I find a lot about this to be preposterous, but then, I found this whole thing to be totally and completely idiotic during the season as well. I’m speaking of Eddie Lacy’s weight issue.
Let’s do a quick recap.
All season long, the shitbirds who cover the Green Bay Packers were pushing out stories about how Lacy was overweight. Some of these idiots pushed out more than one such story.
We railed on them then because that narrative was not only stupid, but obviously overdone.
Why was it stupid?
Because fat or not, Lacy could still show up on Sunday run over some motherfuckers for 100-plus yards. Just like he did against Minnesota, Chicago and Dallas late in the season, when he was supposedly bathing in gravy.
In hindsight, it has become pretty obvious that the underlying issue here was that people on the team didn’t believe Lacy was taking his job seriously enough.
Thus, their brilliant plans to motivate Lacy included demoting him in favor of James Starks, benching him after missing curfew (even though he was in the team hotel) and planting stories in the media about him being fat.
Don’t kid yourselves. Those constant moronic stories didn’t keep showing up by accident. Someone in the Packers organization strongly encouraged someone in the media to write them.
Did anything change?
Clearly it did not, as evidenced by Mike McCarthy’s openly stating the Lacy needed to lose weight during his season-ending press conference.
And why are we going over all this?
Because the Packers are just as much to blame here as Lacy is. In fact, I’d say they’re more to blame.
Take this nugget from a Bob McGinn chat, earlier this week.
Yes, (the Packers) have weigh-ins weekly. I think they are on Thursday. McCarthy and his people knew Lacy’s weight all along. They just hid the truth. I’m sure Lacy has been counseled, hassled, ripped, ridiculed and everything in between about his weight. But you’ve still got to want to do it.
Certainly true that you’ve got to want to do it.
If someone doesn’t want to act like a grown man, then he’s probably not going to act like a grown man.
False, however, that they hid the truth. The Packers pretended they didn’t know about Lacy’s weight when asked by the media, but then they went behind his back and secretly tipped off the media that Lacy was overweight.
And I have a hard time getting over the ham-fisted manner in which that was handled.
Do you know how many strength and conditioning guys the Packers have on staff?
Four.
What the hell were those guys doing all season?
If you need to have one of them follow Ed around town, then have one of them follow Ed around town.
Do you know who else the Packers employ?
A full-time nutritionist. That position was created in the summer of 2014.
What the hell was that person doing all season?
It seems to me the Packers should have had the team in place to remedy this situation, but instead they stooped to trying to shame Lacy through the media.
Sound strategy.
Apparently, the same accountability that’s in place for guys who coach running backs or tight ends isn’t in place for the people who are supposed to keep everyone in top shape.