The Green Bay Packers can clinch their second consecutive postseason berth if they defeat the New Orleans Saints this week on Monday Night Football. At 10-4, the Packers have virtually no chance of catching the 12-2 Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings atop the NFC North, but are in prime position for one of the NFC Wild Cards.
Fortunately for Green Bay, they play two of their remaining three games at home at Lambeau Field. Their only road game for the rest of the year will be a revenge game against the Vikings in Minnesota.
In recent years, Lambeau Field has lost its mystique as a place where visiting teams hate playing. Indeed, Green Bay has failed to win big NFL Playoffs games at home in an environment that they should dominate.
That being said, the winter months and cold temperatures have still been historically kind to the Packers during the Matt LaFleur Era.
Green Bay Packers Head Coach Matt LaFleur Has His Team Ready for Cold Temperatures
Since becoming the Packers’ 15th head coach in 2019, LaFleur has made NFL and team history in many ways. His 56 wins in his first five seasons is the second-most in league history for any coach in his first five years with a team (George Seifert had 62).
It took over two seasons (49 games) for the Packers to lose back-to-back games under LaFleur, the longest such streak in NFL history.
LaFleur has been especially successful against other teams in the NFC North. Since taking the helm in Green Bay, LaFleur is 22-8 against the Chicago Bears, Lions, and Vikings. His .733 winning percentage in the division is the highest in NFC North/Central history.
But where LaFleur has really excelled is in the latter months of the year. The Packers won their first 16 games in December and January under his leadership and are currently 18-2, by far the best record in the league in those months since 2019.
New Orleans Saints Rookie Spencer Rattler Practiced in a Freezer Ahead of Matchup with the Green Bay Packers
In a recent report by Katherine Terrell of ESPN, Saints rookie quarterback Spencer Rattler revealed that New Orleans quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko took him and the rest of the healthy quarterbacks to the walk-in freezer in their cafeteria to do their run-through.
“This morning, Janocko took us in the cafeteria freezer, where it was like 10 degrees, and we’re just going through the whole script in there, and so just doing that, that helped a lot,” Rattler said. “So hopefully it’s not 10 degrees, but we’ll be ready.”
Apparently, Janocko got the idea from watching the movie “Cool Runnings.”
“I think there’s something we said about just preparing for [the cold], so you’re not shocked and it’s not something surprising,” he said, per the report. “It’s something that you deal with as far as you prepare for the opponent and prepare for the venue. So I just thought it was good to do something a little different. At this time of the year, it’s fun to do different stuff. It’s a long season and sometimes other than just sitting in a meeting day after day after day, just doing something different, changing up the scene. Guys thought it was hilarious. The cafeteria workers think I’m out of my mind.”
The 5-9 Saints need a win against the Packers at Lambeau, where the weather will be cold and snowy, in order to keep their dim postseason hopes alive.
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