Just over a year ago now, we heard the news about the Seattle Seahawks trading their star QB to the Denver Broncos. Wilson was beloved by Seattle, brought them a Super Bowl, and was shipped out after a couple of down years and some tension between him and the front office. It has seemed to work out for Seattle with what they got in return, and the Broncos still have hope Wilson can turn it around, but I'm not writing this to express I think the Jets pick we received will turn into a top-10 selection. I sure would love to see that play out, but keeping those expectations low.

I'm writing this because around a year ago now, when that trade happened, I had a 1:1 meeting with my supervisor at my job. He's from the Washington area and loves all things Seattle sports, but especially the Seahawks. We talked shop for a bit, wanted to make sure I was doing well with the job, etc. We wrapped up the conversation and he asked if I had any questions for him. I thought for a second and asked him how he felt about the Wilson trade. He chuckled and rolled his eyes, thinking I was teasing him for his favorite team moving their best QB in quite some time, but I followed it up ensuring I was genuinely asking. I explained how I thought the pieces they received in return was a solid deal, but I mostly was curious how he felt with his team potentially going into rebuild mode. He made a comment about how other co-workers have pretty much just made jokes to him about it and he hasn't really thought too much about a rebuild. We chatted for a bit about how it could look, what pieces on the team are expendable, and which ones should remain as the core of the team. Our meeting went on for awhile because we mostly talked about that and we really enjoyed the possibilities of what they could do. Ironically, neither of us thought the Seahawks would be a playoff team, let alone be the team to edge out the Packers for that last spot, but here we are.

As this past season went on, I realized that after most of our wins I felt more of a sense of relief that we didn't mess it up, while my supervisor would be riding high after Geno Smith kept exceeding expectations. Now, last season is over and the shoe is on the other foot, I'm genuinely more excited for this season then I've been in some time. After winning Super Bowl XLV there came an expectation that we would get back there, and anything short of that was a failure on the Packers. There were definitely some truly fun and exciting seasons with the 15-1 record in 2011-12, the "Run the Table" season in 2016-17, etc. But after the NFC Championship loss to Tampa Bay in 2021, it felt like change was needed. It just took awhile to get here.

This next era of Green Bay Packer football is a mystery, but intriguing. Obviously, Jordan Love is a huge question mark, but we haven't seen LaFleur coach without Rodgers yet and I'm excited to see how much changes along with that. Do we go to Jones/Dillon more often? How much does the offensive scheme change with Love to ensure it plays to his strengths? Can the defense find consistency and will all of our 1st round choices on the defense pay off? The Packers are not fully in rebuild mode, but more of a "Let's see what we got" mode. It could result in going into a rebuild after a few seasons or it could result in the combination of Love/LaFleur being better than some originally thought and we build them up. We have no idea how this next season will unfold and I am genuinely excited in that unknown.