It was a rough day for the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, They lost a game 34-26 to the Denver Broncos, lost their lead in the NFC North and lost their best player, Micah Parsons to an apparent torn ACL. That's a full day of bad news.
It's one thing to lose a game. It's another thing to lose so much more than that in just one afternoon.
The Green Bay Packers lost to the Denver Broncos on Sunday, but the 34-26 defeat was just the start. They fell behind the Chicago Bears in the NFC North race by a half-game and, probably worst of all, lost defensive star Micah Parsons with a torn ACL as well.
"That's obviously a really tough night in a lot of ways in regards to losing the football game," LaFleur said. "Give Denver a ton of credit. That's a really good football team. I thought it was a dogfight for most of the game, and then they kind of ran away with it in the second half.
"It was also a double whammy for us, just losing some pieces that are critical for our success. But that's the name of the game. I told the guys nobody's going to feel sorry for us. We've got to rally around one another. Everybody's going to have to elevate their play."
Packers Roundtable writer Andrew Kulha broke down the game, with his three biggest disappointments for Green Bay.
The Packers are 9-4-1, falling behind the 10-4 Bears in the NFC North after they beat Cleveland 31-3 earlier in the day. Their two head-to-head matchups come together late in the season. Green Bay won at home 28-21 on Dec. 7, and the two teams meet in Chicago on Saturday night.
That will likely determine the division champion and the home playoff game that comes with it. The Packers also play the Baltimore Ravens at home on Saturday, Dec. 27 and then finish with the Minnesota Vikins.
The Bears have a tough finish. They play the San Francisco 49ers at home on Sunday night, Dec. 28 and their final game of the season is at Detroit.
The Packers made a huge deal to acquire Parsons just before the season, with the hope being that he would be the difference in making them a Super Bowl contender.
With 12.5 sacks coming into the game, Parsons is the first player in NFL history to record at least a dozen sacks in each of his first five NFL seasons. Parsons also came into Week 15 with an NFL-leading 60 pressures, 10 more than any other player in the league and the most pressures by any player within a team's first 13 games of a season in the past seven years.