In two of the most popular sports in the world, hitting your opponent is part of the game. In football, the object of the game is literally to take down your opponent if they possess the ball, and if your teammate has the ball, your job is essentially to push around your opponent to keep them away. In hockey, hitting your opponent to take the puck away or just to rattle their confidence is also one of the objectives. 

Both sports also have their incidents where players take exception if they believe their teammate was hit too hard, or the hit was a cheap shot. 

In hockey, if a questionable hit is made, you're almost guaranteed to see teammates drop the gloves to fight the aggressor, or at the very least, they'll rough them up or hit them back to get revenge. This especially happens if the teammate who took the hit is a valuable player or team captain. Depending on the severity of the retaliation, players will receive minor or major penalties, possibly a game misconduct (ejection) if the action is deemed completely out of line. Though more often than not, a retaliatory action for a questionable hit receives a more lenient penalty. 

In football, though, retaliation isn't seen as often. Why? Likely because the retaliatory aggressor tends to be the only individual who's handed a penalty. And that's a 15-yard personal foul that could kill a drive. It also depends on the player who's hit. More often than not, there's retaliation from the offensive line if a team's quarterback took a questionable hit. Though this can still be damaging if a penalty is taken, if you ask many players, it's worth it to show they won't tolerate those actions. 

Offensive linemen need to view the quarterback as their little brother. During the play, they're protecting their little brother from getting hurt. If anyone hurts little brother unnecessarily during the play, or takes a cheap shot at him after the play, they need to make sure they retaliate so that no one dares to hurt little brother again in that way. 

In years past, the Green Bay Packers have had many offensive linemen who were never shy to get physical if their QB took a big hit. Perhaps the most famous of these linemen were guards, TJ Lang and Josh Sitton. You could easily count on Lang or Sitton to get their payback if anyone crossed a line in their eyes, roughing up Aaron Rodgers. They took a few penalties over the years for this, but if Rodgers, or any other offensive player, took an unnecessary hit, fans could set their watches to Sitton or Lang getting involved. Because of that, defenses would think twice before taking shots at Packers players.

During the 2025 season, the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers fell under a lot of criticism for their lack of retaliation. Just for example, Jordan Love suffered at least two helmet-to-helmet shots from Chicago DE Austin Booker, one of which essentially removed his participation for the remainder of the regular season. There were a few other questionable shots throughout the season, including one from Bronco's defender, Talanoa Hufanga, who, after Jordan Love went out of bounds, shoved Love's head to the ground.

This, going completely unchecked by the guys paid to protect Love, is unacceptable. 

Could Matt LaFleur be inadvertently at Fault?

Over the last few seasons, Matt LaFleur has been very strict on "retaliation." Whenever players let their emotions get the best of them, LaFleur is right in front of them, telling them that they need to be smart and not let their emotions cost their teammates. It's been a big talking point from LaFleur for some time.

To LaFleur's credit, he's right. Don't do something stupid that's going to cost your team in the long run just because you got upset in that moment. But has that emphasis on not hurting your teammates with penalties fanned out the fire in his offensive line when allowed to stick up for their teammates? Maybe.

Should LaFleur change his tune on retaliation? No. The Packers still don't need players acting on emotion after the whistle and taking dumb penalties. But perhaps there needs to be a bit of an asterisk on this rule. An asterisk that says, "If you stick up for a teammate that just took a questionable shot, we'll talk later." That way, LaFleur's tune on the incident can stay behind closed doors. 

Whether the action needed is on the shoulders of Matt LaFleur or on the players themselves in putting it on their own shoulders to make sure no one dares to touch Jordan Love outside of the rule book, it needs to change in Green Bay. Nothing happened to Austin Booker after he took liberties with Jordan Love in the regular season. Whether you believe the hits were legal or not, they were still big shots that linemen should take exception to. Since they didn't, there was another hit by Booker in the playoffs. 

If the Packers want to throw their weight around and become a tough presence in the NFL, they need their players to enforce what they will not tolerate in terms of physicality.