Javon Bullard is the dagger
“I’ll be the bad guy. Make me the villain.” The Green Bay Packers need a killer instinct. We travel south to meet the man who can change everything. (He can’t wait for his next shot at the Bears.)
MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — The search for what these Green Bay Packers have always been missing begins as a conquest against Mother Nature. Blinding fog makes a 65-mile drive to the airport feel more like staring into a 90s Magic Eye poster. Fly south to Atlanta, pick up a rental car, escape bumper-to-bumper traffic in the city and a torrential downpour into the country prompts several cars to veer off the nearest exit. Windshield wipers are helpless.
Finally, you arrive. Everything this town of 17,000 residents needs is on North Columbia Street, including some of the finest southern cooking in all of Georgia. Legends Seafood & Grill is the cultural heartbeat of Milledgeville. Walk through the front door and a glossy homage to a hometown hero greets all patrons: an autographed No. 22 Georgia Bulldogs jersey with two pictures from a national title triumph.
This is Javon Bullard Country.
When the 23-year-old himself arrives, all eyes dart his direction. A hostess leads us to the vacant dining area in the back. It’s quiet, dimly lit, perfect for deep introspection. No use making idle small talk. One minute into conversation, I explain what inspired this trip: his raw honesty after the Packers’ heinous postseason collapse in Chicago. It was refreshing. Through 15 years of crushing playoff defeats, nobody’s been so blunt.
Time has passed. Most athletes seated in this chair would politely offer a word salad before, then, changing the subject. He can’t because he’s not most athletes. Bullard refuses to ignore the subject that’s taken up permanent residency in the prefrontal cortex of his brain since the night of Jan. 10, 2026.
Our waitress hasn’t even returned to ask what we’d like to drink yet.
“Damn, I hate Chicago!” Bullard says. “It’s like real hate. I can’t stand Chicago. I don’t know what the hell it is. I don’t like the team. I don’t like their coach. I don’t like shit about Chicago. Except for their food. I do love their food. But other than that, man? Damn Chicago.”
Once the Bears’ 31-27 comeback was complete, Ben Johnson tossed a grenade onto this rivalry. Inside the winner’s locker room, the Bears head coach shouted: “Fuck the Packers! Fuck them!” Honestly? Bullard loved this fire. When it’s time to get back to work, he might even say something to Matt LaFleur — it’s time for his own coach to pop off.
“Don’t let him try to shit on you like that,” Bullard says. “I don’t like that.”
No, every game is not the same. He wants vengeance. This is not unhinged rage and he hopes the Bears hear everything he has to say.
He’s plotting, not whining.
Smiling, not seething.
“We’re going to see them boys — multiple times,” Bullard says. “They’re going to have to come with it.”
Javon Bullard is only getting started.
This night, he’s wearing a plain white tee and his dreadlocks spill from a gray beanie. Bullard’s body is a tapestry of tattoos. On his right bicep, you’ll see “FEAR GOD.” On his left forearm, a Bible verse. Philippians 4:6 advises not to be anxious, not to worry, rather to bring your questions to God. Mom’s name is tatted. So is the NFL shield. But what shines most is the bling. The grillz. The necklace. The bracelet. All diamond-encrusted jewelry, worth more than this visitor’s life, projects an authentic swagger that’s actually quite old school.
Everything Bullard is feeling right now can be directly traced to the sport’s meteoric rise in the 60s. Back when this rhetoric was the norm.
Vince Lombardi and George Halas cultivated genuine hatred in the opposition. Ray Nitschke knocked Mike Ditka unconscious on the field and picked fights with the Bears tight end outside of a Milwaukee restaurant off it. If those greats were seated at this table, they’d buy Bullard a beer and thank him for preserving everything that makes football unlike any other occupation. The sport’s gladiator mentality remains alive in Packers-Bears, two teams that’ve played 213 times. When Bullard hears these names, he beams. “You just feel it,” he says. “You feel the hate.” Bullard jokes that he could post a picture of a breathtaking sunset and his feed will be bombarded with vulgarities and #BearDown hashtags.
Thus, all participants in such emotionally charged combat face a binary choice. There is no gray area.
Cower in the fetal position or embr…
“Embrace it,” Bullard cuts in.
The day after this loss, Bullard insisted Chicago didn’t do anything special. Green Bay gave this game away. He stands by every word.
“I’d say that shit every day if I had to,” he says. “Us as players, we didn’t execute. Coaches didn’t call shit as good as they should have. It’s all a collective. They need us, we need them. The reality is, we lost. But we were beating the shit out of them. Not to take shit away from them because they made some hell of a plays, too. But we were doing unorthodox things that we really don’t do.
“We’re a team that doesn’t necessarily know how to play with a lead.”
He explains.
“From the jump, we’re on your ass right now. You already know what time it is. It’s 21-3 at half. But this is a sport of momentum. That shit is real. We’re on the road in a volatile, hostile environment. They had all the momentum. They had all the swag on their side. They proved they can stop us and shit shifted. Now, we’ve got to find a mojo.”
The Packers never did find their mojo. Bullard still remembers that long walk back toward the visitor’s locker room.
“A bad feeling,” he says, “especially when you know you’re the better team. Hell, they know. I’m going to keep it a bean. They know.”
When the Packers were crushing the Bears, Bullard saw the dread in their eyes.
“We’re on y’all ass and you’re acting like you motherfuckers don’t even want to play no more. But we need that instinct to kill motherfuckers’ hope. Like, ‘No. Not today. Not tomorrow. Y’all through. We finna beat y’all ass.’ I don’t think we’ve got that as a team yet. But we’ve got another year to prove it.”
This game was not decided by pyrotechnic play design or bold analytics.
January results will not change until this franchise’s psyche does. This is a Packers team that lost three times without punting once. In five of their nine losses, they led by 9+ points. They choked away a 10-0 lead to the Cleveland Browns, botched an onside recovery the other time they visited Chicago, were humiliated for 307 yards on the ground by Baltimore and we’ll get to all that standing around in Denver when Jordan Love was shoved in the head. The wild-card meltdown should’ve come as no surprise. Playoff collapses have become as embedded into Wisconsin culture as Spotted Cows, bratwursts smothered in sauerkraut and scraping your windshield in March.
Javon Bullard — call him “Bull” — is here to change all of that.
Right here in Milledgeville, he dodged bullets, idolized a honey badger and learned how to win this psychological warfare on a football field.
His story is instructive for all 32 teams. Because this is precisely when all clubs try to improve via free agency, trades, the draft. Player acquisition. Truth is, the chasm between a playoff team and a champion isn’t anything digestible on All-22 footage. It’s exactly what Bullard describes: a killer instinct. Sensing fear in your adversary and driving that dagger deeper. Being the hunter, never the hunted. Packers president Ed Policy could have hit reset this offseason. Some teams, like the Buffalo Bills, hire a new head coach to get over the hump. In Green Bay, Matt LaFleur is back for an eighth season.
This character trait must bloom from within.
The 5-foot-10, 198-pounder seated here is fully prepared to do whatever it takes.
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‘The villain’
As a boy, in high school, he was a threat to the health of any opponent within a 15-yard radius. Trickeration stood no chance. One night, Westlake High School called a fake punt and Javon Bullard sniffed it out. The punter rolls right, lobs a pass up the right sideline, Bullard takes off in all-out sprint, and… no. Words cannot do this destruction justice. His coach at Baldwin High School, Jesse Hicks, stops talking mid-sentence and texts the clip. “He decapitates this kid,” Hicks says.