GREEN BAY – The bye week is a time to rest and recover, but it may also be a time to adjust and adapt for the Packers.
Head Coach Matt LaFleur said Monday as players and coaches departed for a few days over the bye – the team's next practice is Monday, Nov. 11 – his staff has various projects to work on to assess the 6-3 season to date, and what might need to change moving forward to spark another strong finishing kick.
"There'll be a lot of reflection, I would say, over the next six days of just things that we can potentially explore to try to push our team to be better, whether it's in practice, whether it's how we do certain meetings, what are we emphasizing to the team," LaFleur said. "There's always room for improvement."
One specific item he mentioned was possibly inserting more competitive periods into practice – meaning more 11-on-11 snaps with the starting units squaring off, in addition to the usual game-planning portions against scout teams.
It's something LaFleur added last year, when the team was struggling around midseason with a sub-.500 record, as a lot of young players were working through their first extended exposure to the NFL's weekly grind.
The season turned around and the Packers went on a strong second-half run. This year's team is in better shape record-wise, but coming off a mistake-filled lost to the frontrunner in the NFC North (if not the whole NFC) in Detroit, spicing up practice could be on the docket again.
"Some of the things we did the back half of the season to allow us to develop and continue to get better … a lot of it just started with our approach to practice, how much competition we had in practice," LaFleur said.
"I thought it made practices have more energy and it reflected in our play, quite frankly."
It speaks to one of LaFleur's foundational principles as a coach – to focus on the process and not the outcomes. If the process is as effective and productive as it can be, then the rest usually takes care of itself.
The thought is cranking up the competition in practice, with starters going against starters, might sharpen the focus needed to reduce pre-snap penalties, dropped passes, and the other miscues that have plagued the team at times this season. Whether it works or not, there's no harm to be done, and slight changes to the routine over a long season can re-energize the team.
"You just always keep the focus on the task at hand and you can't worry about the results," LaFleur said. "I think that was beneficial to us a year ago when we were sitting at 3-6. So we better take the same mindset because things can flip in a hurry in this league if you don't just focus on the task at hand."
With eight games to go, the Packers sit two games behind the Lions in the loss column in the division and are 0-2 in NFC North games so far. Their first game back from the bye is a division contest, at Chicago.
Bigger picture, only five of 16 teams in the entire NFC are below .500 (pending Monday night's result between the 7-0 Chiefs and 4-4 Buccaneers) so the jockeying for position will be nonstop through November and December.
"The only thing that is hard is to go on a bye after a loss, because this loss will sit with you for a long time," LaFleur said. "We've got a lot to think about, I would say, over the next 13 days before we play again, or until we get really into the Chicago Bears.
"But it is what it is. There's a lot of things that we all have to collectively work on, on an individual basis, in order to get us to be a better football team."
