Green Bay Packers running back and kick returner Ty Montgomery spoke on Monday. And considering he was still in the building after his disastrous kick return decision in the team’s loss to the Rams, it’s a good sign he won’t be cut.
A good sign for him. If the Packers were going to make a move with Montgomery, logic says they would have done it when he walked into the building.
After Sunday’s game, coach Mike McCarthy said he told Montgomery to down the football if he caught it in the end zone. That obviously didn’t happen.
Montgomery defended returning the ball, saying he didn’t know exactly where he was. I would call that a lack of awareness, by a veteran player no less. At any rate…
“At that point in time, I stood where I always stood, I had a returnable ball,” Montgomery said. “So I made a split-second decision, I don’t know if this is going to land on the goal line. So I’m not going to take a knee on the goal line, at the half-yard line and take a chance at putting the game in the ref’s hands. Unfortunately, I ended up fumbling the football. I don’t think we’d be having this conversation if I didn’t fumble the football because we know how good our two-minute offense is.
“But I’ve never been a guy to completely disobey what I’m being told. I think you can ask a lot of guys in our locker room. That’s not what I do. That’s not the type of man I am. That’s not the kind of person I am.”
We are not questioning the type of person Montgomery is. We are questioning what type of football player he is and whether he has any value to this team.
Person: thumbs up. Football player: eh…
There were reports that Aaron Rodgers was pissed at Montgomery. An anonymous player suggested that Montgomery threw a tantrum after being taken out of the game earlier in the fourth quarter. That he returned the kickoff out of selfishness.
Montgomery admitted that he was frustrated with being pulled.
“I got a little frustrated. I wanted to make a play,” he said. “I wasn’t playing very much and I wasn’t able to make a play and I was frustrated about that. I don’t fully understand what my role is right now, what I’m supposed to be doing, how I’m supposed to help this team. And it’s frustrating when I want to help the team and I get limited opportunities and it didn’t happen on that play. So I came off frustrated about it.”
He didn’t like the comment about his character, however.
“There’s a lot of stuff that’s not true that’s causing me to have to deal with false accusations about my character, perceptions about my character. I’ve never been one to throw teammates under the bus. You guys know if you guys ever ask me questions about teammates, I always deflect it. I don’t like it. So it’s very disappointing especially as a guy who’s jeopardized the length of his career, the amount of money he can make in his career, in the middle of a season being asked to do multiple things all the time. That’s all I’m going to say about that.”
Montgomery does have his supporters. Veteran cornerback Tramon Williams quickly came to his defense.
“I’ll tell you what, the people who said that, it’s unfortunate that they said that,” Williams said. “That’s the reason they are anonymous and not said their name. If they want to say it, put their name by it. That’s them. Whoever that is, it is what it is. But we’re going to have Ty’s back. I know for a fact he didn’t do it selfishly. It may look that way, but he didn’t do it selfishly.”
And of course, former Packers tight end Brandon Bostick, who made perhaps the biggest gaffe in Packers history in the 2014 NFC Championship game, understands.
Been There And Done That @_WiFi_Ty_ Take It All In. Face It Head On. Learn From It And Move On. It’s All About Lessons And Blessings. You Know And I Know The Man Above Got Ya. He Makes No Mistakes! I’m Here For Ya!
— Brandon Bostick (@Bostick11) October 29, 2018
Great.
Ultimately, here’s the thing. Regardless of how you want to look at it, the Packers currently have a fractured locker room. Guys are wondering who they can trust, if someone is going to throw them under the bus, who is saying what to the media, etc.
It falls on coach Mike McCarthy and the team’s veteran leaders to fix that. Or the Packers could just start winning games and it will fix itself. If the losses keep piling up, things are going to get ugly.
What a mess… Montgomery says he didn’t know where he was on the field. Here’s an idea, look down at your fucking feet!! If McCarthy told anybody to have Ty kneel in the endzone and then it doesn’t happen, only to have McCarthy do nothing about it, what does that say about the coaching staff as a whole? It sounds like the locker room is becoming divided over this as well.
Not defending Ty, but try understanding his perspective. He says “I don’t fully understand what my role is right now, what I’m supposed to be doing, how I’m supposed to help this team. And it’s frustrating when I want to help the team and I get limited opportunities and it didn’t happen on that play.” He also says he’s “being asked to do multiple things all the time.” I’d be frustrated too if I had to deal with the blunder McCarthy has put him through. Refuses to play him at WR where he should be, has Ty convert to RB because McDippy and TT only kept two RB’s on the roster, then they draft two actual RB’s, Ty gets buried on the depth chart, plus he probably can’t move back to WR because they just drafted three guys for that position. I don’t know, maybe Ty doesn’t have what it takes, but from what I saw when he played WR was that he was just as good or better than some of the guys the Packers trotted out there.
Absolutely cheese…..He got a con job to convert because they needed him, then they drafted actual running backs, followed by drafting 3 wide receivers. The writing was on the wall.
When Ty says: “I don’t fully understand what my role is right now……” What he’s really saying is he got fucked.
Lets not pretend Montgomery was in their future plans. He was pissed and i don’t blame him one bit.
Based on Dix’s trade (which i have no problem with), the Packers are saying they have no chance this season. Fuck, i could have told them that a year or two ago, or 5.
Nobody is ever held accountable in the Packer organization. He’ll probably start next week.
The whole organization is a laughing stock! Nothing but a bunch of ass wipes.
Dysfunction breeds dysfunction.