Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, Welcome to Packers Unscripted from Packers dot Com.
Speaker 1: I am Mike Spofford, sitting next to my partner in crime,
Speaker 1: West Hodkowitz. Were coming to you here from our studios
Speaker 1: at lambeau Field West. Were another day closer to the
Speaker 1: NFC Championship Game, which we played on Sunday at Levi
Speaker 1: Stadium in Santa Clara. Packers forty Niners, five pm Central
Speaker 1: Time kickoff. I want to start the show today by
Speaker 1: talking about a couple of offensive players for the Packers,
Speaker 1: one who has been around for quite a while and
Speaker 1: one who's only been around for a couple of months.
Speaker 1: First off, the one has been around for a while,
Speaker 1: wide receiver Davante Adams. Some interesting discussion yesterday with both
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers Davante Adams going to the podium in the
Speaker 1: lambeau Field Media Auditorium here during Championship Week, kind of
Speaker 1: following up on obviously adams big performance against the Seattle Seahawks.
Speaker 1: Rogers comments after that game about the chemistry that he
Speaker 1: feels now with Adams approaching that level that he had
Speaker 1: with Jordy Nelson, and quite frankly, this is a connection.
Speaker 1: It's definitely reaching that special level, and if it stays
Speaker 1: at that level against a very, very formidable San Francisco defense,
Speaker 1: it'll be really interesting to see what the Packers can
Speaker 1: do out there on Sunday afternoon. Yeah. One thing that
Speaker 1: stands out is obviously how important Davante Adams is to
Speaker 1: the offensive rhythm of this team. When he was playing
Speaker 1: in that first game against San Francisco, they were still
Speaker 1: kind of getting back into a rhythm once again. It's
Speaker 1: funny how that discussion has kind of gone by the wayside,
Speaker 1: that whole thing about oh, Davante Adams is gone or
Speaker 1: is back, but the offense is playing worse. It's it's
Speaker 1: crazy how that that can that can quickly change, and
Speaker 1: no one seems to ever I really want to address
Speaker 1: it at that point. That's cool, um, But here we
Speaker 1: are now with him. You know, you look at that
Speaker 1: game last week and it was arguably one of Aaron
Speaker 1: rodgers best performances, certainly in the postseason, and Davante Adams
Speaker 1: was a big reason for it. That the connection that
Speaker 1: they had not only on the scripted stuff, but even
Speaker 1: the plays that they're drawn up in the sands, so
Speaker 1: to speak, you know, before before the snap, like that
Speaker 1: thirty two yard catch off the fade route, the route
Speaker 1: adjustments and uh and those uh, those split second decisions
Speaker 1: in the heat of the moment. Yeah. And you know,
Speaker 1: Davante Adams for everything that he's accomplished, you know, in
Speaker 1: in this maturation that he's been on here these last
Speaker 1: few years, I don't think he gets enough credit, not
Speaker 1: only for the building that relationship with Rogers, but doing
Speaker 1: it as quickly as he did. You know, Jordy Nelson
Speaker 1: was in this offense for three years, most of three
Speaker 1: years before he became an elite receiver, a go to
Speaker 1: guy in this offense. That happened during the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: run of two thousand and ten and and he took
Speaker 1: off from there in eleven. But Davante Adams, for all
Speaker 1: intensive purposes, was doing this right off the bat. He
Speaker 1: had performances like that in his rookie season. Now he
Speaker 1: was the third option, but he still was an important
Speaker 1: part of that NFC championship run. Two thousand sixteen was
Speaker 1: his breakout year. They get to the NFC Title Game
Speaker 1: and here they are again. Statistically twenty years from now, people,
Speaker 1: I might not look at this as his finest season
Speaker 1: because he missed the four games at the turf Toe.
Speaker 1: But Davante Adams definitely is the primary playmaker in this offense.
Speaker 1: And when you develop a relationship with Rogers and a
Speaker 1: trust with Rogers that he's willing to put it out
Speaker 1: there that this is right there with how he felt
Speaker 1: it with Jordy Nelson after spending ten seasons with him,
Speaker 1: I just feel like that's the ultimate praise. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so too. And it's really special here where Davante
Speaker 1: Adams is putting himself in the Packers postseason record books,
Speaker 1: because not only did he break Jr. Michael Finley's single
Speaker 1: game record getting a hundred and sixty yards against Seattle
Speaker 1: last week, but he now has six touchdown catches in
Speaker 1: the postseason in his career, which is tied for second
Speaker 1: in Packer's history. And Sunday's game against Seattle was his
Speaker 1: third one yard performance receiving performance in the playoffs, which
Speaker 1: is tied for first in Packer's history. And when you
Speaker 1: look at the way that breaks down in the in
Speaker 1: the record book, last Sunday was only Adam's seventh postseason
Speaker 1: game of his career, and these other guys that he's
Speaker 1: tied for second or tied for first within these categories
Speaker 1: have all played. They all played ten, eleven, twelve postseason
Speaker 1: games in their career and Adams is at seven. So
Speaker 1: I think that speaks a lot too, just his abilities
Speaker 1: when the lights are brightest brightest, so to speak. He
Speaker 1: is a He's a big time performer. He's a clutch
Speaker 1: performer in the big games, and the Packers are certainly
Speaker 1: going to rely on him here against the forty nine.
Speaker 1: And when you think about him and Jordy Nelson, Randall,
Speaker 1: Cob James Jones, all these top top receivers the Packers
Speaker 1: have had, what's the number one trait that stands out
Speaker 1: to you about all of them because they all were
Speaker 1: different types of receivers, but it was in those big
Speaker 1: moments they didn't shy away from it. Uh, Davante Adams.
Speaker 1: If it's fourth in one and we've seen plays I
Speaker 1: think Detroit was one of them where it's fourth in
Speaker 1: one and they need a yard and yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a big time conversion there that that was that was
Speaker 1: a crucial part of that comeback. Yeah, and you need
Speaker 1: a yard and you need to be able to move
Speaker 1: the chains and Davante Adams is it. He's that guy.
Speaker 1: He's become that guy. And for so many years that
Speaker 1: was Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb and the guys that
Speaker 1: are just you know, when the chips are down, who
Speaker 1: do you trust? And for Rogers to have that faith
Speaker 1: in Adams at this juncture of his career is incredible.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is too, you know, this is
Speaker 1: an offense that I think is it's always been rhythm based.
Speaker 1: We've talked about that since the beginning. Even when they
Speaker 1: you know, they do some of the unscripted stuff and
Speaker 1: playoff schedule. The way that they moved the ball down
Speaker 1: the field and the momentum that they derived that from,
Speaker 1: it's all based on rhythm. And I think one of
Speaker 1: the things I've always said was when you look at
Speaker 1: Nelson and probably James Jones and specific, I feel like
Speaker 1: Adams and capsulaves both of their games, both of their strengths.
Speaker 1: He can run the stop routes, he can be consistent,
Speaker 1: he can look for the change and move them. But
Speaker 1: there's still that dynamic, big play aspect to his game.
Speaker 1: Down the field. He can make those huge catches over
Speaker 1: the shoulder um you know, being covered, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: he doesn't bat an eye at it now you look
Speaker 1: at a game like San Francisco and as I wrote
Speaker 1: an insider inbox on on Thursday, I don't know what
Speaker 1: their game plan is going to be. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they're gonna have a lot of Richard Sherman on him,
Speaker 1: if the safeties are going to be on top of him.
Speaker 1: But as Adams, as he was speaking at the podium,
Speaker 1: is part of the news conferences on Wednesday, he doesn't
Speaker 1: really care. He feels like he's going to be able
Speaker 1: to win and get open and he that goes back
Speaker 1: to the very beginning with him, and he kind of
Speaker 1: expounded on that about whether he was at Fresno State
Speaker 1: or even back to his high school days. He always
Speaker 1: felt like, if I run my route better than you,
Speaker 1: then then I know I can. You don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do, so I inherently have the advantage in that.
Speaker 1: Then you met, you want to throw in the athleticism,
Speaker 1: the vertical, the forty times, those type of things that
Speaker 1: really separate him. So it's just it's been really fun
Speaker 1: to watch. And again, he's twenty seven years old. He's
Speaker 1: in the primaries career. Conversely, I think Shorty's twenty seven
Speaker 1: year mark was in two thousand and twelve, So I
Speaker 1: mean Davante Adams. There's a lot of football left to
Speaker 1: be played and he's on path to be a real
Speaker 1: special player. Yeah. Well, I had asked Aaron Rodgers when
Speaker 1: he was at the podium yesterday. I asked him specifically
Speaker 1: about Adams. We all know that Rogers has thought very
Speaker 1: highly of Adams throughout his career, from the day he
Speaker 1: arrived and as you said, the performances, a couple of
Speaker 1: really big performances he had as a rookie. But I
Speaker 1: asked him, Okay, so is there something about adams game
Speaker 1: that is different this year that is leading to you
Speaker 1: to talk about the make the comparison to the connection
Speaker 1: that you had with Nelson, and Rogers basically pointed to
Speaker 1: one thing, and it was it's Adam's memory. He focused on.
Speaker 1: Recall was the word that he used. And I remember
Speaker 1: conversations that I've had for doing yearbook stories and other
Speaker 1: features and stuff with Rogers and Nelson, and all of
Speaker 1: the conversations they talked about that they would have, whether
Speaker 1: it would be in the hallway outside the meeting room
Speaker 1: or on the sideline at practice or on the sideline
Speaker 1: during a game, talking about all these different things that
Speaker 1: would come up in the past. Hey do you remember
Speaker 1: this from Miami? And or how about that against the
Speaker 1: Giants in and Rogers and Nelson had that, And what
Speaker 1: Rogers was saying is that he's hearing Davante Adams bringing
Speaker 1: those types of past moments and past situations up in
Speaker 1: conversation now a lot more often. His his recall is
Speaker 1: getting to the level that Nelson's was. And we all
Speaker 1: know about Aaron Rodgers encyclopedic memory when it comes to
Speaker 1: everything that's happened, every third down situation in this stadium
Speaker 1: or that stadium, or that season, or fourth quarter, first
Speaker 1: quarter or whatever. I mean, his mind is incredible in
Speaker 1: that way, and he's able to develop the connection with
Speaker 1: the receivers when they start to remember things in much
Speaker 1: the same ways that he does. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where this thing is headed now with Adam. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: everyone it's it's been a big line and the conversation
Speaker 1: people have had for years now about being on the
Speaker 1: same page with Rogers, and I think one of the
Speaker 1: things about it is, you know, everybody, I'm sure you
Speaker 1: did it too in college. You have your group reports,
Speaker 1: and if you're a tremendous student and you know the
Speaker 1: material really well, if you have four or five people
Speaker 1: in your group and you can lead that group, okay,
Speaker 1: could you still get an A if everybody else is
Speaker 1: just kind of lackluster and you know, maybe not pulling
Speaker 1: their weight. Yeah, you're probably good enough to do that.
Speaker 1: But what can you accomplish When you surround yourself with
Speaker 1: people that are just as motivated as you are, just
Speaker 1: as well researched as you are, you can get a
Speaker 1: lot done. And I think when people always think back
Speaker 1: to two thousand and eleven, there was obviously a lot
Speaker 1: of talent there, but there was a lot of people
Speaker 1: that were at the peak of their athletic primes but
Speaker 1: also very dedicated to their craft. And Davante Adams learned
Speaker 1: from all of these guys. He's known James Jones since
Speaker 1: I think he was in high school, you know, growing
Speaker 1: up in that connection that goes way back historically. He
Speaker 1: worked with Jordy Nelson, you know, for three years. He'd
Speaker 1: been with Randall Cobb for the past four years. These
Speaker 1: guys all left those impressions on him of not only
Speaker 1: how to approach your business, but how to lead. And
Speaker 1: I feel like when he was thrown into that role,
Speaker 1: he was welcoming to it. And there's gonna be receivers
Speaker 1: here in the next few years. Al Lazard might even
Speaker 1: be one of them. Now that they're gonna be guys
Speaker 1: coming in. There's gonna be that next Davante Adams, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be that next Randall Cobb in so much to say,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get the identical guy, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna get players, young receivers that he's going to have
Speaker 1: to mentor just like Nelson and Cobb mentored him. And
Speaker 1: I think he really understands that, appreciates it and knows
Speaker 1: that the more he understands and the more that he
Speaker 1: can call, the better it's going to make that group
Speaker 1: project for Rogers and the Packers. Yeah, no question about it. Well,
Speaker 1: I mentioned we'd also talk about a player who's only
Speaker 1: been here a couple of months with regards to this offense,
Speaker 1: and I'm referring to running back Tyler Irvine. Packers picked
Speaker 1: him up in November, I guess late November. I think, yes,
Speaker 1: I believe his first game was Washington. Yeah, threw him
Speaker 1: in right away on returns, pump returns, kickoff returns made
Speaker 1: a quick impact there. But the interesting thing here about
Speaker 1: the evolution of his involvement and his impact on this
Speaker 1: team is now what he's doing on the offensive side.
Speaker 1: We've seen We've seen some some jet sweeps, handoff pitch
Speaker 1: type of plays. We've seen him run some wheel routes
Speaker 1: out of the backfield. No past receptions or you know,
Speaker 1: deep connections down the field, but those are in the
Speaker 1: playbook as well. This is really interesting how this has
Speaker 1: evolved because Tyler Irvin has always just been kind of
Speaker 1: pegged as a special team's gap, and that's not who
Speaker 1: he is here with the Packers, and he's gotten to
Speaker 1: this expanded role in a very short amount of time.
Speaker 1: So I can't I can't tell you what happened in
Speaker 1: Houston or Baltimore, Jacksonville. I don't know. I didn't follow
Speaker 1: him as much then, but it was really interesting a
Speaker 1: conversation I had with with Aaron Jones. It was about
Speaker 1: a week or two ago about Irvin because he's the
Speaker 1: one that came up with the swerve and Irvan nickname,
Speaker 1: and it has been really complimentary of him, and I
Speaker 1: just that was Jones who came up. I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that. So it was funny at least in
Speaker 1: the Green Bay locker room. Maybe he had it elsewhere,
Speaker 1: but he is incredibly familiar with him, and I thought
Speaker 1: that that was interesting. I'm like, because I didn't. To
Speaker 1: be honestly, I didn't know anything about Tyler Irvan until
Speaker 1: the Packers claimed him. And he said, yeah, I went
Speaker 1: back to my time at UTEP because he would look
Speaker 1: at the league leaders, the leaders in the country in
Speaker 1: terms of rushing, and there was this little, you know,
Speaker 1: smaller back much like himself at saying was a state
Speaker 1: that was just running over everybody, and Irvin had like
Speaker 1: total yards his last two years there, in addition to
Speaker 1: everything he did as a returner. And it was funny
Speaker 1: to me going back and looking at the scouting reports
Speaker 1: of him getting the two thousand sixteen draft, because he
Speaker 1: was a fourth round pick of the Houston Texans and
Speaker 1: everybody was drawing these comparisons Jamal Charles H. Darren sprawls
Speaker 1: that this guy could be a really dynamic playmaker and
Speaker 1: at the time it looked like the Texans we're going
Speaker 1: to pair him with Lamar Miller. So in three years
Speaker 1: with Houston, he only had nineteen touches offensively in addition
Speaker 1: to what he did a kickoff and punt returns. They
Speaker 1: eventually moved on from him. He lands in Baltimore on
Speaker 1: their practice squad, they move on from him, and then
Speaker 1: he ends up being claimed by Jacksonville. The thing that
Speaker 1: ties this all together then is Aaron Rodgers going to
Speaker 1: the podium and talking about the conversations he had with
Speaker 1: John Wojahowski and with John Eric Sullivan, the Packers personnel directors,
Speaker 1: and that the Packers have had an eye on Irvin
Speaker 1: for some time in all the stars finally aligned for
Speaker 1: him to come into Green Bay. So, whether it's the
Speaker 1: Packers personnel department, whether it's Aaron Jones, this guy really
Speaker 1: hasn't surprised anybody, but seeing what he has added to
Speaker 1: those jet sweeps and those pre snap motions, it's important
Speaker 1: because it seemed like all year long the Packers were
Speaker 1: kind of searching for who that guy was gonna be.
Speaker 1: Trevor Davis did a little bit, Geronimo Allison did it,
Speaker 1: and Lazar did it again last week. But with Irvin,
Speaker 1: for the first time that I can recall, last week,
Speaker 1: you actually saw him start to be utilized in that
Speaker 1: pistol formation with the two running backs, and the Packers
Speaker 1: are running plays off of that for a guy that
Speaker 1: wasn't on the roster six seven weeks ago. When you
Speaker 1: talk about differences and why this matchup could be different,
Speaker 1: I just think that this adds a new wrinkle that
Speaker 1: San Francisco is gonna have to prepare for. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's definitely a changeup, And in some ways it was
Speaker 1: born out of necessity because Irvin started getting more snaps
Speaker 1: on offense when Jamal Williams was injured and he was
Speaker 1: being rested, particularly in the Detroit game the regular season
Speaker 1: finale in Week seventeen. But then it's just the more
Speaker 1: snaps that Irvin got on offense, the more Matt Lafleur
Speaker 1: and the offensive coaches were saying, yeah, like, I mean,
Speaker 1: Tyler Irvin isn't suddenly going to get the ball twenty
Speaker 1: times on offense, not when you have Aaron Jones and
Speaker 1: Davante Adams and whatnot. But the coaching staff felt like, hey,
Speaker 1: we we there's a role for this guy. There's a
Speaker 1: way that we can use him, and we're going to
Speaker 1: continue to use and moving forward. So um much like
Speaker 1: you know j Sternberger in a sense, the rookie tight
Speaker 1: end who spent the first first half of his rookie
Speaker 1: season on injured reserve and then and then was activated.
Speaker 1: Now he's only made one catch. He made his first
Speaker 1: NFL catch last week, but we've seen him, yeah with
Speaker 1: the fifteen yard penalty attacked on, but we've seen him
Speaker 1: get more and more snaps here down the stretch as
Speaker 1: the season goes along, because every time he's in the game,
Speaker 1: the film shows an impact of some kind, and that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff doesn't go unnoticed. So even though you know,
Speaker 1: here we are talking about two guys that are getting
Speaker 1: upwards of a dozen or even two dozen snaps on
Speaker 1: offense here as the Packers are in the postseason, they
Speaker 1: were getting zero in the first half of the season.
Speaker 1: But it just it just goes to show you how
Speaker 1: a team doesn't stay static, it doesn't stay the same.
Speaker 1: There's this constant evolution and uh and Matt Lafleur and
Speaker 1: and the offensive coaches have certainly paid heed to that well.
Speaker 1: And this is why I also like this move for
Speaker 1: Brian Goodkins, because you know, there was a time there
Speaker 1: that he was you know, the Packers were kind of
Speaker 1: getting sort of railed on for trading Trevor Davis away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think that took a lot of
Speaker 1: people by surprise. They got a six round draft pick
Speaker 1: for it. I'll admit it took me by surprise, just
Speaker 1: just based on just based on how we had seen
Speaker 1: Davis being used in training camp, in the preseason games
Speaker 1: and whatnot. I thought they they had sort of the
Speaker 1: niche for him on offense and that they wanted to
Speaker 1: use him in that way. But then they decided to
Speaker 1: move on. So he goes to Oakland and they claim
Speaker 1: Trey Smith, and things didn't really work out with Smith,
Speaker 1: and they you know, they try again and they go
Speaker 1: and find Tyler Irvin. Now, the one benefit to that
Speaker 1: because a lot of times you want to keep your
Speaker 1: core as consistent as possible through the season. But again,
Speaker 1: this is a conversation I think I've said before on
Speaker 1: the show, but I go back to that the talk
Speaker 1: I had with Tim Mass eight years ago. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're a specialist, if you're a return er, if
Speaker 1: you're even on specially like the playbook isn't as expansive,
Speaker 1: you can come in and make an impact, whether it's
Speaker 1: a kicker, punter, returner, lungs, what what have you, you
Speaker 1: can slide in and Irvin has done that. And I
Speaker 1: think it's a credit to good accounts because you know,
Speaker 1: they wanted to get better on their returns. They also
Speaker 1: were able to get some draft equity for it, but
Speaker 1: they were able to eventually, through that process find an answer.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think, I want to say, Dallas
Speaker 1: Morning News wise or with Rick Goslin's ratings, I think
Speaker 1: the Packers are probably gonna end up in that fifteen
Speaker 1: to twenty range for they're going to be somewhere in
Speaker 1: the middle of the past, which when you consider where
Speaker 1: things were looking in the middle of the season, it's
Speaker 1: just incredible what Irvin has been able to add both
Speaker 1: on kickoffs returns and then and punt returns, in addition
Speaker 1: to the fact that the Packers are covering a lot better.
Speaker 1: And for Matt Lafleur and his coaching staff to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, we're seeing what this guy's doing on
Speaker 1: special teams, we think he can help us on offense.
Speaker 1: That's the life of an NFL coach and that's the
Speaker 1: life of an NFL team. Understanding your personnel, learning what
Speaker 1: their strengths are in finding ways to implement It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter which phase of the game it is. I mean,
Speaker 1: we we covered that Detroit game a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: Jamal egg News catching passes, you know, and they're doing
Speaker 1: things with him with the Lions. So I mean, that's
Speaker 1: just the way this game goes. And for the Packers,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for difference makers, if you're looking for
Speaker 1: reasons to believe this game could be different, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna be Tyler Irvin probably having a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: total yards. But it could be a punt return, it
Speaker 1: could be an end around that goes you know well
Speaker 1: and breaks for a for an explosive gain. All these
Speaker 1: things are things that have to be in the back
Speaker 1: of your mind. So for Irvin as Jamal as Aaron
Speaker 1: Jones says, adding a little bit more lightning to this offense,
Speaker 1: that all creates more mismatches potentially for green Bay to exploit. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: one other thing I want to get to before we
Speaker 1: go today, West will switch gears to the defensive side
Speaker 1: of the ball for a minute. Um. Some of the
Speaker 1: conversations that were going on in the locker room with
Speaker 1: players after practice yesterday. It was interesting. Blake Martinez shared
Speaker 1: with a few reporters, including me, I'm gonna be writing
Speaker 1: about this on our website actually later today that when
Speaker 1: the team came back from the blowout loss in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: you're heading into a regular Monday. You're going to come in,
Speaker 1: the coaches are going to show certain aspects of the film.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like a full team, you know, film
Speaker 1: review study. But the defensive guys got together and they
Speaker 1: all showed up an hour early, and they got together
Speaker 1: just as a defense. They had put in a request
Speaker 1: with the video department to say, hey, we want we
Speaker 1: want the video of all of the explosive plays that
Speaker 1: we've given up up on the season to that point
Speaker 1: it was whatever twelve eleven, eleven games into the season.
Speaker 1: We want video of all the explosive plays. We're gonna
Speaker 1: look at them. We're gonna try to, you know, get
Speaker 1: to the bottom of this. And they spent an hour
Speaker 1: in the film room together going over this stuff and
Speaker 1: and in essence discovering that the communication on the defensive
Speaker 1: side of the ball, there were too many assumptions being
Speaker 1: made about you know, Okay, this is my job and
Speaker 1: this is that guy's job. And they figured out, with
Speaker 1: the help of Mike Petton and practice repetition and everything,
Speaker 1: that they've now become this very noisy, talkative defense. Than
Speaker 1: and Trumont Williams used the phrase over communicate. They over
Speaker 1: communicate everything defensively, and it's a big it's a big
Speaker 1: part of how this unit has cut down on the
Speaker 1: explosive plays. And I just found the story interesting because
Speaker 1: you wrote the story back in the preseason or towards
Speaker 1: the start of the regular season where the defensive group
Speaker 1: come back from Baltimore in the preseason where they had
Speaker 1: just played the first quarter against Lamar Jackson and the
Speaker 1: Ravens and that offense, and they didn't like how things
Speaker 1: had gone, so they came back and got together and
Speaker 1: looked at it and you know, started to try to
Speaker 1: fix some things on their own. It sounds like there's
Speaker 1: a similar group of guys that did that coming back
Speaker 1: from the San Francisco game. And there's no denying statistically
Speaker 1: that this Packers defense has played a heck of a
Speaker 1: lot better down the stretcher than it was through the
Speaker 1: middle portion season when all those explosive plays were happening.
Speaker 1: And then it kind of all came to a head
Speaker 1: in San Francisco with the blowout defeat. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of I was kind of awe struck by when you
Speaker 1: mentioned this story to me, because obviously you were over
Speaker 1: in Martinez's huddle. I was over talking to Brian Blogg
Speaker 1: at the time. And the thing that stands out to
Speaker 1: me about the Baltimore story edition to the Ravens being really,
Speaker 1: really good that we weren't quite sure at that time,
Speaker 1: but yeah, they turned out to be a pretty dark
Speaker 1: and good club. So it was how well the Packers
Speaker 1: played through that month of September and at the end
Speaker 1: of the preseason that that was kind of the one hole,
Speaker 1: so to speak, into that for them to do this
Speaker 1: again after the San Francisco loss, to me, that's again revisiting, revisiting,
Speaker 1: taking stock of where you are and trying to find
Speaker 1: ways to improve for the final stretch. And it's been
Speaker 1: very coincidental that Green Bay played as well as they
Speaker 1: did in September and they played as well as they
Speaker 1: did defensively in December after both of those conversations. The
Speaker 1: thing that it stands out to me about the overcommunicating thing,
Speaker 1: because it's it's one thing just to say it right.
Speaker 1: It's it's one thing to say, oh, we're gonna over communicate,
Speaker 1: we're gonna work on that. But those of the way
Speaker 1: I kind of look at it, it's sort of like
Speaker 1: your mom telling you to clean your room. Right. She
Speaker 1: can tell you once and you're like, yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do it. Don't worry about it. We got this. If
Speaker 1: she keeps nagging you, or it could be your father too,
Speaker 1: by the way, if she keeps on you, he keeps
Speaker 1: on you about it. Did you clean your room? Did
Speaker 1: you clean your room? Did you clean your room? Did
Speaker 1: you clean your room? Eventually can be like, all right, fine,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna clean the room. I got this. All right,
Speaker 1: We're good, and you're gonna do it because you want
Speaker 1: to be done with it. And I look at this
Speaker 1: very similar with this defense there. All these guys know
Speaker 1: what they're doing. They've been studying this thing since April.
Speaker 1: Some of these guys have been in the defense for
Speaker 1: two years now. With Petton. They understand the responsibilities everything
Speaker 1: like that. But it is sometimes that just getting on
Speaker 1: me about it again, talk a little bit more. Can
Speaker 1: you remind everybody what their assignment is? Can you tell
Speaker 1: people what you're doing and who's got this player. That
Speaker 1: stuff is important because that's where you go from okay,
Speaker 1: you're sure that something is going to be covered to eight.
Speaker 1: And I think that's one thing that was my big
Speaker 1: takeaway here is when you look at the reduction and
Speaker 1: explosive plays, a lot of times, as much as people
Speaker 1: want to put it on one player, they want to
Speaker 1: put it on this aspect of the game just so
Speaker 1: they can understand the reasons something's faltering. Realistically, at a
Speaker 1: lot of times it goes back to how that unit
Speaker 1: as a whole is performing. And some of the guys
Speaker 1: were talking about two is that you know they in essence,
Speaker 1: they were getting away with some of the lack of
Speaker 1: communication because the explosive plays weren't killing them necessarily. They
Speaker 1: were still winning games. A lot of the explosive plays
Speaker 1: they were giving up, they were good enough defensively to
Speaker 1: rise up in the red zone, get the stop and
Speaker 1: allow the field goal. But then when what happened in
Speaker 1: San Francisco where some explosive plays happened, the offense had
Speaker 1: a bad day, the defense was getting gash, particularly late
Speaker 1: first half and into the second half, where the game
Speaker 1: got out of hand. Suddenly they look at it and go, okay,
Speaker 1: well it really cost us. And if we want to
Speaker 1: get to the super Bowl, if we want to make
Speaker 1: a playoff run, that forty Niners team, that's the level
Speaker 1: that we need to get to, you know. So is
Speaker 1: you know, I hate to use the the the overused
Speaker 1: phrase wake up call, but in a sense that San
Speaker 1: Francisco game really was the wake up call for the
Speaker 1: defense that it's like, Okay, what we've been doing. The
Speaker 1: forty Niners proved that what we've been doing is not
Speaker 1: going to cut it. And uh um, and so they
Speaker 1: had kind of the players only beating type of thing
Speaker 1: with the film session that then led into the rest
Speaker 1: of the full team review of what happened in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and and Tremont Williams point blank said he doesn't think
Speaker 1: that the team would be where it is right now.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't be as good a team as they are
Speaker 1: right now if um, what happened in San Francisco hadn't happened.
Speaker 1: He says, it turns out it was a good thing
Speaker 1: as much as yes, it's the game that has decided
Speaker 1: this championship game being played out West as opposed to
Speaker 1: lambeau Field. But in the bigger picture, it's what this
Speaker 1: Packers team needed to get themselves squared away. Jimmy Garoppolo
Speaker 1: in that game fourteen completions for two fifty three yards
Speaker 1: and the San Francisco nine point nine yards per passed.
Speaker 1: The Packers were one point nine in that game. You
Speaker 1: talk about you know what, Kyle Shanahan, Matt Foor saying,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a different game. It's going to
Speaker 1: be a different game. Those reasons you're not going to
Speaker 1: see that again. The thing that Green Bay needs a
Speaker 1: center on now is can you get the takeaways that
Speaker 1: they didn't get the first time. That's what I keep
Speaker 1: coming back to Jimmy Garoppolo. I think there's been three
Speaker 1: games this year, maybe four where he's not had to
Speaker 1: turn over, whether it be an interception or a past.
Speaker 1: If you reduce the explosive plays and force them to make,
Speaker 1: you know, to go further down the field, farther down
Speaker 1: the field, that's where you're gonna get those chances. Yeah,
Speaker 1: takeaways on defense and third downs on offense. Right, But
Speaker 1: you know what, we're treading into keys to victory territory.
Speaker 1: That's tomorrow's show, so we'll call it a wrap on
Speaker 1: this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all
Speaker 1: of our coverage of the team here on NFC Championship
Speaker 1: Week on Packers dot com, Subscribe to us, like us
Speaker 1: on iTunes and other podcast services, and check out all
Speaker 1: the great video content on the Packers YouTube channel for West,
Speaker 1: I'm Mike. Thanks for tuning in, everybody, See you next time.