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Some people are fans of the Green Bay Packers. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Green Bay Packers. This 2018 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.



Your team: Green Bay Paaaaaaaaaaaackurse

Screenshot : Source


Your 2017 record: 7-9. Aaron Rodgers had his clavicle snapped like a wishbone and your replacement quarterback was the immortal Brett Hundley, who was so effective that the Packers immediately traded for the Browns’ latest draft bust when the season ended. Hey Mike McCarthy, Colin Kaepernick was still out on the street when Rodgers went down. Couldn’t you have possibly salvaged the season if you had at least kicked the tires on him?

“Okay, I got three years invested in Brett Hundley, two years invested in Joe Callahan, the quarterback room is exactly where it needs to be.” Chisel that quote on this man’s fucking grave. After losing Rodgers, the Packers dropped eight of 11 and got shut out twice. My team swept their sorry asses. EXACTLY WHERE IT NEEDS TO BE. Their team doctor also tried to bully Martellus Bennett into playing with a bum shoulder, and then the team cut him once he decided to get it surgically repaired. Just your friendly neighborhood Packers!


Anyway, last season’s debacle was enough to cause what qualifies as seismic upheaval in Green Bay. Gone, at long last, is Team President and weird-butler-from-a-David-Lynch-movie Ted Thompson.


Ted’s been bumped over to a no-show job because the Packers are too classy to actually fire people who suck. They did, however, finally fire defensive coordinator Dom Capers. All of your wishes are coming true for you, the cheese-humping landwhales of Packer Nation. All of them, except for one…

Your coach: THE BEAV! He’s still here!


Yes, Mike McCarthy seized all the power—along with all the link sausages HEY NOW. Together with new general manager Brian Gutekunst, whose name sounds like the dirtiest possible German word, Beav now holds the entire Packers organization in his clammy hands. I hope you’re ready for him to call even MORE fullback dives the second Aaron Rodgers gets into a rhythm.

Your new coordinators are failed head coaches Joe Philbin and Mike Pettine. It’s like one giant pyramid of pasty incompetence. Everything has changed, and yet the Packers are still gonna underachieve in the exact same ways they’ve underachieved for the past decade.


Your quarterback: It’s a fully healthy Aaron Rodgers, until he gets hurt again in October and the team goes belly up. This is the part where I disclose to you that I am a BUTTHURT VIKINGS FAN. As such, I have some smoking hot Aaron Rodgers takes in me that need to come out, and here they are. First off, he’s never gonna play a full season again. I know Rodgers is spouting off about playing until he’s 40 like Tom Brady, but Tom Brady takes a grand total of three steps every season. Dashing around from sideline to sideline and zipping lasers 35 yards down the field isn’t a sustainable quarterbacking model for such a frail guy. You have seen the best of Aaron Rodgers, and what comes next is a prolonged twilight with small bursts of magical play and many more nagging, crummy injuries.

Second: I think Rodgers fucking hates the Packers and wants to leave. He wants a new contract. He already privately groused about team management. Keep in mind this is a guy who excommunicated his entire fucking family when they mildly displeased him. When Aaron Rodgers exhibits the slightest irritation, that means he is feeling homicidal. I’m telling you, man: he wants out. Wouldn’t you? The coach is a dumbass. The town is a wasteland. The fans think they literally own him. He’ll shed this franchise like a blitzing corner and be on the West Coast by 2020. You can only keep up the Thoughtful Man schtick for so long before this town makes you crack.


What’s new that sucks: This might take some getting used to, but now that Ted is gone, the Packers are engaging in something called FREE AGENCY, in which players who are no longer under contract are now “free” to sign with any other team they wish. Pretty bold shit! So hang onto your FUPAs, gang, because this team will have honest-to-God new talent biking onto the practice field this summer. They actually signed players you’ve heard of! Sure, they’re mostly washed up and not very good, but still: PROGRESS.

They signed Jimmy Graham, which would have been incredibly exciting if this had been the year 2014. They also signed Marcedes Lewis, which also would have been incredibly exciting if this had been the year 1906. Those two will be tasked with picking up the production lost when Jordy Nelson went to Oakland. I can’t even imagine what kind of extended mourning period these fans had for Jordy when he left. I picture a 450-pound man man sitting shiva in a ranch-style house, surrounded by loved ones and trays of bean dip, quietly dabbing away his tears as he watches grainy footage of Jordy on a VHS player because modern entertainment options haven’t arrived in that godforsaken icehole yet.


Mo Wilkerson was chased out of town by the Jets. Jake Ryan tore his knee up.

What has always sucked: This is the all-american, mom-and-pop NFL franchise, which is fitting because in 2018, the average all-american mom and pop have been revealed as a pair of gun-toting red state psychopaths who openly despise humanity.


I grew up in Minnesota but I’m being completely earnest when I tell you that, while I like my home state, I also appreciated its neighbor to the East. I had friends from Wisconsin. I went to camp in Wisconsin. Wisconsin has cheese, beer, and pretty woods. For the bulk of my life, it seemed like a perfectly normal, good little state. But now I know the truth about Wisconsin, and that is that it’s actually a fucking loony bin. The governor is a union-busting turd. The biggest city is more segregated than apartheid-era Cape Town and was run, until very recently, by America’s Most Corrupt Sheriff. Their most prominent congressman will go down as one of the most spineless enablers in human history. The cops beat up a Milwaukee Buck and laughed about it. The citizens have brains and asses made of boiled weisswurst. The entire state is a series of cool cities surrounded by psychotic suburbs in which people have been stifling their racism in the name of politeness for so long that their eyes are now just swirling like cartoon characters. It’s a cut-rate Illinois filled with crackpots, serial killers, and racists. Wisconsin is INSANE.

And frankly, I’m glad this is all out in the open now. Do you know much joy I get from knowing that the state of Wisconsin is completely dysfunctional, and that the Packers kind of are now as well? I have a hate boner that could touch the bottom of Lake Michigan right now, I’m just that excited. My team has a new stadium, a new practice facility to lure free agents, a good head coach, a good playcaller, and all of its good players are signed through 2020. The Packers have Beav and a roll of duct tape. WHO HAS THE UPPER HAND NOW, GREEN BAY?!!!!! THIS IS MY FUCKING TIME!!!!! I’m gonna pay dearly for all that baseless crowing but I regret NOTHING. I fucking hate the Packers and I want them to suffer.


Randall Cobb has sucked for three years and they refuse to do anything about it. Clay Matthews will be allowed to whiff on sacks for this team until he’s 80.

Brandon Bostick. SUCK IT.

What might not suck: If Rodgers stays upright they’re a Super Bowl contender. But that’s been true for years and years now, and even when Rodgers stays healthy, McCarthy still finds a way to fuck it all up.


Let’s remember a guy who sucked: I remember really thinking Najeh Davenport would be a special player. I saw him play at Miami and I was like, “That guy has BURST.” Then the Packers drafted him and he did nothing except get loaded and shit into a hamper. Imagine spending the rest of your life telling people your name and having them INSTANTLY think of sartorial defilement. Onterrio Smith is the Whizzinator guy. Fred Smoot is the double dong guy. And Najeh will always be the hamper shitter.

HEAR IT FROM PACKERS FANS!

Barnold:

The typical Packers Fan looks like a bleached Grimace costume on a Rascal scooter. As a group, they make The Gathering of the Juggalos look like the orchestra pit at a Victor Borge concert.


NSP:

Fuck Mike McCarthy.

Thomas:

Fuck Anthony Barr with two sticks of dynamite.

Jonathan:

I swear on 9/11 during the local Green Bay 5:00 news, it was 5:08 when they talked about if the Packers would still play the next Sunday.


Derek:

The fans are still fat, drunk and stupid. Fuck Anthony Barr with an ice auger.

Michael:

I just saw the first McCarthy press conference. Somehow he got fatter.

Aaron:

DeShone Kizer had probably the best 30 minutes of his football career against Green Bay’s gaping asshole of a secondary. He’s now a Packer.


Jake:

McCarthy would be coaching QBs at Aliquippa High if it wasn’t for Aaron Rodgers falling into his lap.


Elijah:

I can’t wait to get obliterated in the Divisional round by a team with an actual defense.


Tucker:

This team is the reason Eli Manning will be in the Hall of Fame.

Justin:

I get to pretend that the “public ownership” of our team is pretty awesome, but in reality I am very well aware that if given a democratic vote, the Green Bay Packer shareholders would ban non-whites from the stadium with at least 90% of the vote.


Josh:

On the bright side, Dom Capers was fired and I won’t have to look at his complete disaster of a gameplan as he scribbles in crayon on the tablecloth of the press box. Instead I get the guy who once coached Johnny Manziel right into rehab.


Luci:

Another season watching Rodgers try to run the field while giving McCarthy a piggy back ride.


Theo:

The Packers have 2 out of the 3 worst QBs that saw playing time last year. All we need to do is trade for Nathan Peterman and we’ll have the infinity gauntlet of suck.


Kenny:

If I took a shot every time someone said “wasting Rodgers prime” I… still wouldn’t be above average for a Wisconsin BAC.


James:

I wouldn’t trust anyone on the defensive line to sit the right way on a fucking toilet seat.


Sean:

The entire state of Wisconsin went into an economic crisis because we let a white WR walk while at the same time proclaiming signing Jimmy Graham as a huge mistake.


Alex:

We are unequivocally the St. Louis Cardinals of the NFL. I hate myself.

Eric:

Our quarterback’s shoulder blades are set to disintegrate the moment Anthony Barr gives them a nasty look.


Jonathan:

The entire state of Wisconsin had a collective meltdown when Jordy Nelson was cut. On a similar note, the fanbase won’t shut up about how much they hate Martellus Bennett but it has very little to do with how bad he was for us last year and everything to do with his anthem protests. I’m so sick of the fans and the organization. I will probably watch every game.


AB:

It’s no longer a secret that Green Bay becomes a division three college team immediately if Aaron Rodgers isn’t playing quarterback. Now if you’ll excuse I’m going to go buy a Brett Hundley jersey just so I can set it on fire.


Andy:

Fuck this fanbase who would chop their own arm off for Clay “OMG Hair” Matthews and Jordy Nelson, but wouldn’t recognize Mike Daniels or Davante Adams in their own jerseys.


Jacob:

Once Aaron Rodgers leaves or retires we will win four games a year for the next two decades. I’m also a St. Louis Cardinals fan. God what an insufferable bastard.

George:

Ted Thompson’s wet dreams were filled with elite tight ends. Having one on the Packers was his white whale. The following is a list of tight ends that the Packers have drafted or signed from 2010 - 2017. Martellus Bennett Jared Cook Andrew Quarless Lance Kendricks DJ Williams Ryan Taylor Richard Rodgers Kennard Backman Emanuel Byrd Brandon Bostick Justin Perillo On January 1st of 2018 he was relieved of his GM duties. New GM Brian Gutekunst went out and signed Jimmy Graham and Marcedes Lewis. Here’s to the chase! We will never learn.

Molly:

I live in constant fear for Aaron Rodgers’ clavicles and calf muscles now. I hope Danica Patrick wraps him in bubble wrap before he goes to sleep at night.


Mark:

At least I never have to hear Troy Aikman say, “Let’s see what Dom Capers draws up here.”


Nathan:

I’d rather open the Ark Of The Covenant than witness another pass from Brett Hundley.


David:

I’m a Canadian who moved to Northeast Wisconsin - holy fuck these people are drunk. I’m not shocked this state went for Trump. It’s drunk, it’s racist, it puts hunter camo on everything, and it’s absolutely terrified of taking an alternate route to Miller Park.


Tom:

When is the last time a Packers coordinator or position coach was poached by another team? Shouldn’t that happen more often than it does? Seriously, the highest profile pilfering in recent memory was when the Dolphins “stole” Joe Philbin. I wonder where he ended up? The Packers are about to enter Saints 2014-2016 mode. They just assume their elite QB will carry them to the playoffs despite surrounding him with nothing.


Eric:

They’re slowly bulldozing the neighborhood around Lambeau Field to build hotels, restaurants, and other garbage that few people around here can even afford to use. If there still is NFL football in 50 years, I expect Green Bay itself to have been razed and replaced with a Packers owned amusement park that costs two month’s salary to attend.


Landon:

These fans man. They’re fat, they’re dumb, and they’re awful. They bitch endlessly about the front office not knowing how to build a winning team even though they don’t know how to read a freaking calendar:


Dylan:

Mike McCarthy still doesn’t know how to use timeouts, Packers stock is still a scam, Mark Chmura is a high school football coach, nothing really matters, go Pack go.


Matt:

My wife is from Northwestern Wisconsin where there is a healthy mix of Vikings fans mixed in with Packer fans. My father-in-law has a bunch of low-life friends who happen to be on the Packer side of things, along with my father-in-law. In order to avoid mixing with Vikings fans, my FIL and friends wired up an old chicken coop with pirated DirecTV. They each bring their own 30 pack of shitty beer and settle in for 9 hours of football each Sunday. Sounds OK so far. Until you actually experience it. I was invited out one Sunday when I was visiting, seeing as how I passed the test of being a lifelong Packer fan, albeit from the side of the state where you don’t have much choice. During the pregame the friends chastised my FIL for inviting the guy who was “fucking his daughter” (we had been married for at least a couple years at the time). Then the Packer game started. One of them started yelling “OOGIE BOOGIE” once in awhile for some reason. I finally figured out that it was when Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila made a play. Deciding that KGB’s name was too much, they just resorted to calling him “Oogie Boogie.” The kicker was during the commercial breaks the dirty old man in charge of the remote flipped over to porno and narrated what was going on. I got shouted down for wanting to flip back to make sure we didn’t miss a crucial part of the game because “the guy was about to blow his load” and apparently that was more important. I was happy when someone’s grandchildren showed up and they at least had the good sense to put the kibosh on the porn. Dirty old man’s comment when he saw the kids coming was “I guess that’s the end of the fucking.” I was then called a pussy when I decided to drive back to my wife’s mother’s place (surprisingly divorced from my FIL, I know!) rather than stay and drink shitty beer until I passed out in an unheated chicken coop in Northern Wisconsin in December...


Frank:

All it took was one fateful October Sunday afternoon in Minnesota, fucking Minnesota of all places, and an Anthony Fucking Barr sack, to reveal the Packers for what they are: a fraudulent, house of cards organization that was lucky enough to see a cross-bread of Moses and Jesus fall into their laps as their quarterback. Ted Thompson’s defense, entirely built with his 90+ 3rd to 7th round draft picks, looked like the French army in 1940, and Mike McCarthy stuck with a QB who was unable to throw a single TD in Lambeau Field. Did I say fuck Ted Thompson? Nope. Fuck Ted Thompson. And fuck Anthony Barr.

Riley:

Last year was the most trying season I can remember and they still went 7-9. I am beyond spoiled when it comes to this team, which is why “highly successful NFL coach” Mike McCarthy is going to coach this team until he finally chokes on a Grand Slam at Denny’s as my punishment.


David:

Ashton:

We continually seem to think Scott Walker is an electable human being and not the evil dad in every Nickelodeon movie from the 90s.​


Jake:

Because the Browns, who have won 1 game in 2 years, took us to overtime and nearly beat us. Because we just gave Davante Adams a huge contract and he’s one concussion away from driving around lost trying to find his own home. Because our new coordinator Pettine looks like he buys his entire wardrobe at the Harley Davidson store and blasts Kid Rock from the speakers of his Ford Raptor. Because our new management structure is convoluted and I can’t tell if our fat beaver of a head coach has more power this year or if his ass is going to get kicked out the door. And lastly, because our QB visited the Lama and now he’s an enlightened shell of himself participating in a fraudulent “relationship of understanding” with a quasi-race car driver trying to stay in the news and relevant.


Mike:

When Aaron Rodgers occasionally gets hurt, Beav routinely shits his pants on the sidelines for 3 hours. He then has the balls to claim zero responsibility for the backup quarterbacks being utter garbage.


Corey:

This was posted in 2016 by an idiot I unfriended shortly after. Three people liked this post. Us Packers fans do NOT deserve Aaron Rodgers.


Emmett:

If I hear the phrase “Historic Lambeau Field” one more time I will lose it. First the Packers have only been there since the late ‘50s, while that is a long time for a pro sports team but hardly goes back to the leather head era the way they like to pretend. The Stadium has been entirely rebuilt over the past ten years and is now exactly the same as every other sports/entertainment complex complete with lousy, overpriced restaurants and tacky gift shops. Also, for a team that calls itself community based they have been shockingly aggressive in buying up huge chunks of land around the stadium and restricting access, hurting businesses and eliminating affordable parking.


Bentley:

Super glad Green Bay is continuing the hallowed tradition of “backing up the greatest quarterback of all time with a limp pile of moldy dishrags.” The one quarterback who COULDN’T beat Hundley will now replace him. Fantastic. Oh! Our fans had a conniption fit when Jordy Nelson, an aging WR with a history of injuries, was shown the door. I thoroughly dread the day when we finally unload that overpriced, Dollar General Thor knockoff Matthews.


Frank:

This guy (and his buddy behind him):


Andrew:

There are so many reasons Packers fans suck, and you aren’t even trying to get past the surface level. Here’s a few: 1. Green Bay presents itself as this charming little mom-and-pop operation. The only goal of the Packers is to run every business in the community into the ground, and make as much money as possible by building enterprises on their corpses. 2. Packers’ fans think they are the best fan base in the world. In reality, if you try to stand and cheer at the game, no fewer than 3 old men will tell you to sit down and shut up. I spend about 20% of each game explaining the rules to the fans around me. 3. Wisconsin is the reason Trump is President. For that alone, we should be bombed into oblivion and become the landfill for Minnesota and Illinois.


Amy:

The pressure to remain an upbeat, unquestioning, Stepford Wife Packers fan (even while grimly finishing the season on Hundley Time) is tremendous. I was banned from the Packers Reddit board in 2015 after I had the temerity to question the wisdom of wheeling out poor old Bart Starr on the dreadful Thanksgiving known as “Farvegiving” (which the Pack lost to the BEARS) to retire Favre’s jersey. Starr had suffered multiple strokes and was clearly in a fragile state (one report said that he said “Who’s that?” when he saw Brett). He was apparently trotted out solely to satisfy Favre’s ego or possibly his cowardice - who is going to boo Brett when Bart is on the field? Additionally, Mike McCarthy summarily dismissed the studio audience from his weekly coaches’ show. McCarthy has become increasingly hostile, passive-aggressive and sarcastic (and not in an amusing Belechick manner). He seems to be longing for his Pennsylvania Turnpike toll taker days. Even the local Packers color show - Packers Live - got rid of the studio audience. The studio audience and house band - “Third and Short” suddenly disappeared last year - gone are the cute kids kicking footballs with Mason Crosby, the local supper club contingent, and the middle-aged women wearing “Mrs. Clay Matthews” jerseys.


Paul:

I’m not just a fan of the Green Bay Packers, I’m an OWNER. I own stock. I say this every time I’m talking to someone about sports for the first time. I do this because I am a huge, smarmy piece of shit.


Ian:

As a lifelong Wisconsin resident, I’ve come to the realization that more of this state sucks than doesn’t suck. We’re about to sell all of the water in Lake Michigan to China in exchange for FOXCONN JERBS! There could be a blue wave the size of Gilbert Brown this fall, and we’re still gonna re-re-re-elect fucking Scott Walker. But our quarterback beat an astronaut on Jeopardy!, so fuck you.

Cory:

This iteration of the Packers was supposed to be so much better than the Favre years of throwing playoff-overtime interceptions. It’s worse. Fuck Anthony Barr.

Lucas:

My girlfriend and I had been talking about getting a dog for a while. I had spent the better part of a year converting her from a Bears fan to a Packer fan, bringing her to a Packer bar, meeting friends, etc. So when we finally got the dog, we named her Jordy. They traded him away a month later.


Ben:

As your stereotypical fat, drunk, and loud Packers fan, I have a litany of fan offenses I’d like to confess to. I’ll work my way up from embarrassing to criminal: • As a kid, I would get so worked up over Packers’ games that I would get physically sick. That game where Favre dove over the goal line against Atlanta to send the team to the playoffs, I missed because I was in the bathroom puking. I was 11 years old. • I’ll be the first one in a group chat to fire off “FIRE MM” as soon as something goes wrong. Sometimes I’m joking, but most of the time I just want to see blood. For the life of me, I’m not sure whether Mike McCarthy is the best or worst coach we’ve ever had. • I spent a good portion of my financial aid on some excellent end zone seats to attend the season opener versus the Saints the year after the Packers won the Super Bowl. I was so blackout drunk I don’t remember Randall Cobb’s kickoff return touchdown to start the game (or was it halftime?). With the Pack in control, I arrogantly left the game early to go have sex in a park behind Lambeau with my roommate’s sister. It wasn’t until the next afternoon that I learned the Packers needed a goal line stand to preserve the win (right in the corner of the field where our seats were located) as time expired. • I have four handles on PFT to troll Vikings fans with. During the 4th quarter of the collapse in the NFCC against Seattle, I was so confident the Pack was going to win, I headed to my local bar (in Minnesota at the time) to gloat over the Vikings fans in attendance. By the time I finished my first beer, the collapse was in place and I closed out my tab to go home and cower under my afghan in private RAGE. • When the Packers beat the Vikings at TCF Stadium in Minneapolis I was kicked out of two bars after the game for being obnoxious. One bar refused to sell to me. I still have plans to go throw a brick thru their window. I ended up going to the seediest bar I could find and snorting blow in their storage closet with the bartender. • I get in fights at nearly every game I attend. On more than one occasion the fight has been against fellow Packers fans who crossed me. I’m not sure why my friends still go to games with me. This past year in Dallas marked my third new stadium in which I got in an altercation. I truly am Randy Marsh on tour to fight in every NFL stadium I’m basically the personification of everything bad you read about Packers fans, except that I’m not a racist idiot MAGA tool. The only guy worse than me is the guy that screamed FUCK MUSLIMS during the national anthem and drew the ire of Aaron Rodgers after the game, and even then it’s probably debatable as to who is more despicable.


Greg:

My wife and I were visiting her younger brother in Wisconsin, so a trip to the hallowed grounds of Lambeau to catch a Packers game seemed like a no-brainer. Being early in the season, it wasn’t yet cold, so we did as the Romans did and spent the better part of four pregame hours pounding booze at a heroic pace. Midway through the first quarter, I was officially shit-boxed, so at the first sign of commotion, I had to blink my eyes several times to convince my brain of what I seemed to be witnessing. One section over and a couple rows down, a large, heavily-tatted gentleman in a green Brett Favre jersey and one of those soft, old-timey Packer helmets began aggressively thrusting his loins to and fro while bellowing something inaudible in a remarkably deep baritone voice. The movement itself was enough to make you wonder, but upon closer inspection, this boozy, jorted-up fanatic appeared to have a magnificent dong emerging from the fly of his pants. At first, I was mesmerized. I’d heard all the stories beforehand; Packers fans are all related - they’re a bunch of crazy, backwoods rednecks…but this was really some brazen shit. I quickly got the attention of my wife and her brother, who treated themselves to an eye full of this absolute javelin pointing towards the field. We were astounded! I had to admit just how sensational this crazy hillbilly’s pole was. Marveling for several moments at his routine – which increased in bravado each time as more and more spectators began to take note – I wasn’t disgusted or mortified like I might be today, but rather almost impressed by this man’s commitment to displaying his dick. Each time, he’d rest one hand on his hip, hold his meat in the other, thrust his crotch back and forth and scream out: “YEAAAAHHHH…CHECK OUT THIS FUCKIN’ DEAL! YEAAAAHHH!” Every time he said the word “Yeah”, his already deep voice – no doubt bolstered by years of sucking on Marlboro Reds – would reach levels of deepness typically reserved for movie voiceovers. I have to admit to being a little disappointed when the usher finally showed up to make him house his ample shaft, especially when I saw him remove it all together, thus revealing the truth; it was merely the most lifelike dildo I’d ever seen. My final interaction with the most interesting Brett Favre fan I’d ever seen came at halftime while I waited in the beer line. That same gravely voice carried loudly through the concourse area, pleading with security to let him stay in the stadium, proclaiming he hadn’t “done a fucking thing wrong!” I guess I don’t know…maybe he was wrong, maybe he was right – he didn’t seem to hurt anyone by suggesting they check out that fuckin’ deal, but regardless, it made my first and only trip to Lambeau pretty memorable.


Submissions for the 2018 Deadspin NFL previews are now closed. Next up: Arizona Cardinals.