Acme Packing Company
Now that our top plays are in the books, I’d like to offer one final coda to our look back at last season.
2025 was really dumb.
I wrote in the conclusion to our top play of 2025 that everything after Keisean Nixon’s interception capped off the Packers’ win over the Bears in Week 14 seems pretty forgettable. That’s not to undermine the work of my colleague Tyler Brooke, who rightly celebrated Matthew Golden’s touchdown against the Bears in the playoffs. That should have been a game-sealing touchdown, and yet, well, we all know what happened.
Nixon’s interception really does seem like the last true high point of the season, and that’s dumb! A season that starts 9-3-1 shouldn’t have its last, best moment in Week 14. That’s a dumb thing that happened to us as Packers fans.
And it’s hardly the only thing. Brian Gutekunst took great pains from 2022 through 2025 to assemble a deep and exciting cadre of wide receivers, yet the entire crew was hardly ever healthy together in 2025. Jayden Reed started the season injured, got more injured, and never really found his footing at all. By the time Christian Watson came back from his ACL rehab, Matthew Golden was dinged up. And even when the top options were healthy, 2025 third round pick Savion Williams had left the lineup with a season-ending injury of his own. It’s not as though Williams would have been any huge difference maker down the stretch, but it’s still annoying that we got to see so little of him. And beyond that, it’s dumb that the Packers’ top five receivers were literally never all healthy at once; part of the reason Golden even had a chance to score his playoff touchdown at all was because Dontayvion Wicks was in the concussion protocol. Dumb!.
And not all dumbness has to do with injuries. I don’t want to belabour this point, but it’s pretty dumb that Matt LaFleur spent so much of 2025 trying to make the Packers into a power-running team, and they just weren’t. The offensive line couldn’t hack it. Josh Jacobs wasn’t healthy enough to carry the load. It just wasn’t working. It’s dumb to try to be something you’re not, and it’s even dumber to keep trying it after you know what you are.
But back to injuries and the havoc they wreak. Part of the reason they couldn’t get the ground game clicking was the offensive line. As much as the Packers’ wide receiver room lacked continuity, the offensive line was nearly as bad. Don’t get me wrong, the Packers’ offensive line may not have turned out to be all that good in 2025, but we never really got to find out. Zach Tom got injured early, as did Aaron Banks. And by the time they sorted out their injuries, Elgton Jenkins was about ready to call it a season with an injury of his own. And then Zach Tom’s second injury, this one much more...
