The Green Bay Packers could use the services of former boxing trainer Angelo Dundee right now; God rest his soul. Dundee sparked his fighter Sugar Ray Leonard to a win in a fight that he was about to lose when he uttered the words, “You’re blowing it, kid.”
Dundee is not around anymore, so Green Bay needs to find someone to light a fire under Eddie Lacy‘s fat ass. The kid is blowing it.
Lacy has regressed in this his third NFL season, after gaining over 1,000 yards in each of his first two years in the League. The guy has been banged up and to the outside observing smart ass like myself, it’s easy to say the man is out of shape. It sure looks that way in high def.
But there is more to the story. Lacy was barely part of the game plan on Thursday night when the Pack came back from twenty down to get a big win in Detroit. He didn’t start and only carried the ball five times for four measly yards.
Lacy was left out in the cold after missing curfew on Wednesday night along with fellow running back Alonzo Harris.
Harris’ punishment was more severe as he was cut. In the real world, that means fired. And that’s where Lacy is headed. He needs someone to get in his ear Angelo Dundee style and tell the 25-year-old that he is expendable. Running backs are a dime a dozen.
Back to back 1,000-yard seasons were nice, but not Adrian Peterson-like. There are guys waiting in the wings to take over. Lacy’s curfew-busting buddy was replaced by a practice squad guy who is probably elated to have the opportunity to be on the real roster.
Lacy is not above being replaced. If he believes otherwise, he can just look at another former great Alabama tailback to see how fast an NFL career can end. Trent Richardson blew each chance he got in the League and lost the best-paying job he will ever have.
I always say that running back is the worst job in the NFL, but if you like getting big paychecks, you might want to put all you have into the job. If not you will wind up on a broke athletes documentary eventually.
I know it’s easy to sit back and criticize Eddie Lacy when in the regular workplace there are guys and gals who underperform every day. There are accountants who just coast through each work week in order to get that check. I see city workers just standing around waiting for the five o’clock whistle each day so they can go home and forget about their miserable jobs for a few hours.
Look around your own workplace. It’s easy to spot the unmotivated folks. If you can’t spot them, you’re the unmotivated slacker that needs to be cut from the office team.
Working at a job you’re not thrilled about sucks. But we all have to produce income to stay alive. Most of us will never come close to Lacy’s yearly salary of $848,000. And many of us would kill for such a salary. But there’s no doubt some of us would become unmotivated even as an NFL running back making huge money.
It’s human nature to relax and coast once you feel comfortable. Some positions allow a level of comfort. The city workers I mentioned don’t have to worry about being fired for laziness. Their supervisors are usually even more slothful and never bother to check to see if the workers are getting anything done.
The unproductive accountants can sometimes hide in a large company where it’s hard to notice just one worker falling off the pace.
In the NFL, a quarterback can get paid for over a decade just by being a serviceable backup. There are just so few guys that can be trusted to run an NFL offense without wrecking a season when the starter goes down. See the Romo situation this year.
As for running backs, this is not a position for the lazy or unmotivated. A dime a dozen. Just too many hungry guys willing to run head first into 300-pound linemen for their shot at a million dollar contract. If Eddie Lacy isn’t interested in playing football anymore, then that’s cool. He can just walk away.
What he can’t do is just coast by on what he did his first two years as a Packer. He has to produce, or he’ll be cut. Stats don’t lie, and NFL teams are funny about tracking the production of guys they are paying nearly a million dollars a year.
Another team would take a chance on him were he ever cut, but the word would be out and the leash short. Ask Trent Richardson, who could be working at a car wash eventually.
Hopefully, Lacy can pull himself up by his bootstraps back to the player he was in 2013 and 2014. Most likely he needs someone to get in his face to tell him just how badly he is screwing up. Maybe he doesn’t even care at this point. But the kid needs to be told he is, in fact, blowing it.