Steven Helmer Publications

OK. I've had a few days to let Saturday's playoff loss to the Chicago Bears sink in, gotten my anger and frustration out of the way via social media and am ready to move on to the offseason. And yes, I know the NFL will keep playing on even though the Green Bay Packers are now eliminated but I honestly don't really care enough about any of the other teams to stay interested. So, before I move on to other things until August (or at least the NFL draft), here are my final thoughts about the season: This is a new NFC North, and the Packers need to adjust. Head Coach Matt LaFleur was 39-10 his first three seasons with the Packers but the 2019 Minnesota Vikings were the only other team with a winning season during that three-year span (the Bears went 8-8 when they made the playoffs in 2020). The Detroit Lions have had a winning season in each of the years since and each division rival has won the NFC North at least once in the past four years. This year, all four teams had a win...

 Here are my thoughts from today's 22-10 Green Bay Packers ' playoff loss at the Philadelphia Eagles . This game felt like a broken record. Slow start on offense, game changing errors and a lack of discipline at key moments put the Packers behind early and derailed any opportunity to mount a comeback. It's the same formula that led to their six losses during the regular season and, in this case, made their postseason run short and sweet. The defense put in a valiant effort. As was mentioned in commentary, it felt as though the Packers should have been much further behind at the half than they were, but the defense held the Eagles to just 10 points despite everything going wrong on offense. They even finally found their pass rush, though it was too little, too late. One of the biggest game changers was losing Elgton Jenkins early. Green Bay had a lot of injuries in this game, but the loss of Jenkins arguably had the biggest impact as the backups struggled against the leag...