Some people are fans of the Green Bay Packers. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Green Bay Packers. This 2015 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.


Your team: the Green Bay Packers.


Your 2014 record: 12-4. That seems like a successful season. I wonder what happened to render all of that so terribly, wretchedly bittersweet… OH RIGHT! This:

YESSSSSSSSSSSS. YES YES YES. Can we see it from a different angle?

Good, and again…

God I just wanna chop this game up and snort it right up my nose. They had a 16-0 lead. They had a 19-7 lead with just over two minutes to go. They held Russell Wilson to a passer rating of ZERO in the first half. And they still lost! Play this game a thousand more times from the start of the 4th quarter and the moron Packers win every time. BUT NOT THAT DAY, my friends! FUCK YOU IN THE CHEESEHOLE!

This is the part where I disclose that I am a Vikings fan, which means that, since my team sucks, 99 percent of my joy as a sports fan is derived from seeing the better, fatter, holier-than-thou team from next door fuck up. So CRY. CRY YOU LOSER PACKER LOSERS BECAUSE YOU LOST:

I can’t believe you lost! Aren’t you amazed you lost? Doesn’t it nag at you every waking minute, to know you pissed away a trip to the Super Bowl so irresponsibly? Don’t you just want to kill yourselves? You should.


You shouldn’t have even had the opportunity to lose THAT game because Dez Bryant caught the goddamn ball the week before. Oh, but heaven forbid the league’s PRECIOUS LITTLE SMALL-TOWN CHERUBS win a game without assistance from the refs. God, I hate the Packers. They are the small baby Roger Goodell uses to shield himself from criticism. You’d think every fan of this team was Jimmy Stewart.

Your coach: Mike McCarthy. Watch out for that cord, amigo…

Hide behind that new beard all you like, Tubby: we still know it was YOU who lost that NFC title game! It was Beav here who decided to kick TWO field goals from the one-yard-line that day. When you have Aaron Rodgers, kicking it from the one is basically football murder. I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: No coach is more generous toward other teams that Mike McCarthy. Can’t stop the run? He’ll pass! Terrified Aaron Rodgers will cut you into little tiny pieces? EIGHT CONSECUTIVE JOHN KUHN DIVE PLAYS. If there is something you fear about the Packers, rest assured that Mike McCarthy will do his very best to protect your squad from it. He fired himself from play-calling duties this offseason, but I know that there will come a time, late in a crucial game, where Beav seizes control of the offense back from Tom Clements to run a tight end reverse. He can’t help himself. He steadfastly refuses to make other teams nervous. He should run a bathhouse.


Your quarterback: Aaron Rodgers. When do I get to make fun of this man for winning just one Super Bowl? Peyton Manning gets reams of shit for not having multiple titles. Can I do that with Aaron Rodgers yet? Or do I have to wait until Mike McCarthy punts from the 35 against the Seahawks next January to seal it? Maybe he’d have more titles if he wasn’t so busy trying to make lame viral videos with Olivia Munn. THINK ABOUT IT.

By the way, the Packers are basically at the mercy of Rodgers’ health in any given season. If he tweaks an ankle, that’s a four-loss swing right there. The rest of the team is a poorly coached nightmare. They should paint Rodgers in TruCote to prevent scratches. And no more Lambeau Leaps! He could collapse a lung getting lost in all that blubber.


What’s new that sucks: Jordy Nelson’s done for the year already! HOW MARVELOUS. And Randall Cobb tweaked his shoulder! By the end of this season, Rodgers will be forcing passes to waiver bait and you’ll be like, “Jesus Christ, who is Flarney Bonewood and why does he have 5 TD catches for Green Bay?” Nothing sadder than watching a franchise QB desperate try to find a go-to wideout only to fail miserably. The good news is that, since Mike McCarthy is your coach, the offense will completely ignore Eddie Lacy and have Rodgers pass the ball 50 times a game in a desperate attempt to establish a rapport with Jared Abbrederis. Watch Packer fan freak out when the new white guy scores his first TD. OMG HE’S SUCH A GRINDER PASS THE BRATWURST SHAKE.

In other news, Letroy Guion was arrested with nearly $200,000 in cash on him this offseason, which is nearly enough money to buy the Packers a decent Hands Team:


The best part about that official evidence photo is all the loose change on the table, as if Letroy was leaving the house and was like, “Okay, I have the cash and the weed and the guns. OH WAIT! MY PIGGY BANK! THE TOLL BOOTH ONLY ACCEPTS EXECT CHANGE!” Tight end Andrew Quarless was also arrested in Florida this offseason and attempted to hide from the police behind a fucking plant. Despite the fact that they ride bikes around training camp and play Settlers of Catan and engage in all other kinds of insufferable, manufactured whimsy, the Packers have more than a few shitbags on the roster. Although I can’t blame some players for fleeing Green Bay during the offseason to go do drugs and shoot guns in Florida. If you were stuck in that godforsaken town with those godforsaken people for five months of out of the year, you’d unload a Glock into the air you second you touched down in Dade County.

What has always sucked: Dom Capers. I can always rest easy knowing that, with the game on the line, Dom Capers will blitz 70 people at once in order to leave three different receivers open and streaking downfield. He can’t give away a lead fast enough. There’s a reason that Seattle scored three straight touchdowns at the end of that game, you know. The Packers have the kind of defense that gets praised as underrated by shithead announcers all year long right up until the moment when they collapse.


It’s what these fans deserve. These fat, pasty, bizarro Steelers fans are the worst. These cheese-breathers continue to fall for the ownership certificate scam, like those idiots who pay 50 bucks to get a star named after their cat. The NFL loves to present these people as lovable down-home folk, but I know better. Go to a Kenny Chesney concert at Lambeau and you will discover the TRUTH!

That’s the real Green Bay. It’s a town of molepeople who sit in darkened rooms all year long and only come out of the woodwork to scream KUHHHHHHN at Lambeau and unleash their inner Riley Cooper at country music festivals.


Also, despite all their titles, the greatest Packers highlight in history is still that dude playing Madden and yelling about Greg Jennings:

HE PUT THE TEAM ON HIS BACK!

What might not suck: As they have every year this decade, the Packers enter the season with the kind of franchise QB and deep roster that OUGHT to win them a title. Your coaching staff will do their best to ensure that this is not the case. Fuck you.


Hear it from Packers fans!

Ali:

Mike McCarthy.

Grant:

Last year’s NFC championship game was the worst thing that ever happened to me.

Pete:

Kevin:

We’re the Cardinals fans of football, completely up our own asses about our small town charm, public ownership, and faux humility. In reality, our fans are exactly the same as everyone else’s: fat, drunken, loudmouthed slobs, only we’re so delusional that we think we own part of a billion dollar franchise too Also, fuck Tony Mandarich forever. The rest of the top 5 in that year’s draft besides him? Troy Aikman, Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas and Deion Sanders.


Peter:

I swear, watching games at a Packer bar becomes the biggest circle jerk imaginable.


Parm:

The average Packer fan in Wisconsin is about 40-50 years old, pasty white with the BMI of an African Elephant. When Ryan Longwell left the Packers for the Vikings, he said Minneapolis was a great city, and that the in comparison, nicest restaurant in Green Bay was Applebee’s. Packer fans in this state were furious at his comments. Do you know why? Because they knew he was right.


Jason:

They fucking forgave Favre! Asshat did everything he could to destroy GB out of spite for 3 years, and now “we’re good bro?” Fuck that guy, and his Wranglers.

Sam:

I never thought the day would come when Kaepernick nuking our defense from orbit in 2012, Corey Webster’s interception in the 2007 NFC Championship AND 4th-and-26 would seem not that bad by comparison. The week after the loss to Seattle, you’d have been forgiven for thinking that every single person in Northeastern Wisconsin had watched helplessly as someone brutally murdered their children and ate the family dog.


Jon:

Packers fans are the St Louis Cardinals fans of football.

Ryan:

I can only assume Capers continues to wear the steel-wool-for-wig because it’s actually a beaver pelt from his days as a trapper trading with the Iroquois during the French and Indian War. He is old. He should be defending forts. His defensive scheme is to “prevent the big play” by essentially only allowing big plays when we really cannot afford them. I will end this with a personal story of going to Lambeau for a game. Of course it’s frigid and there are fat idiots in hunting gear everywhere, as if there was some sort of bowhunter uprising in the wind. I’m there with my cousin and some family and there’s a really large, bearded fan next to us swaying on his feet. He lurches as if to shout and with his hands to his mouth, and then just vomits all over his gloves and the woman in front of him, who starts screaming. Then he shuffles as if to leave, but instead of walking the three seats past us to the aisle, he goes the opposite, forty-seat way, pasting every single person with the puke on his gloves all the way down. Lambeau is not a football temple, it is a swine cathedral in Ice Hell.


Dylan:

Have we figured out if Mike McCarthy is a better Andy Reid or just a lucky Andy Reid?


Ken:

The team has purchased roughly 60 acres of land around the stadium, which presumably means the only place to get a pregame drink in 2017 will be a $9.50 Bud Light from an Olive Garden. Also, our stadium has hosted two concerts: Kenny Chesney, 2011 Kenny Chesney, 2015 Nearly forgot to mention we blew a tap-in putt to go to the Super Bowl. Oops.

Andrew:

Brandon Bostick single-handedly caused me to yell at my mother, try to run out of the house, fall down some stairs, and weep in the car as my wife tried to collect our casserole dishes so she could avoid listening to NFL conspiracy theories. Fuck you, Bostick.


Mike:

Because we have a starting running back who is a goddamn wrecking ball that is a legitimate number one fantasy pick, but our fans would rather scream “KUUUHHHN!” then give a shit about the black guy who scores touchdowns and keeps Aaron Rodgers alive.


Zach:

Don’t forget Kuhn is the second coming of Jesus, because failing on FB dives on 3rd/4th and 1 with the best QB in the game is good hard-nosed blue-collar football.


NigelTufnerJr:

The aging fanbase is too busy debating the best way to parboil brats to actively cheer at games. And fuck Brett Favre with every puke-drenched Vicodin he stuffed back down his shit eating gullet.


Kyle:

Of all the regular playoff contenders in the NFL, the Packers are easily the dumbest and most infuriating. We are firmly stuck with McCarthy, who would be Charlie Weis if he didn’t have the benefit of coaching the best quarterback of his generation.


Jon:

My father works for a local to Wisconsin banking chain, and for one of their shareholder/employee appreciation events, they had a banquet in the atrium of historic Lambeau stadium. John Kuhn was the only Packer that showed up, and it was a big deal.


Austin:

If we lose a game, dear God, seek shelter. I’m fairly sure we have our own Stages of Grief system: Stage One: Anger. I have to imagine the City of Green Bay’s DV incidence rate spikes on Sunday evenings. I have seen TV’s pulled out of walls and smashed, glasses thrown into projector screens and tables flipped, all because the Packers lost to a team like the Bills. Stage Two: “Fire Capers.” And McCarthy. And Ted Thompson. And Mark Murphy. And the coaches. And the training staff. And the concessions guys. And everyone else even remotely affiliated with the team. It’s never our fault; it’s always someone else’s. Given how our fan base will spend their entire lives working their way up to being the assistant manager at the local Dunkin’ Donuts, our inability to make HR decisions shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. (But seriously, fire Dom Capers already.) Stage Three: Booze. There’s so much beer backwash left over in the Lambeau Field parking lot after a game that folks just come by, empty the bottles into a vat, take that sludge, bottle it and call it Miller Lite. Stage Four: More Anger. Stage Five: “The Bears Still Suck.”

Chris:

For every crucial 4th down in Packers playoff history, the defense prepares for the down with the same mindset and effort only rivaled by the 1916 Cumberland Football team.


Monica:

I swear I am, in all other things, an even-keeled person. As a Packers fan I am a monster.


Brad:

By the time the NFL draft is done, people have killed Ted Thompson in their minds a dozen times.


Andy:

There are two types of Packer fans. Those who still hate the best quarterback in franchise history because he didn’t retire when they wanted him to when he clearly could still play at a high level, and those who hate possibly the best quarterback in NFL history because they think he’s a pretty boy from California who took Brett Favre’s job.


Brendan:

Packers fans are secretly the St. Louis Cardinals fans of football.

Derek:

The Packers complete meltdown in the final minutes of the NFC championship game vs the Seahawks is the worst fucking thing I have ever seen in sports. When Brett Favre throws a pick and single handedly tanks the entire season... at least that is tolerable and you will get over it someday. Fuck sports, I’m picking up the trumpet again.


Kyle:

This was taken in Orlando, Florida.


Thad:

I spent years defending Mike McCarthy just because so many Packers fans hated him, but he somehow managed to invent the prevent offense. Pathetic.


Aaron:

My wife is from the Fox Valley area near Green Bay and we went to her parents for Thanksgiving. The Friday after Thanksgiving we agreed to meet some of her good friends, who still live in the area, out for dinner. While we were in the bar waiting for everyone to arrive there was quite a bit of commotion down at the opposite end of the bar. There was a 6 foot tall bald headed African American guy at the end of the bar. Everyone was snapping pictures, getting autographs, and buying this guy drinks. I asked some fat drunk lady, what’s going on over there? She said, it’s Donald Driver, as she is getting her cell phone out. The guy did not look like Donald Driver at all. Please note this was 2012, Driver’s last season and the Packers were playing the Giants in New York on Sunday. But this random bald headed black guy was soaking up the attention and getting free drinks. As he walked by me I was laughing pretty hard, the guy smiled and gave me a wink. I wasn’t going to ruin his evening by calling him out. The old saying in Green Bay was always, if you were African American you were either a Packer or just passing through. This guy was definitely just passing through but getting a ton of drinks for being bald.


Landon:

How many emails did you get from Packers fans that just say “Fuck Brandon Bostick!” At least a thousand? And of those thousand emails, how many spelled Bostick’s name correctly? Aaron Rodgers is the face of the franchise and one of the best QBs in the league, but if you take a look at the comments section on any Packers site or a random fan’s Twitter feed, you’ll see “Rogers,” “Roggers,” “Rodger,” and other incorrect names. Jermichael Finley was another name nobody could seem to grasp. I’m pretty sure he was in his third year in the league before I heard anyone pronounce his name correctly. I have heard all of the following at least once in reference to him: Michael, Jeremy, Jermaine, Jerman, Jermitchell, Jermarcus, Jamiroquai (I hope this one was a joke, but I can’t be certain), and Jermickeel. Yeah, Dave, “Jermickeel” does need to hold onto the ball, and you should probably learn to read and pronounce his fucking name correctly. And hey, remember Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila? Holy fucking shit, I’m pretty sure that the Packers PR staff forced the team and media to start referring to him as KGB just to prevent all the strokes that would have occurred in Wisconsin when someone’s speech center in their brain tried to piece all of those syllables together.


Lisa:

When my oldest daughter started kindergarten, her perfectly lovely middle-aged teacher gave her class a homework assignment of 1) Watching the Packer Game and 2) Yelling “Ms. Teacher loves you!” every time they saw the player with number 52 on screen.


Matt:

In 2011 when the Packers won the Super Bowl, I was attending college in Chicago. After beating the Bears in the NFC Championship game that can only be described as the football incarnation of Cincinnati Chili, I wore my Rodgers jersey to class the next day with no jacket to gloat. I can honestly say that I probably did the belt celebration 50 times just to annoy people. It worked and it just added fuel to my fire. People hated me. I became the Christian Laettner of NFL fans. Every class I went into I made sure the professor said something. On the bus to and from class I made sure to stand at the front of the bus so everyone saw it. How I still have friends from college is an absolute mystery. The worst part about this is that I tell the story just so I can bring up the 2011 Super Bowl again.




Robin:

Attached you’ll find the position I was in immediately after the most soul-crushing, life-draining, heartbreaking loss in team history. I am sound asleep in that image, but at least it’s my own kitchen floor. After that, I was told that I got up briefly, went in the bathroom to throw up, and then passed out face down halfway on/half off my bed. I cried.


Tony:



Packers fans and Bears fans are exactly the same, but that doesn’t stop the drunken, sloppy masses of Packers homers from acting like they’re better fans because their team happened to go from Hall of Fame QB to Hall of Fame QB. They seriously recite ‘The Bears Still Suck’ like it’s a goddamn hymnal, as if Francis Scott Key himself descended from on high in a Brett Favre jersey and gifted us a stone tablet inscribed with the lyrics. Lambeau Field may be beautiful on the outside, with a nice little glass atrium, but there are still FUCKING BLEACHERS inside it. BLEACHERS, Drew. BLEACHERS. This isn’t Elk Mound fucking High School, this is the goddamn NFL. People willingly paid hundreds of dollars out-of-pocket to fund the stadium renovations, but this self-obsessed franchise still forces them to sit in cheap-ass bleachers under the guise of tradition. Fuck that tradition. I want a tradition of not feeling every single roll of fat hanging off the middle-aged Shawano drunkard crammed in next to me. Seriously, fuck the Packers. Fuck the Bears and Vikings harder, though.

Peter:

The defense can turn into a wet sheet of paper at a moment’s notice, the offense will shit the bed in the red zone, and another 7th round draft pick or undrafted free agent will replace Brad Jones and Brandon Bostick. Thank GOD I don’t live in Wisconsin. Chicago is infinitely better.

Rick:

News flash, everyone in the NFC North fucking hates us. When Rodgers got hurt a few years ago I’m pretty sure every team held a god damn parade and was surprised that Shea McCellean didn’t get the key to the fucking city. Every fan in the NFC North wants us to loose every game and for some reason we think that as magical entitled Packer fans we’re immune to the seething rage that comes with winning the division through assbackwards luck. We’re not. We are hated.


Andy:

This team will field the shittiest defenses, year after year, and when the off season rolls around, they spend their time and money signing offensive players.


David:

Scott Walker is a Packers fan.

Drew (not me):

Community ownership is great and I think the model should be replicated, but letting your fan base gloss themselves “NFL Owner” is a bad look when their average accomplishments amount to “not enough DWI’s for a felony conviction yet” and “too fat to need a coat.”


Brandon:

Being a black Green Bay fan, any black guy within a 60-mile radius of Green Bay is assumed by many to be either on the Packers roster or one of their top prospects.


Chris:

Many of my fellow Packer fans will regularly beat you over the head about how we are the most dedicated and passionate fans in the entire NFL and have a waiting list of tens of thousands of people for season tickets. Yet two years ago, the Packers had to rely on the general public to buy up tickets for a playoff game against San Francisco after season ticket holders (of which there are even two groups, given the need to accommodate ticket holders from back when the Packers played a couple games per year in Milwaukee) declined to buy up all the seats. The two likely reasons for the failure to immediately sell out were a) the temperature on game day was well below zero, and b) the Packers had squeaked into the playoffs that year and were unlikely to advance very far. Thus, the Packers have a lot of followers who are literally and figuratively fair weather fans. In that way, we’re not so different from everyone else. To the issue of weather, I have a pal who hosted a sports radio show in Green Bay for several years, and once took a quick poll of listeners to ask if they’d ever want to see a roof put on Lambeau Field (or whatever eventually replaces it), or if such a move would be sacriligious. His only stipulation was that callers had to be people who attend at least 4-5 games per season. Ultimately, every person who called in wanted a roof. Yes, we may mock the Vikings and their fans for going soft and playing in a climate controlled dome, but those of us who go to games regularly and know what it’s like to spend 4-5 hours in unpleasant cold are secretly jealous of Minnesota’s comfy set up.


Submissions for the 2015 NFL previews are now closed. Next up: the Seattle Seahawks.