GREEN BAY – After a rough road loss, Davante Adams is used to a quiet bus ride to the airport, with teammates putting on headphones and keeping their misery to themselves.
Apparently it wasn't like that Sunday in Jacksonville, as Adams described players actually talking amongst one another about what went down, how strangely the 38-3 defeat to the Saints unfolded, and why there's no reason to overreact.
The Packers' All-Pro receiver believes that response bodes well as the team attempts an early-season recovery with the NFC North rival Lions coming to Green Bay on Monday night.
"This was probably one of the quicker flushes that I've seen as far as me observing the rest of the team and seeing the coaches, how everybody's responded from it," Adams said after Thursday's practice.
"I found that my teammates were able to shake this one better than what I've seen in the past. We've just got to make sure we actually do something about it this time."
The Packers have done that regularly under Matt LaFleur, having not lost back-to-back regular-season games in his first two seasons as head coach.
There are plenty of reasons for that. For one, veteran players hold one another accountable, and the look-in-the-mirror mantra is taken seriously as they examine how as individuals they can play better rather than looking elsewhere for what went wrong.
But mainly, the Packers know they're a good team and trust what they've done all along to be successful, even if there's the occasional forgettable performance.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers referenced not being "held prisoner mentally" by one bad result. That was the reason his first reaction to the media's questions postgame Sunday focused on it being one game with 16 more to go.
"Look, we've won a lot of games around here. We've lost a few. But you move on," Rodgers said. "It doesn't matter if you play incredible and put up 50 or you get blown out. You move on to the next opponent.
"There shouldn't be some big drastic change and alteration to the way that we do things, the way we practice, the way we prepare. If it's good enough to get you to this point, then it's good enough from this point forward. Obviously, we gotta play better but if we're starting to freak out after one week, we're in big trouble."
Rodgers' track record after rough games speaks to the success of his mindset.
Throwing multiple interceptions, as he did against the Saints, is rare for the three-time MVP, and he's never done it in consecutive games. Dating back to his first MVP season in 2011, Rodgers has followed up a multi-INT game with a passer rating north of 100 six times in eight tries, with a "low" of 90.8.
That's simply the law of averages to a player of his caliber.
"I'd say percentages," Rodgers said. "I've been pretty (darn) good for a while, so you have a (crappy) game like that, you usually bounce back to average things out."
But, team-wide, it's also about blocking out all the chatter and possessing both the self-confidence and confidence in teammates to respond appropriately. Whatever is swirling amongst the media and/or the fan base is just as irrelevant now as when all is well and the wins are flowing.
The expectation is the Packers will follow up their "clunker," to use Rodgers' word, with a game in which they look more like themselves. To do that, turning inward always works better than the alternative.
"You've just got to get to a point where you get numb to what's going on outside of the building altogether," Adams said. "It's not healthy to really follow in any way. The more you're in the moment, just worried about what's going on in your locker room, that's where it becomes a lot easier.
"We're good. We're going to be OK."
