Onside kick: Missed block
Bostick and his Green Bay Packer teammates were cleaning out their lockers Monday morning at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, most still in disbelief. There will be no Super Bowl for them and some were hurting so bad they did not want to talk to the media. In fact only about a dozen did. Bostick was one. He could have stayed away but he manned up.
“I let my team down,” the contrite Bostick told media, describing his play during the onside kick. “There was a lot on this game. I just feel like if I was able to do my job – my assignment was to block – Jordy would’ve caught the ball and the game would’ve been over.”
Therein lies the crux, as many fans already know: he missed his assignment. It was not simply that he let the ball slip through his fingers on that last-gasp onside kick by the Seattle Seahawks, no he’ll be forever remembered in the annuals of the Green Bay Packers for not doing what he was told to do.
Right behind him on that play was Jordy Nelson, surest handed Packer of all. And it was Nelson that was supposed to get the ball. Bostick was supposed to move forward and block, pick the man coming at Nelson and take him out. With no one in front of him to block for him, it would be foolish to abandon his assignment and go for the ball.
But he did.
It was even more foolish given that he, Bostick, a back-up wide receiver, caught exactly two passes all season for a total of three yards while Nelson caught 98 passes for 1,519 yards. What did Bostick do most of the time in 2014 when he found himself on the field?
He blocked.
“I’m human. I made a mistake,” Bostick said. “But if I would’ve made the play, we wouldn’t have been in this (situation), or if I would’ve made the block, we wouldn’t be talking about this.”
Green Bay’s Bostick steps up
You cannot hang the loss on Bostick alone. The Packers took their foot off the gas and turned a 16-0 halftime lead into a 28-22 overtime loss. Morgan Burnett didn’t run back an interception when they had the lead. Aaron Rodgers wasn’t effective in the third quarter when the coaches were still letting him throw. And coach Mike McCarthy was so conservative in his play calling he made Rush Limbaugh look like the second coming of Karl Marx.
But here’s this: Burnett said he did nothing wrong and partially blamed teammate Julius Pepper, who he said told him to hit the ground. Rodgers pointed fingers, without naming names, at the team. And the coach said it wasn’t the coaches’ fault.
No one else stepped up and took the blame like Bostick. No one.
So he of the buttery fingers and missed blocking assignment comes out of this looking better than others. He may have made a mistake on the field, but at least Brandon Bostick is not compounding it by making one off of it.
