Packers left tackle David Bakhtiari drew a lot of attention in April when he said in an interview that the Packers are rebuilding while continually referring to the team as “they” rather than “we” while discussing the future in Green Bay.
Others in the organization pushed back at the notion of the Packers being a rebuilding team, but Bakhtiari isn’t backing off his stance. He said on Wednesday that there’s no other way to describe a team that is moving from Aaron Rodgers to Jordan Love at quarterback while also employing a lot of other young players on offense.
“How I look at is, it’s disrespectful to say you’re not rebuilding off a Hall of Fame quarterback,” Bakhtiari said, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com. “It was disrespectful to say you weren’t rebuilding off of Brett Favre when you moved to Aaron. No one knew Aaron and what he was going to be, so I’m not going to sit here and like pull back those words because that is, when you look at how it’s been building, how we were chasing after it and the cap — there was a bunch of situations that can definitely allude to it — we have a young team.”
While some would see the use of rebuilding as a sign that Bakhtiari doesn’t expect the Packers to be competitive, the veteran went on to use last year’s Seahawks as an example of a team that was both rebuilding and successful at the same time.
“I think the Seahawks rebuild off of Russell [Wilson], look at how that turned out,” Bakhtiari said. “I can always give you the other side of the coin — I don’t know it off the top of my head — but that’s how I look at and it’s a simple way to put it. We can slice it, cut it, make it look like who wants to be the hero or the villain on that word, but that’s really what I mean.”
A healthy Bakhtiari would help any effort to win games this season and he said “I really like how I’m feeling” during an offseason that has included no trips to the operating room after years of knee trouble. Time will tell if his body can hold up, just as it will tell if the Packers can win while charting a new course with Love at the helm.