Green Bay Packers left tackle David Bakhtiari has had quite a few fans turn against him this offseason. Of course, this is nothing new. Many fans were ready to give up on him when it took over a year for him to come back from a torn ACL. That attitude from fans was unfortunate as Bakhtiari did everything humanly possible to get back on the field. Not all ACL’s heal according to the same timeline.
This offseason, Bakhtiari raised some eyebrows when he stated that the Packers were rebuilding in 2023 following the trade of Aaron Rodgers to the New York Jets. He doubled down on his comments after practice on Wednesday, and there are still fans that are angry over the comments. However, a look into the context of his comments reveals that his message is being misunderstood.
David Bakhtiari’s Comments about the Green Bay Packers Rebuilding Are Not What They Seem
Bakhtiari’s original comments about the Packers being in a rebuild occurred during his appearance on the podcast Bussin’ with the Boys. ESPN’s Rob Demovsky provided Bakhtiari’s comments after practice on Wednesday in which he doubled down on that statement:
“How I look at is, it’s disrespectful to say you’re not rebuilding off a Hall of Fame quarterback. It was disrespectful to say you weren’t rebuilding off of Brett Favre when you moved to Aaron. No one knew Aaron and what he was going to be, so I’m not going to sit here and like pull back those words because that is, when you look at how it’s been building, how we were chasing after it and the cap – there was a bunch of situations that can definitely allude to it – we have a young team.
“I think the Seahawks rebuild off of Russell [Wilson], look at how that turned out. I can always give you the other side of the coin – I don’t know it off the top of my head – but that’s how I look at and it’s a simple way to put it. We can slice it, cut it, make it look like who wants to be the hero or the villain on that word, but that’s really what I mean.”
While many have taken Bakhtiari’s comments to mean that he thinks the Packers will be bad, that is not what he means at all. Instead, he is simply pointing to the fact they are transitioning to young unproven quarterback after 15 years of Hall of Fame play from Rodgers. Until we see the team play, we simply do not know how good they will be.
Of course, the transition to Jordan Love is not the only major change. The team’s projected wide receivers are composed entirely first and second year players. This is a stark difference from previous seasons in which established veterans were always a part of that position group.
Now, all of this is not to say that Bakhtiari will be giving it his best effort this season. He mentioned in his interview that he is a professional with a job to do. He will protect Jordan Love with the same effort that he protected Rodgers, and that is great news for Green Bay.
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