems to want to take Packers\/Bears back to the Gregg\/Ditka days. I just hope if does not escalate to the Kenny Stills\/Matt Suhey level!<\/p>\n<p>Rivalry, rivalry, rivalry. Everyone wants to talk about the rivalry. It&#8217;s always been a rivalry. It ain&#8217;t the Packers&#8217; fault the Bears were in hibernation for the better part of 30 years. I mean, nothing like returning to the party with a boombox on your shoulder to remind everyone that you&#8217;re back. Sure, fine, whatever. Congrats.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you, Insiders, for helping me recover from Saturday night. For a couple days I was quite open to replacing ML after yet another collapse. Then I was scared spitless when I read a clickbait that a just-fired Harbough would be a perfect fit in Green Bay. Now I realize I am a Packers fan for its culture of integrity, not just the titles that it produces. Consistency at HC, I believe, will pay off just as well as stability at QB.<\/p>\n<p>This whole ordeal has been the perfect example of our mantra that &#8220;Nothing is official until it&#8217;s official.&#8221; The Packers are in a strong position right now with a talent-rich roster. If LaFleur is back, organizational stability remains in place. If it doesn&#8217;t work out, the Packers&#8217; job becomes the top head-coaching position on the market and LaFleur is probably the top coach available. We can talk through all the hypotheticals, but a domino must fall for any real conversations to begin regarding next season.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas from Cedar Rapids, IA<\/p>\n<p>I would like to make a request to the schedule-makers: I want the Packers to play the Bears in Week 1. And believe it or not, I would kind of like it to be in Chicago. Parsons won&#8217;t be back yet, but it still can&#8217;t get here soon enough. I hope the team has the same mindset.<\/p>\n<p>I could see that. I also could see the NFL scheduling Packers and Bears for the regular-season finale, too. Neither of those teams is going anywhere and clearly Ben Johnson doesn&#8217;t mind walking around with a gasoline can in one hand and lit match in the other.<\/p>\n<p>Good morning, my question has to do with how you think Matt LaFleur will handle the post-game handshake with Ben Johnson next year. I&#8217;d hope that he responds the same as he was treated this year.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure LaFleur will conduct himself like he did the previous three times\u2026you know, like an adult.<\/p>\n<p>Well, the reasons for not extending Matt LaFleur&#8217;s contract are numerous. My question is what are the reasons for retaining LaFleur? A contract extension should be a reward for positive results. Over the last four years, those positive results have been few and far between.<\/p>\n<p>The Packers made the playoffs three straight years with the NFL&#8217;s youngest team. Is that not successful enough for you? You might enjoy being a fan of the Steelers (no playoff wins since 2016) or Bengals (a pair of gut-wrenching 23-20 losses in Super Bowl LVI and 2022 AFC title game after 20-plus years of no playoff wins since 1990). I don&#8217;t disagree the Packers having had their share of bitter defeats since Super Bowl XLV, but you&#8217;re using personal disappointment as a gauge of overall success. That&#8217;s the wrong tool.<\/p>\n<p>Will Sean McVay or Robert Saleh make a call to Matt LaFleur this week regarding their matchup against the Bears?<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;d be foolish not to, right?<\/p>\n<p>Benefits to marrying my NY-born wife: I automatically have a backup team to root for, and to Spoff&#8217;s point, Josh Allen\/Buffalo is easy to root for anyway, and their fans are among the best in the NFL. Our CB room\/depth, especially <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break: break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.packers.com\/team\/players-roster\/nate-hobbs\/\" title=\"Nate Hobbs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nate Hobbs<\/a>, was underwhelming (maybe acquire a Calvin to help him?). Even though <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break: break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.packers.com\/team\/players-roster\/trevon-diggs\/\" title=\"Trevon Diggs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trevon Diggs<\/a> can be released with little to no financial hit, what are the chances his contract is reworked to stay here?<\/p>\n<p>There is no financial hit for Green Bay past the 2025 season. The rest of Diggs&#8217; contract is tied to base salary and gameday bonuses. The Packers will have to either tweak his pre-existing deal to keep Diggs or let him go before the start of the new league year in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard from Caledonia, WI Great article about Kraft. Love him and his positive attitude and candid approach. His&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2072],"tags":[7,41,345,2514,2513,34,1655,6,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-679515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-green-bay-packers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-green-bay","10":"tag-green-bay-packers","11":"tag-greenbay","12":"tag-greenbaypackers","13":"tag-homepage-cp","14":"tag-news-insider-inbox","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-packers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115899791817185519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}