Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from
Speaker 1: Packers dot Com. I and Mike Spofford, joined as always
Speaker 1: by the one and only Weston Hodkowitz. We're coming to you,
Speaker 1: hear from our studios at lambeau Field and West Let's
Speaker 1: get right into it. The Green Bay Packers schedule is out.
Speaker 1: It is available seventeen games for the first time in
Speaker 1: league history, eighteen weeks with the bye week thrown in.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna ask you flat out when you first
Speaker 1: saw this schedule, what jumped out at you the most?
Speaker 1: Where's the bye week? Alright? I really, honest to god,
Speaker 1: struggled to find where the bye week is supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Were usually looking forward in, like you know, October, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe early November. No, December, first week of December, honest
Speaker 1: to goodness. So we got the schedule put in front
Speaker 1: of me, and and usually, and for the most part,
Speaker 1: it always is denoted where the where the bye week is.
Speaker 1: But I just was kind of beside myself. I didn't
Speaker 1: know the week thirteen by was a thing. I always
Speaker 1: thought it ended in week twelve. You had to correct
Speaker 1: me on that. But lo and behold, that's what's happened now.
Speaker 1: The Green Bay Packers have been through gauntlets like this before.
Speaker 1: I do want to make that a point. Twice during
Speaker 1: my time on the beat, the last nine years they've
Speaker 1: had the Week four by, which has required them to
Speaker 1: then play thirteen games to close the season. Note so
Speaker 1: they've been through stretches like this, but I've never seen
Speaker 1: anything quite like this where you have to play the
Speaker 1: month of September, October, and November before you finally get
Speaker 1: that rest. There's two ways to look at this. You
Speaker 1: can look at it like what Matt la Flour did,
Speaker 1: which is you can't really worry about it. It's not
Speaker 1: something we stress about. You play the games that are
Speaker 1: on the schedule, and it is what it is. But
Speaker 1: for a team that does have playoff hopes and aspirations
Speaker 1: this year, they wouldn't have built this thing and kept
Speaker 1: the guys that they did if they didn't feel like
Speaker 1: they weren't close. I do wonder if you could stay healthy,
Speaker 1: if you can take care of yourself, that could be
Speaker 1: a really intriguing time to have a buy in that
Speaker 1: first week of December, because then suddenly you got four
Speaker 1: to end it, and then now you're looking at a
Speaker 1: potential playoff push, but you have to be able to
Speaker 1: get to that oasis, and there's a lot of miles
Speaker 1: they have to cover before they get there. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And this ties into the part that jumped out at me,
Speaker 1: which is what I wrote about on our website, is
Speaker 1: you look at the stretch of games from week five
Speaker 1: to week nine, a five week stretch in which the
Speaker 1: Packers are playing four games on the road. You have
Speaker 1: back to back road games at Cincinnati, at Chicago, you
Speaker 1: come home for Washington, then you have back to back
Speaker 1: road games at Arizona and at Kansas City, the two
Speaker 1: time defending a f C champions That's a that's a
Speaker 1: heck of a stretch from you know, the whole travel weary,
Speaker 1: getting road we're you know, jumping on airplanes, you know,
Speaker 1: four out of five weekends and whatnot. I think that's
Speaker 1: gonna be a really, really difficult stretch for the Packers
Speaker 1: to get through. But I'll say a couple of things
Speaker 1: about it. One, Matt Lafleur, as the head coach with
Speaker 1: the Packers the last two seasons, has navigated similar stretches before,
Speaker 1: not quite like this, but his first year in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: the Packers had four road games in a span of
Speaker 1: five games. The bye week was also mixed in there,
Speaker 1: but it was, you know, four road games out of five,
Speaker 1: and you know, the Packers had their ups and downs
Speaker 1: through that stretch, but then they came out the other side.
Speaker 1: They got hot at the end of the season. They
Speaker 1: put it together right. Last year stretch of four road
Speaker 1: games in a span of six and the Packers actually
Speaker 1: lost all three of their regular season games during that stretch.
Speaker 1: They lost the two road games at Tampa at Indianapolis
Speaker 1: on either end, lost the home game to Minnesota in between.
Speaker 1: So all three of the regular season losses occurred in
Speaker 1: that stretch. But then the Packers came out of it,
Speaker 1: you know, had more frequent home games and uh and
Speaker 1: made their run and their playoff push. So there is
Speaker 1: that kind of history, similar history, not exactly, but similar
Speaker 1: history that he's that Matt Lafleur has now levigated this
Speaker 1: team through. The other thing I will say is that
Speaker 1: in the midst of that stretch this coming season, the
Speaker 1: trip to Arizona, which is the third of the four
Speaker 1: road games, is a Thursday night game, So at least
Speaker 1: you have now flying to the West coast on a
Speaker 1: short week not easy to do. Um, really condenses your
Speaker 1: preparation and whatnot. But at least you get through that
Speaker 1: Arizona game on a Thursday night, You get a weekend off,
Speaker 1: You get a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You know players might
Speaker 1: even might even get Monday off. You know they're going
Speaker 1: to be in need of a in need of a break.
Speaker 1: There what a lot of the players referred to as
Speaker 1: the mini by. So you're going to have that at
Speaker 1: least before the trip to Kansas City, which then ends
Speaker 1: this stretch of four road games in five weeks. So
Speaker 1: with that being said, you look at the entire schedule.
Speaker 1: You have this mini by after the Thursday game after
Speaker 1: eight games, you have the full bye week after twelve games,
Speaker 1: and then you have five games left in the regular
Speaker 1: season to finish out your seventeen where you're hopefully in
Speaker 1: position to to make a playoff push. So when you
Speaker 1: look at it that way, UM, it is there will
Speaker 1: be that opportunity. There will be those two opportunities to
Speaker 1: get a little bit of arrest. But getting through that
Speaker 1: short week Thursday night West Coast trip to Arizona to
Speaker 1: get to that first little weekend off, I think that's
Speaker 1: gonna be uh, that's gonna be kind of a crux
Speaker 1: point here for the Packers season. And this is actually
Speaker 1: probably where I'm even more interested to hear your opinion
Speaker 1: on it than to give mine. Um. Some people might
Speaker 1: not know this. The original title for Packerson Scripted was
Speaker 1: Mike Spofford's Packer Around Packerson script This is your show,
Speaker 1: But I am interested to hear what you think about
Speaker 1: this because one of the big common questions that people
Speaker 1: had an inbox after this was what do you think
Speaker 1: of the schedule? And I usually have pretty strong opinions
Speaker 1: either way. This time I really didn't, and in the
Speaker 1: main reason for that is I don't really know what
Speaker 1: to make of it. People say, Okay, well, you're going
Speaker 1: on the road to start the season, three seasons in
Speaker 1: a row, you're closing on the road again, you have
Speaker 1: that that thing in the middle of the season. You
Speaker 1: also have this deal where you only have two back
Speaker 1: to back home games and one of them is separated
Speaker 1: by the bye. So to me, on paper, I'm not
Speaker 1: a player, it seems like a fairly balance schedule. But
Speaker 1: I am. I'm curious what your take is on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean personally when you look at it from the
Speaker 1: Packers perspective, you know, I think having more road games
Speaker 1: early and home games late is always going to be
Speaker 1: to your advantage because of the weather situation. Now, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, two of your December home games are
Speaker 1: against Chicago and Cleveland, They're not going to be any
Speaker 1: strangers to to the cold weather. But you know, Thanksgiving weekend,
Speaker 1: it's the Rams coming in, the same team that came
Speaker 1: in here in January, uh, last January for the playoffs.
Speaker 1: They had some issues with with the cold. You don't
Speaker 1: know how cold it's going to be on Thanksgiving weekend.
Speaker 1: But then Week seventeen, second to last game and last
Speaker 1: home game of the regular season, as Minnesota, your big
Speaker 1: division rival coming in on January second, an indoor team,
Speaker 1: those those are the kind of matchups that can that
Speaker 1: can play to the Packers favor So in terms of
Speaker 1: starting the season on the road, the Packers playing two
Speaker 1: of their first three on the road this year, I say, hey,
Speaker 1: that just means you're getting more home games later. I
Speaker 1: think that works to Green Bay's advantage. So that's that's one.
Speaker 1: That's one way I look at it, um you know.
Speaker 1: The other I was just gonna mention to in the
Speaker 1: last eight weeks of the season. I believe there's only
Speaker 1: one trip out of the Midwest for Green Bay, right
Speaker 1: that's to Baltimore, and which is not a long one,
Speaker 1: which is that's a that's a pretty quick flight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm used to the San Francisco is in the Denver's
Speaker 1: in the seattles, So it's not a big it's not
Speaker 1: a big ask there. So I do feel like and
Speaker 1: again it's on the Packers. It's incumbent on them to
Speaker 1: be able to survive that initial stretch that that definitely
Speaker 1: that middle portion of the season, but you can kind
Speaker 1: of see the peak and then the hill and being
Speaker 1: able to go down and on the other side to
Speaker 1: really kind of speed up and ramp up going into
Speaker 1: that final stretch of season if you're entitled contention. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And that that's the thing. As I mentioned, all these
Speaker 1: road games week week five through nine, you have all
Speaker 1: these road games. Nobody season is gonna is necessarily going
Speaker 1: to be defined in the first half of the season,
Speaker 1: good or bad. But if you can get if you're
Speaker 1: the Packers and you can get through that stretch, and
Speaker 1: you can be somewhere in the realm of contention. The
Speaker 1: schedule on the back end with with all the home games,
Speaker 1: you know, a mini by, then a full by in
Speaker 1: early December. That that sets up to to give you
Speaker 1: an opportunity to make a run um quickly. Though. West
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Speaker 1: Seven three. The other thing I'll say about this schedule,
Speaker 1: and I know, seventeen games is obviously new, and last
Speaker 1: year we had the expanded playoff, you know, an extra
Speaker 1: playoff team in each conference. But that being said, ten
Speaker 1: of the Packers seventeen games are against teams that were
Speaker 1: in the playoffs in I can't ever remember discussing a
Speaker 1: schedule where there were ten games the following year against
Speaker 1: teams that made the playoffs the previous year. That's obviously,
Speaker 1: when you finish in first place, you have those two
Speaker 1: other first place you know what I like to call
Speaker 1: the placeholder games. You're always going to have those. Those
Speaker 1: are gonna be against playoff teams. Now, with the seventeenth
Speaker 1: game being another cross conference, you're gonna be matched up
Speaker 1: with an a f C division and you play the
Speaker 1: team that finished in first place, that's the Kansas City
Speaker 1: game for Green Bay, so that's gonna be against another
Speaker 1: playoff team. And then, as it turned out, the last
Speaker 1: playoff team in the NFC last year was the Chicago Bears.
Speaker 1: They got the extra spot, so that's a playoff team
Speaker 1: that you're playing twice the following year. So that's sort
Speaker 1: of how things all added up well, and the fact
Speaker 1: that NFC No Earth is match with the a f
Speaker 1: C North, and the a f C North had three
Speaker 1: playoff teams last year. The only team in the a
Speaker 1: f C North that did not make the playoffs was
Speaker 1: the Cincinnati Bengals, So the Ravens, the Browns, and Steelers,
Speaker 1: those are all playoff teams, and everybody in the NFC
Speaker 1: North is going to be playing all of those playoff
Speaker 1: teams from So from that standpoint, the schedule is really
Speaker 1: intriguing to me because it's very different to be looking
Speaker 1: at that many playoff teams from the previous year that
Speaker 1: are all lined up to play you and the Mike Spofford,
Speaker 1: let's be real moment of this episode. The Packers are
Speaker 1: also matched up against the NFC West and being able
Speaker 1: to have the West in the NFC and the North
Speaker 1: in the f C. That is kind of a perfect storm.
Speaker 1: Oh and then, by the way, we're gonna have a
Speaker 1: se game and we're just gonna pick some divisions out
Speaker 1: of our head. Oh and we're gonna get the North
Speaker 1: versus the a f C West as well. Oh and
Speaker 1: it's the Packers and Kansas City, Kansas City as the
Speaker 1: defending champions. How funny all that worked out, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna go to Kansas City. So be that as it may.
Speaker 1: This is us and I was someone that really bit
Speaker 1: back hard against the seventeenth game. I wrote about it.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it. I understand the business of sports.
Speaker 1: I understand why we're sitting here right now. I get it. Um,
Speaker 1: it's gonna take some time for me to get through
Speaker 1: all this. But what I will say, assuming we can,
Speaker 1: we can figure some ways out to make these things
Speaker 1: safer players or at least lessen the load on their
Speaker 1: bodies a little bit. Things that the NFL and the
Speaker 1: NFLP are gonna have to discuss moving forward. The entertainment
Speaker 1: value of the game, you cannot argue with It's eighteen
Speaker 1: weeks of football that's attractive to networks, that's attractive to fans,
Speaker 1: they want to see these guys play. They want to
Speaker 1: see them as often as they can, and ultimately, if
Speaker 1: this is what allows the Green Bay Packers to play
Speaker 1: overseas at some point, maybe next year. It does seem like,
Speaker 1: you know, the juice is worth the squeeze, but it's
Speaker 1: going to be a gauntlet, Mike, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1: When I looked at that same schedule after I figure
Speaker 1: out where the bye week was and I noticed that
Speaker 1: it's January nine for the regular season finale against the
Speaker 1: Try that that hit me kind of hard. That's a
Speaker 1: big adjustment. But they want to keep everything, you know,
Speaker 1: after Labor Day and all those things. Totally understand that, Um,
Speaker 1: but it's it's gonna be uh, it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: grind and it's gonna be a big adjustment. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of players, coaches, and even people and you
Speaker 1: know around the NFL are gonna have to make. That
Speaker 1: was the point I was going to make. Two is
Speaker 1: seeing that January nine is now the end of the
Speaker 1: regular season when and these are the kinds of things
Speaker 1: that just makes me feel old West. But um, knowing
Speaker 1: that I believe if I'm not mistaken the famous Packers
Speaker 1: Lions playoff game where Friz Schermer's defense held Barry Sanders
Speaker 1: to minus one yard. That was a wild card game
Speaker 1: on New Year's Eve, December December thirty one was a
Speaker 1: wild card game back in the early to mid nineties.
Speaker 1: And now here we are talking about the end of
Speaker 1: the regular season being on January night. So it just
Speaker 1: goes to show that that things don't always stay the same.
Speaker 1: And that being said, the NFL had had a sixteen
Speaker 1: game regular season schedule since nineteen seventy eight. They had
Speaker 1: not changed it for over forty years. And uh, and
Speaker 1: now we are going to seventeen games. But I'm with
Speaker 1: you in from the standpoint that it looks like the
Speaker 1: parameters they're putting in place and and sort of the
Speaker 1: different machinations of this seven teen game schedule moving forward
Speaker 1: is going to create the more opportunities for the international games,
Speaker 1: and particularly four teams like the Packers. Um, the Packers
Speaker 1: have not played any international games. There are other teams
Speaker 1: that have hardly played any Canada. They played in Canada.
Speaker 1: Sorry that was on an eight on an eight yard?
Speaker 1: Who else? Who could forget about? We need to do
Speaker 1: a whole another We need to do a whole another
Speaker 1: show about playing NFL football forty years Mike. I'm writing
Speaker 1: an oral history on that game. How Trevor Davis ended
Speaker 1: up having a twenty three yard touchdown, which really was
Speaker 1: only thirteen yards, but they gave me credit for the
Speaker 1: other ten because well, that's just extra yardage, you know. Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: I want to close on this. I just want to
Speaker 1: make one more point, if you don't mind me making it.
Speaker 1: In terms of how the schedule is gonna lay out
Speaker 1: and where things are going to be, the NFL and
Speaker 1: NFL p A still have a lot to work out
Speaker 1: this offseason. They still have a lot to work out
Speaker 1: this summer. Brian Goodikins has talked about this. I do
Speaker 1: like the fact that the Packers, by having the ninth
Speaker 1: game this year, the extra road game, they will also
Speaker 1: have only three preseason games, and as we found out
Speaker 1: that's Houston Buffalo in the New York Jets, that last
Speaker 1: week now of August is kind of an open week
Speaker 1: for them. I have to imagine that, as Matt, to
Speaker 1: use Matt Lafleur's terminology, that's going to be an above
Speaker 1: the shoulders week for a lot of veterans being able
Speaker 1: to prepare for the start of the regular season and
Speaker 1: understand where their bodies are. I like that, Mike, because
Speaker 1: so often you've seen over the years the guys necessarily
Speaker 1: that I'm not saying they're shoeing for the roster, but
Speaker 1: you can't just play that last preseason game with just
Speaker 1: a bunch of guys who are about to get cut.
Speaker 1: You sometimes lose legitimate contributors on special teams are off
Speaker 1: and defense in those games. I do like that it
Speaker 1: potentially removes that away from you know, that that challenge
Speaker 1: a little bit as you get ready for a regular season. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and also with eliminating that fourth preseason game, which was
Speaker 1: always just a couple of days before final roster cuts, Inevitably,
Speaker 1: you know you're playing a lot of young players in
Speaker 1: that game. Inevitably you would have guys get hurt in
Speaker 1: that game, and it may not be a serious injury,
Speaker 1: but a guy a guy turns an ankle or tweaks
Speaker 1: a hamstring or something like that, and then something that's
Speaker 1: not a major injury and you can't necessarily get a
Speaker 1: handle on it in the first couple of days ends
Speaker 1: up factoring into roster decisions and whatnot, Whereas now the
Speaker 1: end of the preseason will be well in advance of
Speaker 1: the actual final roster cutdown. So in terms of the
Speaker 1: health of players and young players and their opportunity and
Speaker 1: whether they should be on the active roster, you want
Speaker 1: to try to bring them back to the practice squad.
Speaker 1: I think it's going I think it's going to be
Speaker 1: a little bit more fair and equitable, not quite as
Speaker 1: not quite as random and chaotic a time in terms
Speaker 1: of figuring out those final decisions. I think that's something
Speaker 1: that in the long run, UH, front offices general managers
Speaker 1: are are going to appreciate because and certainly young players
Speaker 1: are going to appreciate even though they're losing one opportunity
Speaker 1: to perform in the preseason and make that impression. UH,
Speaker 1: the injury part of the equation maybe doesn't factor in it.
Speaker 1: It's an excellent point and and seeing ultimately, here's the deal.
Speaker 1: You want to have the most competitive fifty three man roster,
Speaker 1: the most competitive practice squad. You want your team to
Speaker 1: be at its healthiest point at the beginning of the season.
Speaker 1: And I like that. That's where I think this thing
Speaker 1: is trending for the league because Let's be honest, Mike,
Speaker 1: that first month of the year, that's a really exciting
Speaker 1: month of Packers football. They're gonna go down to New Orleans.
Speaker 1: They're gonna play a you know, a Saints team that's
Speaker 1: been one of the best here in the last fifteen years.
Speaker 1: They get a home opener against the Detroit Lions on
Speaker 1: Monday Night football under the lights. They're going in a
Speaker 1: primetime matchup six days later to San Francisco, and then
Speaker 1: you get the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers at
Speaker 1: Lambo Field. That's such an underrated matchup. You're going to
Speaker 1: see that a little bit more because of this new
Speaker 1: rotation with that extra game. But that's something that only
Speaker 1: happens once every eight years. So I love it. I
Speaker 1: love the way that that side of it laid out
Speaker 1: the Packers with all this consternation right now. But what's
Speaker 1: going on in this offseason. You can tell with the
Speaker 1: five priests, the five primetime games still a major brand
Speaker 1: for the National Football League. They want to be able
Speaker 1: to have those type of matchups. And you know, having
Speaker 1: another primetime game for the twenty nine year in a
Speaker 1: row or whatever it is against Chicago in December that's
Speaker 1: the type of football you want to see. So my
Speaker 1: hat does go off to the schedule makers for making
Speaker 1: sure that that happens. Yeah, I think from the Packers
Speaker 1: point of view, if you're looking at this and and
Speaker 1: if there's something that is kind of annoying or to
Speaker 1: be upset about Christmas, it's well, there is, there is
Speaker 1: the there is at least it's at home. At least
Speaker 1: it's not it might not be traveling though. What I
Speaker 1: was going to say is that you have to West
Speaker 1: Coast road trips here at San Francisco and at Arizona,
Speaker 1: and the NFL schedule both of those long trips on
Speaker 1: short week because the San Francisco is coming off of
Speaker 1: a Monday night game, and then, as I mentioned before,
Speaker 1: the Arizona road trip is a Thursday night game, so
Speaker 1: that's an even shorter week. That's where I think the
Speaker 1: schedule makers kind of, you know, put the screws to
Speaker 1: the Packers a little bit um with with regard to that.
Speaker 1: It is interesting though, because that did happen to Green Day.
Speaker 1: Was that last year I think it was last year
Speaker 1: where they end up having the Thursday night game in
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Do I have that right. Yeah, last year
Speaker 1: was was a Thursday in San Francisco. I thought that
Speaker 1: was gonna be a huge deal breaker for them. I
Speaker 1: thought that was gonna be a real challenge. Now, certainly
Speaker 1: the fortys had a lot of health issues, but the
Speaker 1: Packers actually end up playing really well if I if
Speaker 1: I recall correctly in that game. So you never do know,
Speaker 1: But you're right, that is a big challenge anytime you're
Speaker 1: going to the West Coast on forties. Uh, notice that's
Speaker 1: that's always gonna be something you're gonna have to really
Speaker 1: work through. Yeah, absolutely, Well, September twelve will be the opener,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure it's going to be here before we
Speaker 1: know it. Um, but yeah, it's uh, the NFL has
Speaker 1: made this whole schedule released thing like a like a
Speaker 1: really big deal now, Like they leak out the everybody's
Speaker 1: opener like early in the day and then you're waiting
Speaker 1: till later in the day to get all the news
Speaker 1: of the rest of the schedule. It's becoming that it's
Speaker 1: becoming this, uh, this big day on the NFL calendar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's not enough of them. They got to add in
Speaker 1: a couple more. But what were you doing on on
Speaker 1: in the morning when at seven o'clock or whatever, when
Speaker 1: it was announced that the Green Bay Packers were going
Speaker 1: to be playing the New Orleans Saints, and the opener
Speaker 1: I was actually I was actually on the exercise bike
Speaker 1: in my base and I see all of a sudden
Speaker 1: the messages start popping up on my phone. I was like, WHOA, Okay,
Speaker 1: I didn't know this was gonna happen. I didn't know
Speaker 1: this was going to happen quite so early. But yes,
Speaker 1: the um I was a little sweaty when I was
Speaker 1: finishing up that bit of work. But hey, we all
Speaker 1: roll with the poet. We'll be ready for that next
Speaker 1: year when they have Yeah, I guess, so we'll be
Speaker 1: prepared now for the new For the new timeline is
Speaker 1: to lea the NFL has to start leaking at yeah
Speaker 1: maybe Yeah, we're gonna find they're gonna leak something at
Speaker 1: like three in the morning, and we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: react and get it on the website, right because we
Speaker 1: got to do right by London. Yeah, there we go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna find out our We're gonna find out our
Speaker 1: London game on London time. That's probably what's going to
Speaker 1: happen next. All right, we've gone completely off the rails,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna call it a wrap on this edition
Speaker 1: of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our
Speaker 1: coverage of the team, all kinds of content with regard
Speaker 1: to the schedule. Is there for you on packers dot com.
Speaker 1: For West, I'm Mike. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. We'll
Speaker 1: see you next time.