In case you weren't one of the four people who stuck around to watch the entire sloppy mess of a Thursday Night Football game that was Rams-49ers, let me get you up to speed: you missed absolutely nothing. Actually, you did actually miss one thing.
In a game that featured not one (1) single touchdown, the 49ers all but ended their playoff hopes with a brutally boring home loss to a Rams team that is, admittedly, playing as inspired as anyone right now. But none of that is really the story of Thursday night. That belongs to 49ers linebacker – and former ol' Packers friend – De'Vondre Campbell.
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Campbell made headlines on Thursday night when he decided to just ... not play anymore? TV cameras caught him heading to the locker room in the third quarter, and after the game, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan explained to reporters that Campbell simply decided he didn't want to play anymore. Shanahan and several of Campbell's teammates – including George Kittle and Charvarius Ward – had harsh words for him during their postgame pressers.
The move came as a surprise to most, but Packers fans wasted no time reminding the internet how things ended between Campbell and Green Bay last year.
De'Vondre Campbell has a history of, uh, not seeing eye-to-eye with his coaches
Why yall keep saying I trashed the Packers?? I never ONCE said anything negative about the organization. Best organization I’ve ever been apart of at this point but it’s some coaches I lost ALL respect for 🤷🏿♂️ https://t.co/n85GJI220k
— De'Vondre Campbell (@Came_Along_Way) March 17, 2024
Berry ain’t do shit for me FOH. If I listen to half the shit they asked me to do I probably would’ve been outta the league by now. You weird as hell speaking on something you have no real knowledge of
— De'Vondre Campbell (@Came_Along_Way) March 17, 2024
Fast forward to 2022, 2023 season I tried to be a team guy and play within the system and do what they asked “Be more visual on QB and not look up routes” “Back up from LOS so I’m not pressing every WR or TE” Look at what happened. They had me, Quay out there looking clueless smh
— De'Vondre Campbell (@Came_Along_Way) March 17, 2024
Soooo. Yeah. Not great! It's not exactly a fair comparison – quitting on your team in the middle of a game that more-or-less decides your playoff hopes is in an entirely different category than some harsh tweets – but Campbell's clearly not doing himself a ton of favors for a guy who's probably going to be looking for a new team this weekend.
At the risk of sounding too much like a Packers blogger on a Packers blog, it also doesn't really seem like the Packers were necessarily the problem? It seems like the whole 'scheme wasn't working' argument kinda goes out the window when you willingly quit on your teammates in the middle of a game. But I'm not a pro football player, so what do I know?