Sports

After two straight home wins to start the season, the Packers looked to be squarely in the Super Bowl window. Now, after losing two straight home games (and scoring 20 total points in losses to the Panthers and Eagles), Green Bay may not make it to the postseason.

With eight games to play and a record of 5-3-1, is coach Matt LaFleur coaching for his job?

He was asked that question after Monday night's 10-7 loss to the Eagles.

"I’ll leave that for everybody else to decide,” LaFleur said, via Matt Schneidman of TheAthletic.com. “I’ll just focus on the day-to-day. . . . I feel like you’re always coaching for everything in this league, you know? That’s just my mindset. It’s always been that way. You can’t ever exhale. You gotta always be pushing. That’s just my mindset and that will be my mindset ’til they tell me not to coach anymore."

There's one person with the ultimate power to make the decision. And new Packers president Ed Policy made it clear in June that, for both LaFleur and G.M. Brian Gutekunst, 2025 will be an important year.

Their contracts run through 2026. Policy they would not get new deals until after the current season. Policy also downplayed the idea that either LaFleur or Gutekunst would work as lame ducks next year, saying such an approach "creates a lot of issues."

So it likely will be either new deals or pink slips. In June, Policy said of LaFleur, Gutekunst, and director of football operations Russ Ball, "I love them. I trust them. I respect them."

That's the good news, for each of them. The bad news is that the Packers suddenly aren't good enough, with an offense that lacks rhythm or punch or unpredictability. So, yes, the next eight games will be a factor in what happens next, especially if the Packers don't happen to make it to the postseason for only the second time this decade.

The Commanders added a veteran defensive lineman to their practice squad on Tuesday.

The agents for DeMarcus Walker announced that their client has agreed to a deal with Washington. According to multiple reports, Walker is joining the team's practice squad.

Per those reports, Walker is in Spain with the Commanders so he could be elevated to play against the Dolphins in Madrid on Sunday. The Commanders are down a lineman after Daron Payne was suspended for one game for punching Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Walker was a Broncos second-round pick in 2017. He started 17 games for the Bears last season and had 47 tackles and 3.5 sacks for Chicago.

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni faced a decision with 33 seconds left in Monday night's game at Lambeau Field.

Sirianni's team was up 10-7 and facing a fourth-and-6 from the Packers' 35-yard-line. They could have kicked a field goal, punted or, with the Packers out of timeouts, gone for a first down that would have ended the game. Sirianni opted for door No. 3 and the Eagles dialed up a deep pass to wide receiver A.J. Brown.

Sirianni said he didn't like the field goal because of the wind and the Packers still could have won with a touchdown if they made it. He also cited a similar pass to Brown that helped them run out the clock in a win over the Vikings earlier this year and said he wasn't second-guessing the decision because the pass was incomplete.

"Don't regret that at all, wanted to be able to end the game," Sirianni said in his postgame press conference. "It didn't work this time. Sometimes that happens, but I've got a lot of faith in sending those guys back out there in those scenarios. We had a very similar one that we are all high-fiving about against Cleveland last year, right? Very similar, very similar, that we went vertical on and A.J. and Jalen made a great play. It didn't work this time. Kind of similar-ish to the Minnesota game. So when they work, we're high-fiving. When they don't work, you are going to go back and say, 'Hey, was this the best thing that we should have done in this particular case?' And we'll be hyper-critical of ourselves there, but I know how much trust I have in Jalen and I know how much trust I have in the guys that are out there and he threw it to A.J. in that particular case, and A.J. and the offensive line and everybody that goes into that."

The Packers picked up 18 yards on a pass to wide receiver Bo Melton, but Brandon McManus' 64-yard field goal try at the whistle came nowhere close to going in and the Eagles were able to do their high-fiving a little later than Sirianni drew it up.