Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy said there are “a lot of things” that went into the decision to release Pro Bowl guard Josh Sitton over the weekend.
Apparently McCarthy hasn’t elected to tell the rest of the team what those things happen to be.
Packers guard T.J. Lang said he still has no idea why the team elected to release Sitton - a three-time Pro Bowl selection - on Saturday.
“Nobody’s safe, I guess,” Lang said, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com. “We know just as much as you guys do, the reasons behind it. I don’t know. I don’t want to speculate on any of that. Been here eight years now, and one of the most surprising cuts that I’ve seen.”
Sitton has been one of the league’s most consistent guards in recent season. He was named a second-team All-Pro in each of the last three years and a Pro Bowl selection in 2012, 2014 and 2015. Yet, the Packers decided they were better off without him as part of their 2016 team.
“I think everybody’d like to know,” Lang said. “I don’t think we’re ever going to get an explanation. It’s not our job to understand. We don’t make those decisions. We don’t always have to understand or agree with them. Our job is to show up and play football. Like I said, I could sit here and speculate for hours. The fact is, I don’t know the reasons behind it, and I don’t think we probably ever will. I think that makes it a little tougher to move on, but you’ve just got to find a way.”
Packers general manager Ted Thompson hasn’t spoken on the decision either, outside of a typical “we thank him for his contributions” type of statement in the press release announcing the move.
It’s still a strange decision and it’s hard to think Green Bay will be a better team without him, especially when he signed with a division rival instead.
