There's no question that the 2015 NFL season was not what the Green Bay Packers and their legions of devout fans have become used to in the Mike McCarthy-Aaron Rodgers era. The team struggled from the get, thanks in large part to injuries at the wide receiver position, highlighted by Jordy Nelson's preseason ACL tear, and despite some elite performances wherein it appeared Rodgers and Co. had righted the ship, there wound up being far too many pointless offensive drives and altogether futile efforts against the league's better teams.
It was a year that, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com, those inside the Packers' building consider "the most difficult season in years."
That's not altogether surprising, considering the sustained success the franchise has managed under McCarthy. Since he took over in 2006, the Pack have missed the postseason just two times. They've won at least one playoff game five times, including 2015, and reached and won the Super Bowl in 2010.
As long as McCarthy and Rodgers are in place, the Packers will always be an expected, maybe even assumed, postseason team. But 2015 was a different animal. Nelson's injury and the team's lack of depth at wide receiver really hurt the offense. The in-season addition of James Jones' hoody could only do so much to offset the losses and lack of development of a guy like Davante Adams there.
The defense continued to struggle thanks in large part to a talented, but ultimately inexperienced secondary which relied heavily on two rookies in Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins, and that still hasn't been able to find a suitable replacement at the inside linebacker position that would then allow Cro-Magnon man, Clay Matthews, to slide back out to his normal pass-rushing position.
Perhaps the poster child for the team's struggles in 2015 though is former first-round pick and starting running back, Eddie Lacy. Lacy reported in the offseason out of shape and never seemed able to get back to his once-dominant form. The coaching staff was unhappy with Lacy throughout the season, as evidenced by his ping-ponging in and out of the lineup and highlighted by Lacy's longest run of the year and his career; a carry against the Arizona Cardinals in a playoff game that could have been a score, but instead resulted in the football world watching in rapt awe as Lacy basically ran out of steam like a wind-up toy that hadn't been primed long enough.
Per Rapoport, the plan is now for Lacy to drop a whopping 30 pounds this offseason, whether via training camp or some type of fitness program. There's already been talk that P90X may be in the big ballcarrier's future.
Reports have also emerged in the wake of what was, by Green Bay standards, a frustratingly ineffective campaign, that McCarthy is unhappy with GM Ted Thompson's refusal to sign one or two or really any impact free agents and that Rodgers, who had arthroscopic knee surgery after the season, may be have been hindered by a fairly significant injury.
In the end, little in Green Bay is likely to change this offseason. The team and coaching staff are simply too talented. There's no need to blow it up or make sweeping alterations to a group that rightly will be considered a postseason favorite, as-is, again next year.
But disappointment lingers in the NFL. And if next season's result looks too similar to 2015, there's no telling what may come for the Pack.
