EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The final whistle had barely sounded at MetLife Stadium when the temperature on the sideline spiked hotter than a Wisconsin summer. The Green Bay Packers had just escaped with a gritty 27-20 road win over the New York Giants, but the scoreboard wasn’t the only thing drawing blood. Cameras zoomed in on a fiery postgame exchange between Packers head coach Matt LaFleur and Giants interim head coach Mike Kafka, and by the time the locker-room doors swung shut, the clip was already looping on every sports network from Bristol to L.A.
Kafka, still fuming over a late fourth-quarter holding call that wiped out a potential Giants first down, approached LaFleur near midfield. Lip-readers and sideline mics caught the gist: words like “cheap”, “rigged”, and “you know what that was” flew faster than Micah Parsons’ game-sealing strip-sack. LaFleur didn’t flinch. He fired back with a single, now-viral line that has since been stitched onto T-shirts outside Lambeau Field:
“Don’t call it cheating when you lose.”
The quote detonated across X within minutes, racking up 1.2 million views and spawning the hashtag #DontCallItCheating. By Monday morning, Packers merchandise trucks were already printing the phrase in bold gold letters beneath the iconic “G.”
But LaFleur wasn’t done. In a postgame press conference that felt more like a pep rally than a media scrum, the fourth-year head coach leaned into the microphone and delivered a revised manifesto—one that Packers Nation is now calling the “Green Bay Creed”:
“WE DON’T PLAY FOR SYMPATHY OR EXCUSES. WE PLAY FOR PRIDE, FOR GRIT, AND FOR EVERY FAN WHO REFUSES TO BACK DOWN. THAT’S PACKER-TOUGH, LOUD, AND UNAPOLOGETICALLY REAL.”
The room erupted. Reporters scribbled. Phones flashed. Somewhere in the back, a cheesehead-wearing fan screamed, “Tell ’em, Coach!”
Kafka, meanwhile, tried to walk back his sideline outburst during his own presser, insisting he was “just frustrated in the heat of the moment.” He pointed to the Giants’ league-worst 17 penalties on the season—five of which came in the decisive fourth quarter—as evidence of “inconsistent officiating.” But the damage was done. Social media crowned LaFleur the undisputed king of clapbacks, with even neutral analysts like NFL Network’s Rich Eisen tweeting: “Kafka poked the bear. LaFleur brought the whole zoo.”
For the 6-3-1 Packers, the win was more than just two points in the standings. It was a statement after back-to-back losses, a gut-check amid Jordan Love’s mid-game shoulder scare, and a reminder that Green Bay still owns the NFC North narrative. For the 2-9 Giants, it was another chapter in a season spiraling toward the draft lottery—complete with a new villain in the form of a quote that will echo through MetLife tunnels for years.
As LaFleur boarded the team bus, he was asked if he regretted the war of words. He smirked, adjusted his headset, and delivered one final zinger to the trailing cameras:
“Regret? Nah. That’s just Monday in the NFL.”
Packers fans couldn’t agree more.
