Let the guessing games begin

GREEN BAY – As is the common refrain around the NFL, six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach Bill Belichick is known for scheming to take away what opposing offenses do best.

Since that hasn’t necessarily been determined yet in regard to the Packers’ 2022 offense, what the Patriots’ defense will focus on Sunday at Lambeau Field remains a bit of a mystery, and Aaron Rodgers is fine keeping it that way.

“I’m not going to give him any ideas,” Rodgers said after Wednesday’s jog-through practice about the Packers’ offensive strengths. “I’m sure he’ll look at what he thinks we do best and try to take away the first and second options, and then he’ll have a plan B, a plan C and a plan D that I’m sure he hopes he doesn’t get to.”

In this case, mysteriousness cuts both ways.

Rodgers has faced a Belichick-led New England defense twice in his career, in 2014 and ’18. This will be Head Coach Matt LaFleur’s first encounter with Belichick in Green Bay but he helped prepare the Atlanta and Tennessee offenses to face the Patriots at his previous stops.

Both noted how an offense simply must be ready to adjust to anything on the fly, because no matter how much film on the Patriots is studied, they might deploy a scheme designed specifically for an opponent with little relation to or carry-over from other games.

“You just never know what you’re gonna get,” LaFleur said. “You can try to make the best educated guess, but you better be ready to adapt on gameday if they present a different look.”