The Green Bay Packers have been woefully inconsistent so far this season in route to their current 2-3 record. Part of the cause for that has been their absurd number of penalty yards they've accrued, leading the NFL with 390 yards stepped off. It's not a statistic they should be proud of, but it's one they need to own and fix as soon as possible.
Apparently that's not a sentiment shared by all the players on the team. An unnamed Packers player told Lori Nickel of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that, "It's definitely on us as players," but he immediately follows that comment by saying, "But I think the refs are out to get us this year."
The idea that NFL officials are "out to get" any team is ludicrous. These are professionals training year in and year out to be the best people to administer the pro game in the world. I can see how a Packers player, coach or even fan would think that the NFL's officials are out to get them, especially after the Seahawks debacle, but then again, those weren't even the same refs. Those were the replacement refs, and that call cranked up the pressure on the NFL to bring back the regular refs. So, shouldn't the regular refs like the Packers?
The unnamed Packers player got one thing right in his statement. It is ultimately on them, the players, to fix this problem. The idea that there's an organized conspiracy to suppress the Packers in 2012 is laughable. The issue is that the Packers are committing far too many penalties to win games and maintain their tempo on offense.
