GREEN BAY, Wis. -- It sounds as though, should he have to, Mike Daniels will go from house to house and visit his Green Bay Packers teammates at breakfast time in order to get them as fired up as he was after Sunday's loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
At almost the same moment Aaron Rodgers stood at the podium Sunday night and expressed disappointment about the "unacceptable" vibe he felt from his team on the sideline during the loss to the Colts, another player could be heard on an expletive-filled shower room rant.
On Monday, Daniels, the outspoken defensive tackle, confirmed it was him, and though he didn't know reporters could hear it, he didn't back down, saying the Packers need to play "angry" and "violent" after losing three of their past four games.
"It has to be noticeable, like this team is pissed off, they're angry, somebody pissed in their Cheerios this morning -- you know what I mean?" Daniels said Monday. "That's what it's got to be when you step onto that field. It has to be noticeable, and if it's not then we're not getting it done."
What upset Daniels the most was the defense's inability to put pressure on Colts quarterback Andrew Luck. It was the same story in the previous week's loss at Atlanta, when Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan was barely pressured. The Packers recorded two sacks in each game, both against suspect offensive lines, and Daniels said "we didn't sniff the quarterback."
"I'm not going to sit here and lie to you we should have played much better and done a lot of things better and we didn't," Daniels said. "We didn't. We're all held accountable. I hold myself accountable. I didn't get home, and that goes for everybody. The matchups were there. You could see it on paper. We didn't take advantage of it. Quite frankly, it's embarrassing. We've got to be better. If it doesn't piss you off, then that's an issue. I think we have a lot of people who are pretty angry."
Packers coach Mike McCarthy said his message to the team Sunday night centered on the lack of energy, especially after the Colts returned the opening kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown, but he changed his stance Monday.
"After really reviewing the video, I actually thought the energy was pretty good," McCarthy said. "I just think the attention to detail and the sharpness, particularly in the adverse moments of the game, we were not quite where we needed to be. You never want to start the game the way we did with the opening kickoff. It was poor. The coverage was poor, the ball placement was poor. Just a bad play that resulted obviously in a big play for them."