The Nate Hobbs moment wasn’t just a hit; it was a flash point. One padded practice in, and Hobbs sent running back Marshawn Lloyd to the ground with a low shot that had Matt LaFleur shaking his head before the echo of contact even faded. And Green Bay took notice. Brian Gutekunst wasn’t vague. He didn’t sugarcoat.
The Packers GM stepped in with a message aimed straight at Hobbs. But loud enough for the whole roster to hear. “We’re trying to become a certain kind of football team that can win and win deep into the playoffs,” Gutekunst told reporters after practice. “There’s a certain kind of physicality you have to have and Nate Hobbs brings all that. And that’s why we brought him here.” Then came the punchline. “It’s very important that all our guys have that kind of edge to ‘em,” Gutekunst added, “but I’d rather tell a guy to scale back than ask him to be tougher.” Meaning? We love the fire. Just don’t burn your teammates.
Brian Gutekunst on Nate Hobbs: “We’re trying to become a certain kind of football team that can win and win deep into the playoffs. There’s a certain kind of physicality you have to have and Nate Hobbs brings all that and that’s why we brought him here. It’s very important that… pic.twitter.com/CJP06JL7vr
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) July 29, 2025
Hobbs knows that now. He was benched for the next series after the Lloyd hit, and made a point to clarify afterward that it wasn’t dirty. “It wasn’t malicious,” Hobbs told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I didn’t see him until the last second. He got low, I got low. He hit me just as I got low.” That explanation might help, but it doesn’t erase the message LaFleur and Gutekunst just stamped on his locker, dial it back. He also acknowledged, “It wasn’t malicious. I just saw him. But I can’t do that.”
Stay tuned. There’s more to this story.
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