Any other week, a last-second loss to the Chicago Bears at Lambeau Field would feel like a much bigger deal. Chicago was one of the worst teams in football this year, and the Green Bay Packers' defense looked worryingly pedestrian throughout the afternoon on Sunday, and the optics of running off Lambeau Field for (probably) the last time this year to boos certainly weren't great.
Fortunately for the Packers, it's Week 18. They were headed on the road for Wild Card Weekend regardless, even if they probably would have preferred to play the Los Angeles Rams. So instead of panicking about losing to the Bears, Packers fans only had to panic about Jordan Love's potential injury.
RELATED: Latest Jordan Love injury update after exiting with arm injury vs. Bears
Love left the game during the first half after suffering what looked like an injury to his hand, and the team almost immediately announced that he'd be questionable to return with an elbow injury. He was later seen warming up again – which, at the time, was awfully confusing – but never reentered the game.
Matt LaFleur explained why the Packers kept Jordan Love out for most of Week 18's loss to Chicago
While it always seemed pretty obvious that the Packers were holding Love out to be safe, his health was obviously a hot topic of conversation during Matt LaFleur's postgame press conference. LaFleur – who typically plays it pretty coy when it comes to postgame injury updates – wasted no time reassuring everyone that Love was fine.
"Yeah, he was good to go back in," LaFleur said. "In fact, we thought that there was a chance that he was going to have to go back in the game because Malik got his thumb hit and he couldn't really feel it ... Once Malik said he was good to go, we felt like that was the route we wanted to go."
So maybe Packers fans only concentrate on that? And not LaFleur's answer on Christian Watson?
It was interesting to hear LaFleur admit just how much Watson's injury influenced his decision to play it safe with Love (although I'm not sure seeing a wide receiver go down with a non-contact injury should be what it takes to be smart about the franchise quarterback but whatever).