Speaker 1: Hi everyone, Welcome to Packers Unscripted from Packers dot Com.
Speaker 1: I am Mike Spofford. He is the one and only
Speaker 1: Wes Hodkowitz. Were coming to you here from our studios
Speaker 1: at lambeau Field and West. I want to start today's
Speaker 1: show picking up sort of where we left off yesterday
Speaker 1: with regards to Mason Crosby, because what will go down
Speaker 1: in his career as one of the more emotional, one
Speaker 1: of the more memorable games of his career for everything
Speaker 1: that went into it. In the bigger picture, turns out
Speaker 1: there was a little bit more to the story. And
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about is that forty seven yard field
Speaker 1: goal in the snow on the slick field in the
Speaker 1: second quarter, which at the time extended the Packers lead
Speaker 1: over the Giants. It was actually outside the rain that
Speaker 1: had been communicated to the head coach for where the
Speaker 1: line was, the line of scrimmage the Packers needed to
Speaker 1: get to, and yet Mason Crosby gave the head coach
Speaker 1: the thumbs up. He's like, all right, I got this,
Speaker 1: and he went out and nailed it. Yeah, it's incredible
Speaker 1: if you take away everything else we discussed and what
Speaker 1: he was dealing with off the field. Just in terms
Speaker 1: of the actual mechanics of a field goal operation. It's
Speaker 1: challenge because the conditions that Crosby kicked in before the
Speaker 1: game had changed, and they when he came home up
Speaker 1: was completely different than what he was dealing Within the
Speaker 1: second they had rain and I think it one of
Speaker 1: the reporters tweeted out, I mean, he had made from
Speaker 1: fifty three, but it was raining then in the field,
Speaker 1: was you know clear well by the time he went
Speaker 1: out there in the second quarter for this actual forty
Speaker 1: seven yard that that counts. Uh. Now, he was dealing
Speaker 1: with the snow on the field. It's a field, turf
Speaker 1: conditions and everything else that was happening at the time
Speaker 1: with the wind and whatnot, and Crosby nails it. It's
Speaker 1: one of those things that when you look at thirty
Speaker 1: one to thirteen, eighteen point difference and score, it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like that big of a uh you know, a play,
Speaker 1: so to speak. But again, as you kind of illustrated
Speaker 1: when you go back to that moment, it was a
Speaker 1: pretty critical time for the Packers to get three points
Speaker 1: on the board, to get some production there, and Crosby,
Speaker 1: as he always has done, came through. Well. Certainly when
Speaker 1: you look at the fact that in the third quarter
Speaker 1: of the game was seventeen to thirteen, those three points
Speaker 1: were crucial at that time. He had just to sort
Speaker 1: of give everybody the details of it. What had been
Speaker 1: communicated to Matt Lafleur was that the target line going
Speaker 1: in that direction, with the conditions and everything, they had estimated,
Speaker 1: the Packers needed to get to the twenty seven yard line,
Speaker 1: which would be a forty five yard field goal. That
Speaker 1: was the range the Packers had fourth down. It was
Speaker 1: either fourth and eight or fourth and ten. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure exactly, but they're on the twenty nine yard line.
Speaker 1: They were two yards two yards out, and Matt Lafleur
Speaker 1: said in his press conference on Monday, he said, well,
Speaker 1: I at least wanted to ask him, because if he
Speaker 1: didn't feel comfortable, he wasn't going to send him out
Speaker 1: there to try it. But he asked him, He said, hey, Mason,
Speaker 1: can you get it there? And Mason gave him, gave
Speaker 1: him the thumbs up, and went out there and made
Speaker 1: the kick. And obviously he made all four of his
Speaker 1: extra points from the thirty three yard distance. But here's
Speaker 1: my question for US. I was trying to think about this.
Speaker 1: Crosby had those two fifty plus yard field goals in
Speaker 1: Dallas in the playoffs, right, he had an overtime winner
Speaker 1: against San Francisco. Last year, he had a chip shot,
Speaker 1: you know, last second win one against Detroit. This year,
Speaker 1: he had that big forty eight yard or in the
Speaker 1: NFC Championship in Seattle that got that game to overtime
Speaker 1: after the Packers had blown the lead. He kicked a
Speaker 1: walk off game winner in the first game of his
Speaker 1: NFL career in two thousand seven. I'm trying to figure out, like,
Speaker 1: where where does this forty seven yard or in the snow?
Speaker 1: No it wasn't the fourth quarter. No it wasn't the
Speaker 1: game winner. But with all of the circumstances surrounding it,
Speaker 1: with his family and everything that has gone on over
Speaker 1: the last several months, I'm trying to, you know, figure
Speaker 1: out where where to rank this one. I think it
Speaker 1: goes somewhere in the top five or six of his
Speaker 1: career um. And I don't even know if he would
Speaker 1: necessarily have an answer to that question, but it's an
Speaker 1: interesting one for a guy with a very decorated career. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'd put it on the Mount
Speaker 1: rushmore because you look at that NFC Divisional game in Dallas,
Speaker 1: those two those two kicks back to back, you know,
Speaker 1: late in the fourth quarter, those were three kicks as
Speaker 1: it turned out, because of the one that was the
Speaker 1: time out was called. But yes, but you know, for
Speaker 1: him to make it, that had huge implications for the
Speaker 1: Packers to get to an NFC championship game. If Mason
Speaker 1: Crosby the Packers make the Super Bowl in two thousand,
Speaker 1: in the you know, in fifteen, whatever you wanna call it,
Speaker 1: that would have been a high notebook item. That would
Speaker 1: have been a sidebar. Oh my goodness, Crosby making that kick.
Speaker 1: No one ever talks about it in terms of difficult
Speaker 1: and he and he was five for five that day
Speaker 1: as well. A couple of those were short ones, but
Speaker 1: he had a couple of long ones that day in Seattle,
Speaker 1: including the forty order right at the end to tie
Speaker 1: it and three in the first half right to get
Speaker 1: the sixteen and nothing. But yeah, Packers that you know,
Speaker 1: they need to rely on their kicker that day, and
Speaker 1: their kickers stepped up. Here's so many times you hear
Speaker 1: a team draft a left tackle, and they always use
Speaker 1: the phrase your this is a guy that can be
Speaker 1: a left tackle for a decade, twelve years. You know
Speaker 1: this is gonna be your franchise. You can plug them
Speaker 1: in there. You're not gonna think him out again. You
Speaker 1: think about, you know, going back over the years with
Speaker 1: the Chad Clifton's although that was a second rounder, Brian Blaga,
Speaker 1: you're set. No one ever discusses a lot what it
Speaker 1: means to have a kicker who can just be put
Speaker 1: in there for ten fifteen years and you don't have
Speaker 1: to think about it. I think you saw this here
Speaker 1: with the New England Patriots, what they're dealing with right now.
Speaker 1: Stephen Giskowski gets hurt earlier in the season, and then
Speaker 1: you know they're in a position where they're recycling through
Speaker 1: all these different kickers because you know, they're just aren't
Speaker 1: that many guys, Mike, that can do it at that level,
Speaker 1: that have the leg talent ability and act or see
Speaker 1: and then on top of that, have this iron clad
Speaker 1: reserve to be able to just tone everything out and
Speaker 1: do to the job and execute it under just incredibly
Speaker 1: pressure packed situations. And we're talking about guys here, Mike
Speaker 1: that play ten snaps a game, eight snaps a game.
Speaker 1: Most of their day is spent sitting on the sideline
Speaker 1: waiting for a chance to impact the football game, positively
Speaker 1: or negatively. You also, I go back to Adam Venytaria
Speaker 1: earlier this season when he was really struggling and we
Speaker 1: sort of intimated that, okay, he might just retire. He's
Speaker 1: forty seven, whatever it is now this is maybe it
Speaker 1: colts winter and said, no, we need here even despite
Speaker 1: some of the things are struggling and we need you,
Speaker 1: and he's and he's still he's still struggling. He's still
Speaker 1: trying to battle, battle through some things and help out
Speaker 1: that team that's trying to make the playoffs. But someone
Speaker 1: mentioned an insider inbox lately like, hey, it does it?
Speaker 1: Is it just me? Or does it seem like there's
Speaker 1: more miss kicks this here? There really are. I've not
Speaker 1: done the full research yet. I'm looking forward to the
Speaker 1: end of the season, once all the chips are down
Speaker 1: to really look at it compare. But at first glance,
Speaker 1: there is a huge disparity between how many kickers were
Speaker 1: over last year and how many are well doing underneath
Speaker 1: this year. Fortunately for Green Bay, despite everything that Mason
Speaker 1: has been going through this year, he's having a career
Speaker 1: year right now. He hasn't had the most field goal attempts,
Speaker 1: but to make, he hasn't had as many as he's
Speaker 1: had in other years, but his percentage is certainly way up.
Speaker 1: To make fourteen and fifteen is really key. And I
Speaker 1: want to make this point too quickly. A lot of
Speaker 1: people and I'm not gonna name names here, and it's
Speaker 1: not just local media's nationally they're very quick to write, Hey,
Speaker 1: Crosby has bounced back after an inconsistent two thousand eighteen season.
Speaker 1: I take a major objection to that. He had one
Speaker 1: god awful, terrible, got to forget about a game, and
Speaker 1: he had brutal game. It was one of four, one
Speaker 1: of five on field goals, and then he miss an
Speaker 1: extra points extra point as well. Yeah, if you take
Speaker 1: week six, and I tweeted this during the game, if
Speaker 1: you go back and you go from week six on,
Speaker 1: he's thirty three of thirty six and his last kicks
Speaker 1: he actually managed to get his field goal percentage up
Speaker 1: to when you missed that many kicks in a game. Yea,
Speaker 1: that is not an easy thing to do. Crosby did
Speaker 1: it thirty five years young, and he's still going at
Speaker 1: it here for Greenbay. Yeah, And I tell you I've
Speaker 1: said it an insider inbox. A couple of times kickers
Speaker 1: you can rely on. And not every kicker is going
Speaker 1: to make all the kicks. You get that part of it.
Speaker 1: But a kicker you can rely on and have confidence
Speaker 1: in is worth his weight in gold in this league.
Speaker 1: Just just look at where the Carolina Panthers are right now.
Speaker 1: Because Fry missed the twenty eight yard or in New Orleans,
Speaker 1: they end up losing on a last second field goal
Speaker 1: the other way, and then they blow a fourteen point
Speaker 1: lead to Washington at home last week, and the Panthers
Speaker 1: season is pretty much over there now. They're now five
Speaker 1: and seven, having lost to the Packers, the Saints, and
Speaker 1: the Redskins, all very very late in the game where
Speaker 1: for a lot of reasons they couldn't pull things out.
Speaker 1: But I just I think that twenty yard missed kick
Speaker 1: by Fry at the super domin New Orleans just just
Speaker 1: took all the life out of Carolina. Was was that
Speaker 1: friar sly? Oh, I'm sorry, okay, I was sicking. Was
Speaker 1: there another kicker that they had too, and if they did,
Speaker 1: you're right in going into that game against Green Bay.
Speaker 1: That was one of the things that I had written
Speaker 1: in one of the preview copy and with some of
Speaker 1: the things we were discussing, he was working through some
Speaker 1: things there. And here's the thing, Mike, that position it is.
Speaker 1: I don't want to like start throwing out like you know,
Speaker 1: golf cliches and tin cup and things like that, but
Speaker 1: that's okay. I like, yeah, But like the chili differ
Speaker 1: references in terms of you have that first one that
Speaker 1: goes wrong, you kind of laugh it off, and you
Speaker 1: get the second one that goes wrong and you start
Speaker 1: to look in the mirror. The thing that I love
Speaker 1: about Mason Crosby and that's what it has allowed him
Speaker 1: to stick around this long and execute as well as
Speaker 1: he has because coming out of Colorado he had a
Speaker 1: massive leg right that's why he was a sixth round pick.
Speaker 1: But it's the mental fortitude, in disposition and mentality to
Speaker 1: go out day after day trust your process. And he
Speaker 1: talks about that a lot. It's not it's more than
Speaker 1: a cliche. That's the truth. Trust your process. That's what
Speaker 1: allowed him to get through two thousand twelve, which is
Speaker 1: eons ago now and go on to have really successful
Speaker 1: and then be in a position. Now we'll see how
Speaker 1: this all shakes out. But I think you can make
Speaker 1: a really good case. You know, this could be his
Speaker 1: best case right now for a Pro Bowl type season. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would. I think is having a great year in Arizona.
Speaker 1: But I mean I would, I would love. I would
Speaker 1: love to see that happen for Crosby. And it cracks
Speaker 1: me up when people always continue to mention two thousand
Speaker 1: and twelve with him, because he's now actually kicked more
Speaker 1: seasons since then than he did leading up to that,
Speaker 1: that off year in two thousand twelve. But I totally
Speaker 1: agree with you about last year as well, that people
Speaker 1: point that as an off year. No, it was. It
Speaker 1: was a bad game. And yeah, since then, the guy
Speaker 1: has been rocks On. Yeah, I mean, if you throw,
Speaker 1: I mean Brett for one of his luckiest things ever
Speaker 1: when he threw in a set than interceptions against the Ram,
Speaker 1: the Rams all those years ago in the playoffs. That
Speaker 1: was six of them. Actually, yeah there, that wasn't during
Speaker 1: the regular season. It didn't count, right, it doesn't. It
Speaker 1: doesn't count towards the record that he holds anyway, but
Speaker 1: could continue. But in terms of what his season would
Speaker 1: have looked, right, Yeah, that's unfortunate thing for Mason. Doesn't
Speaker 1: happened when it did. But if you look at it, Mike,
Speaker 1: up until two thousand and twelve, he was escalating every
Speaker 1: year improvement, improvement, improvement, had his best season in two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven statistically struggles and twelve, and then refound found
Speaker 1: himself came out better for it. On the other side. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely well. I mentioned Carolina losing to Washington this past week,
Speaker 1: and we will talk a lot more about Washington on
Speaker 1: tomorrow show as we start to preview Sunday's game at
Speaker 1: lambeau Field. But we do need to, as I promised
Speaker 1: on yesterday show, we would get to where things sit
Speaker 1: in the NFC as far as the whole playoff picture.
Speaker 1: Coming off of Monday Night football, the Seattle Seahawks beat
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Vikings whale of a football game, um May
Speaker 1: in game really very entertaining. Seattle gets the win. Seattle
Speaker 1: improves to ten into the Vikings fall to eight and four,
Speaker 1: so the Packers are back to their one game lead
Speaker 1: over Minnesota in the NFC North. A few consequences to
Speaker 1: this as far as um the Packers and and the
Speaker 1: picture are concerned. As far as the big picture goes,
Speaker 1: Seattle now technically is leading the NFC West. They're tied
Speaker 1: with San Francisco at ten and two, but they beat
Speaker 1: them in the one head to head game to this point,
Speaker 1: which actually, if you do that whole if the season
Speaker 1: ended today, which I always think it's kind of silly
Speaker 1: because it doesn't. But for the purposes of discussion, the
Speaker 1: ten and two forty Niners are actually the five seed
Speaker 1: because they would be a wild card at this stage
Speaker 1: of things. And the other thing that this result does
Speaker 1: for the Packers, not that you want to think of
Speaker 1: it in this terms, because you're shooting for the moon.
Speaker 1: You're going you're trying to get get into the playoffs,
Speaker 1: get the best seed you can. But the Packers can
Speaker 1: actually win the NFC North without having to beat Minnesota again.
Speaker 1: If the Packers beat Washington, Chicago and Detroit, they will
Speaker 1: be NFC North champs. The Packers are at the stage
Speaker 1: now where if they get to twelve wins, whether it's
Speaker 1: by winning the other three or whether it's by beating
Speaker 1: Minnesota along the way. However, the Packers get to twelve wins.
Speaker 1: Twelve wins wins the NFC North for green Bay right
Speaker 1: now because of the tiebreakers. Yeah, and here's I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to actually just regurgitate the win, you know, want
Speaker 1: to know, let's focus on this week mentality. But the
Speaker 1: reason I say that is because the Packers did what
Speaker 1: they were supposed to do against the Giants, they need
Speaker 1: to replicate that again now against Washington. Absolutely that has
Speaker 1: to happen. But that Bears game is looking a lot
Speaker 1: different now with the way that they're starting to pull
Speaker 1: themselves together. If you get a Keen Hicks back for
Speaker 1: that game, that is a big, big boost for their defense,
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna have a test are going into Minnesota.
Speaker 1: But the reason I want to bring that up is
Speaker 1: I like the way this aligns for green Bay. You
Speaker 1: get a chance here against the Giants, and if you
Speaker 1: take care of business against Washington to get yourselves on
Speaker 1: a winning streak to start feeling good about yourself, then
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a step up in competition, as it
Speaker 1: looks like on paper right now with Chicago, and then
Speaker 1: you're gonna go another step versus Minnesota. And then you
Speaker 1: see where the chips are and then go into Detroit,
Speaker 1: hopefully in a situation where you can either tie some
Speaker 1: things up or if everything else works out, okay, maybe
Speaker 1: you're looking to kind of do a mini run the
Speaker 1: table here going into the playoffs. Whatever the case may be,
Speaker 1: Minnesota still is incredibly dangerous. Now. The thing that stood
Speaker 1: out to me in this game, other than just a
Speaker 1: jackal and hide first half and second half performance. For
Speaker 1: whatever reason, and I don't know if it's the offensive line,
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what the construct is. They are
Speaker 1: having a difficult time getting the run game going in
Speaker 1: these last three two or three games. So much attention
Speaker 1: is put on Kirk Cousins and they are going to
Speaker 1: beat that storyline to deaths Monday night thing. We're gonna
Speaker 1: be hearing about that all the way leading up to
Speaker 1: that December twenty three game at US Bank Stadium. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, Kirk Cousins got to get tired of that.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. He needs to play better. No question,
Speaker 1: there were mistakes made down the stretch, but if Minnesota
Speaker 1: can't get Dalvin Cook going here and we got to
Speaker 1: see what the status is with his injury and this
Speaker 1: clavical and everything that's going on. You can only put
Speaker 1: so much of this on cousin shoulders. I've been trying
Speaker 1: to say all year long, and I know there's a
Speaker 1: lot of Vikings fans that watch the show, but I've
Speaker 1: been trying to say all year long, Kirk Cousins is
Speaker 1: a good, great quarterback in this league. Much like the
Speaker 1: kicker conversation. There aren't a whole lot of guys on
Speaker 1: the level of Kirk Cousins, but he has flaws. N
Speaker 1: nine per of the quarterbacks in this league at any
Speaker 1: given time have flaws, and the problem for Minnesota is
Speaker 1: when they lose when he struggles, they just don't have
Speaker 1: the people picking them up. I thought in the first half,
Speaker 1: you saw that. I thought when they got the forced
Speaker 1: fumble and returned for a touchdown, I think it was
Speaker 1: a fumble, right, would you call that it was an interception?
Speaker 1: The ball was deflected a couple It was deflected a
Speaker 1: couple of times, but then it was picked off before
Speaker 1: it hit the ground. Yeah, that's where the turning point
Speaker 1: was for me in that game. I thought, Okay, Minnesota,
Speaker 1: this is what they need, and then they come out
Speaker 1: flat in the second half. Seattle is dangerous, and they
Speaker 1: challenged Russell Wilson to throw from the pocket. He accepted
Speaker 1: that challenge and did a lot of damage during those
Speaker 1: last thirty minutes. Yeah, I took two things out of
Speaker 1: that Minnesota Seattle game. One is that I think both
Speaker 1: of those teams who will be playing in January, and
Speaker 1: both of them will be very tough outs in January,
Speaker 1: no question about it. The other thing is that I don't, yes,
Speaker 1: it has it has major impact in the standings, the seatings,
Speaker 1: the records and all that kind of stuff. The fact
Speaker 1: that Seattle won the game, I don't put a whole
Speaker 1: lot into Okay, Seattle one and they're just better than
Speaker 1: Minnesota because for a couple of reasons. One, it was
Speaker 1: a primetime game on the road for the Vikings, which
Speaker 1: just asked the New England Patriots going down to Houston,
Speaker 1: primetime games on the road, asked the Packers going to
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Those are the toughest games in this league
Speaker 1: to win when you have to be on the road
Speaker 1: at night. But the other thing I'll say is just
Speaker 1: look at the way that game went west. That game
Speaker 1: was completely dictated by the turnovers. Minnesota gets the pick six,
Speaker 1: They're in control of the game. The second half, Dalvin
Speaker 1: Cook fumbles, Cousins throws a pick, Seattle gets all the
Speaker 1: momentum and starts going the other way, and Seattle's on
Speaker 1: the verge of putting that game away, and DK Metcalf
Speaker 1: fumbles and all of a sudden, Minnesota then starts to
Speaker 1: rally and ends up with a shot at the bit
Speaker 1: at the comeback at the end that that game was.
Speaker 1: That game just screamed how huge turnovers are in the
Speaker 1: NFL and how they affect games, because it was just
Speaker 1: going back and forth that way. And that's the one
Speaker 1: thing I will say about the Packers. And you talk
Speaker 1: about flaws, I know the Packers have their flaws. They
Speaker 1: have their flaws on both sides of the ball. But
Speaker 1: the thing that they have done so well this year
Speaker 1: is offensively they have they have protected the football and
Speaker 1: defensively they have taken it away. And that is a
Speaker 1: way that you can win any game you have to
Speaker 1: play in this league. And that's what the Packers are
Speaker 1: going to take with them into the stretch run and
Speaker 1: hopefully into January into the postseason, is that they are
Speaker 1: a team that way more often than not, wins the
Speaker 1: turnover battle, and uh and you know that's that, that's
Speaker 1: why this is that this is the greatest anything can
Speaker 1: happen league. Yeah, it is, Mike. And the thing that
Speaker 1: I think sometimes fans get blindsided by. And I don't
Speaker 1: understand why, because it's been two years since the Packers
Speaker 1: have really played winning football. You are nine and three
Speaker 1: right now. You are a good team with flaws. There's
Speaker 1: a huge difference right now and this thing being a
Speaker 1: great team with some flaws as opposed to being a
Speaker 1: bad football team. There are bad football teams on every
Speaker 1: channel every Sunday. You have to be thankful for where
Speaker 1: you're at in the way this is Mike. If you
Speaker 1: line up, if you take away all the team names, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put them all up on your whiteboard. You
Speaker 1: take away all the team names, you put down the
Speaker 1: last five four or five games here on the schedule
Speaker 1: for all those teams which schedule are you taking In
Speaker 1: a lot of cases, you're taking Green Bays. When you
Speaker 1: look at what New Orleans is dealing with, when you
Speaker 1: look at what Seattle has coming up, and when you
Speaker 1: look at San Francisco, and then by the way, you
Speaker 1: got the Rams trying to factor into all this as well,
Speaker 1: and they can, and they kept themselves very much in
Speaker 1: the thick of things with a win over Arizona and
Speaker 1: the fact that Minnesota lost. The Rams are not only
Speaker 1: one game behind the Vikings and and two games behind
Speaker 1: the Packers at seven and five. They're lingering. They have
Speaker 1: they have a tough schedule, but they are the defending
Speaker 1: conference champson if they get go and look out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And this is where I think, for Green Bay's sake again,
Speaker 1: I don't want to just preach this one and no thing.
Speaker 1: I don't want to know. Fans sometimes get tired of that.
Speaker 1: But if you just control what you can control in
Speaker 1: front of you, if you can get to twelve and four,
Speaker 1: thirteen and three. I wrote this an inbox this morning,
Speaker 1: good things are going to happen for you. It's just
Speaker 1: all gonna line up. I mean, those seas are going
Speaker 1: to part. Now. You need a little bit of help
Speaker 1: to get in the buy conversation. But Wins has you
Speaker 1: in that orbit. And it starts and continues on Sunday
Speaker 1: against Washington, Sunday against Washington, And as you say, it
Speaker 1: will be one at a time and we will get
Speaker 1: to our discussion in Washington on tomorrow show, and a
Speaker 1: little more detail. For now, we will call it a
Speaker 1: wrap on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to
Speaker 1: follow all of our coverage of the team on packers
Speaker 1: dot com, subscribe to us, like us on iTunes and
Speaker 1: other podcast services, and check out the Packers YouTube channel
Speaker 1: for West. I'm Mike. Thanks for tuning in, everybody, See
Speaker 1: you next time.