One of the shoulda, coulda moments of the Green Bay Packers’ NFC Championship loss to the Seattle Seahawks was safety Morgan Burnett sliding down after intercepting Russell Wilson with around five minutes to go.
No Seattle player was near Burnett and he clearly could have returned the pick much further than he did. Some say he could have taken it to the house, but at the very least, he probably could have put Green Bay in field goal range.
Instead, he harmlessly slid down after running a few yards and started to celebrate with Ha Ha Clinton-Dix. So clearly, Burnett has some regret today, right?
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight?
Nope.
“I don’t take anything back that I did,” Burnett said. “It’s easy to sit here after and say ‘we should have did this, we should have did that.’ If the outcome was different, we wouldn’t even be talking about it.”
Ahhhhhhhh, but the outcome is totally the same as it was yesterday, you prick.
Burnett goes on to blame the slide on the team’s other defensive captain, Julius Peppers, who gave him a signal to slide after he caught the ball.
“I was just trying to secure the catch, I got the ball in my hand and the main thing was just gaining possession of the ball. And I got the ‘no mas’ signal, which means ‘no more, no return, get down’ and secure possession of the ball, give our offense the ball.”
You know, there’s probably a lesson to be learned here. And that’s when you have a chance to stomp on someone’s throat and put them out of their misery once and for all, you stomp on their fucking throat.
Burnett is by no means the focal point of the blame for Sunday’s loss, nor should he be. He’s simply the culprit in one of the Packers’ missed opportunities, of which there were many.
That being said, don’t sit there and say you wouldn’t have done it differently. Don’t point the finger at someone else for telling you to do something.
In a game where literally one play makes the difference between winning and losing, you admit your fault and take your share of the blame.
And if you can’t do that, then I would like Julius Peppers to tell you to point a revolver at your head and pull the trigger, since you’re so keen on following his instructions.