Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFluer, with one of the hottest quarterbacks and wide receiver tandems in the NFL, looked Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams in the eyes late in the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship Game on Sunday, and decided to kick a field goal on fourth-and-goal and hand the ball back to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Brady, after all, had only been to nine Super Bowls at that point -- winning six of them while winning four Super Bowl MVP awards. He has won more big games than any other NFL quarterback.
What could go wrong?
Well, the Packers, trailing the Buccaneers by five points after the field goal, never got the ball back and lost 31-26. Brady took the final 2:09 off the clock and earned his 10th Super Bowl berth -- this one at Raymond James Stadium, marking the first time a team will play a Super Bowl on its home field.
LeFleur defended the curious decision to kick a field goal, which was slammed on social media before Mason Crosby’s kick cleared the crossbar and uprights.
“You not only need the touchdown but you need the 2-point (conversion),” LaFleur said. “The way I was looking at it was, you essentially had four timeouts (including the stoppage with the two-minute warning). We knew we needed to get a stop and I thought we would get a stop there at the end.
“But we got called for P.I. (pass interference) and it didn’t work out. Any time something doesn’t work out, do you regret it? Sure. But the way our defense was playing, it felt like the right decision to do, but it didn’t work out.”
LaFleur, however, didn’t defend the play-call by defensive coordinator Mike Pettine, who had the Packers in man-to-man coverage on the Bucs’ last play of the first half, and receiver Scotty Miller beat cornerback Kevin King for an inexcusable 39-yard touchdown that gave the Bucs a 21-10 lead.
Pettine’s job security already was rumored to be shaky. This likely seals it.
“Yeah, it was man coverage. Definitely not the right call in that situation,” LaFleur said with a sarcastic chuckle. “You can’t do that in that situation against a team like that.”
On their first possession of the second half, the Packers fumbled the ball away and the Bucs turned that into another TD and a 28-10 lead that proved insurmountable.
“Those two plays ... you can’t do that stuff,” LaFluer said. “Inexcusable. Should not have happened.”
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