Packers 2022 Schedule: LaFleur’s Bye-Week Gamble
GREEN BAY, Wis. – To face the New York Giants in London on Oct. 9, the Green Bay Packers will fly across six time zones and play a game that will kick off at 8:30 a.m. Central time.
Because of the inconvenience for teams that have to play overseas, the NFL gives clubs some ownership over their bye weeks. They can take their bye immediately afterward to give their players a chance to get their bearings back after a grueling travel schedule. Or, they can take their bye later in the season.
The Packers, getting ready for their long-awaited London debut, chose the latter. Instead of a Week 6 bye, coach Matt LaFleur and the Packers will have a Week 14 bye.
The advantage of LaFleur’s approach is obvious. With or without a trip to Europe, players are beat up and tired out by the time the calendar flips to December. Green Bay, with its usual eye on winning a championship and the important games that are played in December and beyond, is hoping that not having a game on Dec. 11 will mean a supercharged team for the final few games of the regular season and a push to the playoffs.
The gamble is obvious, too. Going to London is no vacation. In 2017, the Baltimore Ravens were crushed by Jacksonville. Ravens coach John Harbaugh was ticked – not just at his team for its performance but over the entire ordeal.
“We have no control over where we stay, how far the bus ride is and how long it takes us to get to the stadium and those kinds of things,” he bluntly said. “What impact they have are things we look at. To be honest with you, maybe I will get in trouble for saying this, I do not plan on going over there any time soon to play again. Somebody else can have that job.”
The Ravens – like the Packers – chose a later-season bye. They returned from London and lost at home to AFC North-rival Pittsburgh, dropped four of five overall and wound up missing the playoffs on a tiebreaker.
In theory, the Packers will take care of the rebuilding Giants in London, then return to Green Bay and take care of business against the New York Jets. That won’t be easy, though. LaFleur will have to get his team ready to face the Giants after a 9-hour flight, then get his team ready again to play the Jets – a team restocked via the draft and free agency – after another 9-hour trip.
It's certainly possible that the Packers will be out of gas after London and the bye will come too late to save the season. LaFleur, however, has shown Midas’ touch in terms of scheduling during his first three seasons as coach so probably shouldn’t be second-guessed for his decision.
“This will be my third experience going over there, and we’ve had a lot of coaches who have had that experience,” LaFleur said after the draft. “Typically, at least from my own experience, we’ve left on a Thursday evening, you fly through the night, you get there on Friday and you almost go right to work and try to wake these guys up a little bit. You might go on a quick walk, but then you get into a Friday walk-through type practice. And then you try to keep the guys up at least until like 7 o clock or so on Friday evening, and then they can go to bed. It is an adjustment for everybody, no doubt about it.”
