Matt LaFleur defends disastrous decision to take points off board before Packers meltdown

Everything seemed to be going according to plan for the Green Bay Packers in their Week 1 divisional test against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. Jordan Love and the offense were moving the ball at will and it looked like the only thing standing in the way of a season-opening victory was the defense withstanding a late effort by Carson Wentz . Green Bay appeared to take a 25-17 lead with a little over 13 minutes to play in regulation on a Trey Smack field goal. Those points came off the board when Matt LaFleur opted to accept an offsides penalty in favor of a 4th-and-1 and a chance to truly put the game away with a touchdown.

Unfortunately for him, that decision aged poorly as Love was stuffed on a quarterback sneak, allowing the Vikings to take possession. Minnesota would then take the lead and pile on as they posted 22 unanswered points in the final quarter to emerge with a 39-22 victory.

It was a stunning sequence of events for Green Bay and puts them behind the sticks as every other team in the NFC North is off to a 1-0 start.

"I think that's just we're going to be aggressive," he said. "It was going to be an eight-point game. If it would have been a two-possession game, I probably would have thought otherwise. But I thought we had a chance. We didn't do very well in the red zone. . . . Sometimes you live and die by that, but we're gonna be aggressive and we're gonna try to go for the throat in that situation."

To be clear, taking the points off the board did not lose the game by itself. There's no doubt that it set in forth a chain reaction that spelled disaster. But if you're allowing Wentz to score at will, that's a bigger problem and could spell doom for Green Bay's lofty expectations this season.

Still, it's a rough way to start the season as Packers fans are wondering what could have been if they had just taken the three points and preserved momentum.