Speaker 1: Hi, everybody.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from Packers dot Com.
Speaker 2: I am Mike Spafford, joined as always by my partner
Speaker 2: in crime, Wes Hodkowitz. We're coming to you here from
Speaker 2: our studios at Lambefield and Wes, we have double duty
Speaker 2: to take care of on this show today because we
Speaker 2: have to talk Packers Saints. We also have to talk
Speaker 2: Packers Lions. Review one game, preview another. We'll start with
Speaker 2: reviewing Sunday's game at Lambefield And I don't know where
Speaker 2: you want to start with this, but I'm going to
Speaker 2: start right here because last week we spent a good
Speaker 2: portion of our Tuesday show talking about how one bad
Speaker 2: quarter of football can wipe out three pretty good quarters
Speaker 2: of football. Well, now, one awfully good quarter of football
Speaker 2: wiped out three very very struggling quarters of football for
Speaker 2: the Green Bay Packers, and they came out of these
Speaker 2: two games games at one on one because they pulled
Speaker 2: off a seventeen point fourth quarter comeback against the Saints.
Speaker 3: Can I can I break down the third wall a
Speaker 3: little bit here? Well, just give you a little bit
Speaker 3: of a background here. So I got tickets for two
Speaker 3: separate collections of people. My good friend Matteo Rubinato and
Speaker 3: his family were at the game. Also, one of our
Speaker 3: former interns of Donna Olson, brought her dad to the game.
Speaker 3: Both of them. At halftime, my texted, go on, I'm
Speaker 3: really sorry because like they both are super excited and
Speaker 3: it was a slow start. And then afterwards, after that
Speaker 3: fourth quarter I sent both the text going, now ENVM
Speaker 3: turned out cool. Yeah, uh, it's funny. Mike. As many
Speaker 3: years as I've covered this thing, and you obviously have
Speaker 3: a couple more of these games under your belt than
Speaker 3: I do, I always feel like I see something new
Speaker 3: and this game, as much as there were some parallels
Speaker 3: to what happened in twenty eighteen, the only other time
Speaker 3: the Packers have come back from a seventeen point deficit
Speaker 3: in that win over the Bears in the beginning of
Speaker 3: the hundred six, this one just felt different because this one,
Speaker 3: it's not like the quarterback was out, it's not that
Speaker 3: anybody was injured. While other than the people that were
Speaker 3: injured at the beginning, it was just a matter of
Speaker 3: the Packers just really were not executing early on, and
Speaker 3: there were too many penalties they were thrown in a
Speaker 3: bunch of third and long situations. As good as you know,
Speaker 3: Jordan Love has been on third and longs. It's difficult
Speaker 3: when it's third and nine plus.
Speaker 1: Especially against the defense like that one oh.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent, they're not going to give you any
Speaker 3: extra you know, leeway. But then you get to that
Speaker 3: fourth quarter and that last seven minutes specifically, and everything
Speaker 3: turned over. And what I learned from that. There's a
Speaker 3: number of things you and I are going to talk
Speaker 3: about here in terms of the grittiness of the team,
Speaker 3: guys stepping up and making plays. But if there was
Speaker 3: ever a situation that shows you what a young quarterback's
Speaker 3: medal is made out of, it was that with Jordan Love,
Speaker 3: the kids stepped up routinely and made a bunch of
Speaker 3: plays that I don't know a lot of NFL quarterbacks
Speaker 3: could make.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that.
Speaker 2: One of the big talking points after the game was
Speaker 2: just how as badly as everything had gone for three
Speaker 2: quarters that you know, as we've talked about with Jordan Love,
Speaker 2: he was still he was still poised. He didn't let
Speaker 2: anything fluster him or rattle him. He was the leader
Speaker 2: of that team, or specifically of the offense in getting
Speaker 2: things going, because we'll talk in a minute about how
Speaker 2: the defense on balance played a pretty darn good football
Speaker 2: game from start to finish. But when you talk about
Speaker 2: a comeback like this, and I mentioned this an insider
Speaker 2: inbox other conversations I've had with people, I've seen a
Speaker 2: lot of comebacks in my day, both by the Packers,
Speaker 2: by the other team, whatever it may be. I don't
Speaker 2: know if I've ever seen one that felt like it
Speaker 2: came completely out of the blue, that it just you
Speaker 2: just had felt like there was nothing that you were
Speaker 2: going to hang your hat on and say, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's still a chance. There's still a chance, you know,
Speaker 2: even going all the way up to the first play
Speaker 2: of the fourth quarter, the Packers are in the red zone.
Speaker 2: They've got fourth and two at the thirteen yard line.
Speaker 2: Seventeen to nothing at the start of the fourth quarter
Speaker 2: is not insurmountable. It's three scores. It's a tough hill
Speaker 2: to climb, but it's not insurmountable. But then on fourth
Speaker 2: and two from the thirteen yard line, they the Packers
Speaker 2: can't connect. Love and Patrick Taylor are just not on
Speaker 2: the same page with when the Saints, in essence, we're
Speaker 2: giving them the first down, the way they were lining
Speaker 2: up defensively, you don't execute that pass, you turn the
Speaker 2: ball over on downs, and you know, you're just like,
Speaker 2: what do you even have to go on here? And
Speaker 2: then suddenly, you know, the defense was holding up it's
Speaker 2: and kept getting the ball back to the offense to
Speaker 2: give them chance after chance after chance. And then suddenly
Speaker 2: those chances turned into field goal, touchdown, touchdown, a gutsy
Speaker 2: two point conversion on the middle score after the second
Speaker 2: touchdown or after the first touchdown, the second score, which
Speaker 2: which turned out to be a tremendous play by Jordan Love,
Speaker 2: just off schedule, improvising finding samai toure when he starts
Speaker 2: to scramble and buy some time, but he's got no
Speaker 2: way to get to the goal line himself, and he
Speaker 2: just whips a pass across across his body, and you know,
Speaker 2: you could feel the energy in the stadium. The defense
Speaker 2: was getting its job done. You know, you know, Jayden
Speaker 2: Reid makes a diving catch for thirty yards just a
Speaker 2: couple of plays after Jordan Love scrambles twenty four yards
Speaker 2: up the sideline. I mean, it was just it started
Speaker 2: to compound itself, but it it just it felt like
Speaker 2: it came out of the blue, and and I give credit.
Speaker 2: You know, there have been some discussions in Matt Lafleur's
Speaker 2: press conferences like is this is a young team? Are
Speaker 2: they just too young to know any better? That you're
Speaker 2: not supposed to be able to do that. You're not
Speaker 2: supposed to just flip a switch and go win a
Speaker 2: game that you kind of had no business winning. But
Speaker 2: they found a way and it certainly puts the team
Speaker 2: in a much better place mentally, psychologically and everything going
Speaker 2: into a short week with a division rival coming in
Speaker 2: here for Thursday night football.
Speaker 3: And that's what impressed me the most because a game
Speaker 3: that maybe they didn't have any business winning came a
Speaker 3: week after a game they had no business losing, correct,
Speaker 3: when they had so much momentum going for them in
Speaker 3: the fourth quarter against the Falcons on the road. This
Speaker 3: game a couple things. It also stood out to me.
Speaker 3: You touched on it with Jordan Love inside the red zone.
Speaker 3: There are so many things about him and we're getting
Speaker 3: you know, it's we're almost getting long winded. I'm definitely
Speaker 3: getting long winded talking about his poise and his confidence
Speaker 3: and just his composure in those situations. But the kid
Speaker 3: is the guy's just built for red zone situations and
Speaker 3: situational football. Yeah, that played a two ray although it
Speaker 3: wasn't technically in the red zone. I mean he's dancing,
Speaker 3: he's scrambling the pocket, he's stepping tall, he's seeing through
Speaker 3: the clutter, and he's finding his receiver on an extended
Speaker 3: play that you don't typically see happen on a two
Speaker 3: point conversion. Usually you got to hit your mark right
Speaker 3: away or you're not going to get the points. They made.
Speaker 3: Play happened, though Matt Lafloory even said he didn't feel
Speaker 3: great about the play call going into that, but Jordan
Speaker 3: Love made the Packers look really smart.
Speaker 2: And when you look at the play on film, just
Speaker 2: another example of how things were not going in the
Speaker 2: Packers direction and they weren't really executing well. Jaden Reid
Speaker 2: comes in motion on that two point conversion and his
Speaker 2: timing on the motion is off. He almost gets hit
Speaker 2: by the shotgun snap because he either he goes too
Speaker 2: far doesn't get their I don't know what exactly his
Speaker 2: assignment was in terms of the motion, but the snap
Speaker 2: on the two point conversion almost hit him in the
Speaker 2: leg and would have completely wrecked that and obviously would
Speaker 2: have changed everything going down the stretch if the Packers
Speaker 2: are down eight as opposed to being down six. I mean,
Speaker 2: there was so much that the Packers had to do
Speaker 2: to overcome to kind of get out of their own way.
Speaker 2: When you talk about the penalties and the pre snap
Speaker 2: stuff and the holding and the special teams was committing
Speaker 2: penalties and putting them in bad field position and all
Speaker 2: of that kind of stuff. Somehow they just you know,
Speaker 2: Matt Lafleur talks about resilience, but it wasn't just resilience.
Speaker 2: There was also a persistence in this game. This team,
Speaker 2: This team showed a persistence, whether you're talking about the
Speaker 2: defense going out there and just continually getting stops to
Speaker 2: get the ball back to the offense, or whether you're
Speaker 2: talking about Jordan Love trying to hit Romeo Dobbs against
Speaker 2: Isaac Yadam the one on one coverage on the outside
Speaker 2: because Marshaun Lattimore's on the other side. You don't really
Speaker 2: want to mess with the all pro over there. He
Speaker 2: kept after it and then sure enough they finally connected
Speaker 2: for what turned up out to be the game winning touchdown.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then what has to happen after that, it's
Speaker 3: Andres Carlson making that extra point. I mean, it was
Speaker 3: even something that got brought up with Rich Pasaccia though
Speaker 3: those are big key moments for a young team, a
Speaker 3: young holder, first year player, and Daniel Wheelan and you know,
Speaker 3: early on Wheeland has the punt return for a touchdown.
Speaker 3: They make the adjustments there and then honestly, what sort
Speaker 3: of picked the Packers up during that final stretch, to
Speaker 3: my eye, it was that play that they ran on
Speaker 3: the special team's kickoff coverage where you had Darnell Savage
Speaker 3: knifing inside of Keishawn Nixon making an open field tackle
Speaker 3: and making Rashid Shaheed, who actually had that punt return
Speaker 3: for touchdown, right dropping him at the seventeen and making
Speaker 3: the Saints take over the ball at that spot. There
Speaker 3: were some unfortunate things. Derek Carr goes down with the
Speaker 3: ac joint sprain on one of the sacks that Rashawn
Speaker 3: Gary had, but then Gary down the stretch made some
Speaker 3: big plays, four quarterback hits, three sacks. I don't even
Speaker 3: know how many pressures he got accredited for with like
Speaker 3: Pro Football Focus, but the guy was constantly around the
Speaker 3: football it was my story after the game. You touched
Speaker 3: on it as well, the complimentary football aspect of this.
Speaker 3: It's everything that was missing in Atlanta. It was President
Speaker 3: Lambellfield on Sunday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it just goes to show how, you know,
Speaker 2: as we talked about last week, how important crunch time
Speaker 2: is in this business. You know, these games unless unless
Speaker 2: it's you know, the Miami Dolphins against the Denver Broncos,
Speaker 2: these games are.
Speaker 1: These games are not.
Speaker 2: They're very rarely out of reach, you know, with when
Speaker 2: they're fifteen minutes to play, when there's still a whole
Speaker 2: quarter to go, and seventeen to nothing looked terrible, and
Speaker 2: the Packers offensively were playing terribly. But if you can
Speaker 2: get your act together in crunch time, and especially when
Speaker 2: you're playing at home, just like the Falcons last week
Speaker 2: were at home, they get the crowd behind them, you know.
Speaker 2: Matt Lafleur said after the game, Momentum is Momentum is
Speaker 2: a weird thing.
Speaker 1: There are all.
Speaker 2: Sorts of philosophical debates about whether it's real or not
Speaker 2: or or whatever. But man, you've you felt it, and
Speaker 2: you felt it in the stadium that the Lambeau crowd,
Speaker 2: they were there for Jordan Love's first home start. And
Speaker 2: once they had something to cheer about, man, they brought
Speaker 2: it and and yeah, the Saints lost Derek Carr on
Speaker 2: one of those one of those sacks by Rashaun Gary.
Speaker 2: Jamis Winston steps in, He's still got Chris o'lave and
Speaker 2: Michael Thomas and these guys to throw the ball to it,
Speaker 2: and the Packers defense just kept kept getting the job done.
Speaker 2: You know, I pointed out in my in by what
Speaker 2: you might have misfeature that's on the website, there were two,
Speaker 2: you know, really two defensive sequences that not a lot
Speaker 2: of people are talking about because they weren't in the
Speaker 2: fourth quarter. But you look at the end of the
Speaker 2: first half, when Derek Carr is still in the game,
Speaker 2: They've got first and goal in the seven yard line
Speaker 2: with a chance to go up twenty one to zero,
Speaker 2: and the Packers defense held made him kick the field goal.
Speaker 2: It was only seventeen to nothing at the half as
Speaker 2: opposed to twenty one. And then on one of Winston's
Speaker 2: early possessions, he actually gets a first down or two
Speaker 2: and they have a first down at the I believe
Speaker 2: it's the thirty seven yard line. For green Bay. No,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, forty one yard line of green Bay. So
Speaker 2: they moved the chains one more time. That field goal
Speaker 2: is under fifty yards and they're looking at potentially adding
Speaker 2: three points even with Winston not doing a whole lot.
Speaker 2: But the defense rose up and got a three and
Speaker 2: out there, made them punt. The Saints didn't get to
Speaker 2: didn't get any more points on the board. And then,
Speaker 2: of course, you know Packers catch a break when when
Speaker 2: the Saints rookie kicker misses from forty six yards.
Speaker 1: But that goes back to.
Speaker 2: Your point about Andras Carlson with the pat right, he's
Speaker 2: a rookie kicker as well, there's a lot of pressure there. No,
Speaker 2: thirty three yards for a pat is not forty six
Speaker 2: yards from the hash for a field goal. But still
Speaker 2: one guy, one rookie made a clutch kick in this
Speaker 2: game and the other one didn't, and it was huge
Speaker 2: in the Packers coming out on the winning side.
Speaker 3: And honors made too, because I mean that thirty eight
Speaker 3: yard er. The Packers don't win this game if you
Speaker 3: don't make that field.
Speaker 1: Goal, Yeah, absolutely, because that was to get him on
Speaker 1: the board.
Speaker 3: If they don't get any points on that drive after
Speaker 3: they've already been stopped on the fourth and two and
Speaker 3: turned it over. That would have been almost since or moderable.
Speaker 3: Just from a momentum standpoint or rhythm standpoint, I think
Speaker 3: it would have been hard to kick it into that
Speaker 3: extra gear. But this is what had to happen. It
Speaker 3: was the response the Packers needed to make. You didn't
Speaker 3: have jyr Alexander, who was questionable with the back injurer.
Speaker 3: You didn't have Christian Wattson, David Baktiari or Aaron Jones. Again,
Speaker 3: they needed young guys to rise that occasion. Whether or
Speaker 3: not they know enough to know not what they know
Speaker 3: in these matchups, it's irrelevant. It's about what do you
Speaker 3: do when you go out there. I thought that team
Speaker 3: followed the energy of Jordan Love, the twenty five yard
Speaker 3: scramble that he had to kickstart one of the series,
Speaker 3: the thirty yard pass to Jaden Reid. We saw a
Speaker 3: number of different DPI calls. Again, for as much as
Speaker 3: people have been talking about oh, he throws downfield so often,
Speaker 3: the Packers are generating yards, They're generating points off those opportunities.
Speaker 3: It's exciting. Packers are playing an exciting brand of football
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you talk about again about the persistence that
Speaker 2: it took in this comeback, Matt Lafleur continued to try
Speaker 2: to push the ball down the field. This was not
Speaker 2: some kind of dink and dunk. Take what the defenses
Speaker 2: giving you comeback, and you know, on the one drive,
Speaker 2: two explosive attempts down the field turn into two defensive
Speaker 2: pass interference penalties covering sixty seven yards and suddenly you're
Speaker 2: in scoring position to make it a one score game.
Speaker 2: Jaden Reid he got his hands on some passes that
Speaker 2: he'd like to have back that he feels he should
Speaker 2: have caught. Everybody feels he should have caught those, but
Speaker 2: Jordan Reid kept going to him. Not that he had
Speaker 2: a whole lot of choice with Aaron Jones and Christian
Speaker 2: Watson not in the game, but Jayden Reid just kept
Speaker 2: plugging away. He was persistent, He stayed with it, and
Speaker 2: he makes the big thirty yard diving catch down the
Speaker 2: field that you know, whatever the next gen stats say
Speaker 2: was thirty percent catch probability or whatever, but he he
Speaker 2: makes the play when he had some other plays earlier
Speaker 2: in the game that maybe were a little bit more routine,
Speaker 2: so to speak, and he he doesn't come up with him.
Speaker 2: But they just these young guys that had that had
Speaker 2: to step up into big roles. They just kept playing
Speaker 2: and they just kept fighting. And Matt lafleur Scher was
Speaker 2: proud of him after the game.
Speaker 3: I appreciate the analytics and the numbers certainly that played
Speaker 3: into the Packers' decision to go for the two point conversion. Yeah,
Speaker 3: successfully make it, but it always gets I always get
Speaker 3: the kick out of these percentages or these probabilities, because
Speaker 3: there was also like a nine ninety seven point four
Speaker 3: percent probability that the Saints were gonna win that game
Speaker 3: with like seven minutes last day, back and change. But
Speaker 3: the Packers didn't give up. They believed, and now they
Speaker 3: have to enjoy it very quickly and then prepare for
Speaker 3: the Detroit Lions.
Speaker 2: Well that's what I want to get to, is how
Speaker 2: quickly the Packers have to turn the page here. But
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Speaker 2: subs fifty years of better. All right, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of challenges here facing the Packers on a short week west.
Speaker 2: Not only is there obviously the limited preparation time and everything,
Speaker 2: which which is the same for both teams coming off
Speaker 2: of a game on Sunday, but the Packers have they
Speaker 2: have so much about their operation on offense and on
Speaker 2: special teams in particular, that they need to clean up.
Speaker 2: There were all the penalties on offense. There was the
Speaker 2: there were penalties on special teams. There was the punp
Speaker 2: return allowed for a touchdown. You have so little time
Speaker 2: right now to try to straighten that stuff out. I mean,
Speaker 2: you have to review it in some fashion. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, you've got to move on and prepare,
Speaker 2: specifically for a Detroit Lions team that's coming into lambeau
Speaker 2: Field with the same two and one record. Both the
Speaker 2: Bears and the Vikings are zero to three. So this
Speaker 2: is for first place in the NFC North at this
Speaker 2: early stage of the season. The winner is going to
Speaker 2: walk off that field on Thursday night, you know, sitting
Speaker 2: on top of the division. Big game here that you know,
Speaker 2: both of the Packers and Lions games this year are
Speaker 2: in short weeks on Thursdays, right the one in Detroit
Speaker 2: will beyond Thanksgiving Day. This is the first one, and
Speaker 2: for a Week four game, it feels awfully big.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for a thursdaynight football game, it feels awfully big.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's been some blowouts here over the past
Speaker 3: couple of years in these games, and certainly this one
Speaker 3: is one that I think a lot of people are
Speaker 3: gonna be tuning into. The Lions had such an interesting
Speaker 3: performance against the Falcons. The more I dived into this,
Speaker 3: that is just a strange game that they played. Defensively,
Speaker 3: played excellent. They stopped that running game. Jared Goff through
Speaker 3: thirty three passes and targeted four receivers, just ridiculous, kind
Speaker 3: of like it's a'm and Ross Saint Brown And it
Speaker 3: was Sam Laporta in this game, and that was pretty
Speaker 3: much the passing attack. And then Jamior Gibbs I think
Speaker 3: showed a lot of the flashes that we've seen with him.
Speaker 3: But I'm telling you right now, Michael I am going
Speaker 3: to telegraph what my final thoughts player to watch for
Speaker 3: this is going to be.
Speaker 2: Well, we have to shoot it pretty soon because the
Speaker 2: game is.
Speaker 3: But I don't want to do any spoilers, but I'll
Speaker 3: say this, man, this is a Rashawn Gary game. And
Speaker 3: what I mean by that is the Lions do have
Speaker 3: a couple injuries on the offensive line. There are some
Speaker 3: guys that are banged up. As good as that group
Speaker 3: has been, and they still were not sure whether or
Speaker 3: not they're going to have David Montgomery was estimated as
Speaker 3: limited on Monday, but that's their third down back and
Speaker 3: I keep on it. But the first thing I watched
Speaker 3: in the first two games with the Lions is Gibbs
Speaker 3: is a very talented back and he looks like he
Speaker 3: needs some seasoning in terms of the other aspects of
Speaker 3: the position. Packers have to make that count. You have
Speaker 3: to put on pressure to Jared Goff because, as we've
Speaker 3: seen so many times, including last season, when he gets
Speaker 3: into a rhythm and he protects the football, it's a
Speaker 3: pretty efficient offense and it can be difficult to stop.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and this is really interesting the way this falls.
Speaker 2: And we were kind of hinting at this last week
Speaker 2: because it doesn't doesn't happen this way very often. But
Speaker 2: here the Packers and Lions are meeting in week four,
Speaker 2: and they have both played the same team each of
Speaker 2: the last two weeks, right, And you know, it's a
Speaker 2: week to week league in the NFL. Different teams match
Speaker 2: up with opponents in different ways, so you can't you
Speaker 2: can't read too much into it. But there's a lot
Speaker 2: of there's a lot of sort of thumbs up thumbs
Speaker 2: down kind of things when you try to make the comparisons.
Speaker 2: Because the Detroit Lions, for as much as they control
Speaker 2: old that win over the Falcons, they only scored twenty
Speaker 2: points against Atlanta's defense in their own stadium. The Packers
Speaker 2: had twenty four points against Atlanta in three quarters before
Speaker 2: things kind of fell apart in the fourth quarter on
Speaker 2: the road there. But then the flip side of it
Speaker 2: is that Atlanta running game that the Packers could not handle.
Speaker 2: The Lions completely shut it down. I believe they ended
Speaker 2: up as a team the Falcons with only forty four
Speaker 2: yards rushing on twenty attempts. So that turned the game
Speaker 2: over to Desmond Ridder, the Falcons quarterback. It was all
Speaker 2: in his hands, and the Lions just made his life
Speaker 2: miserable in the pocket. They were getting after him. Play
Speaker 2: after play after play. They end up with seven sacks
Speaker 2: of Rittter in the game. So when I look at
Speaker 2: this one, and I totally agree with you with regard
Speaker 2: to Rashaan Gary, the flip side of it is true
Speaker 2: for me. If you're the Packers, Aiden Hutchinson is the
Speaker 2: guy you can't let dictate what is going to be
Speaker 2: going on out there. And the Lions have a good defense,
Speaker 2: and they have other good defensive players aside from Aiden Hutchinson,
Speaker 2: But to me, it feels like he's the you know,
Speaker 2: the old Reggie Jackson New York Yankees line. He's the
Speaker 2: straw that stirs the drink on that Lions defense. I
Speaker 2: think we saw it against the Chiefs in the in
Speaker 2: the kickoff opener in Week one, on that Thursday night game.
Speaker 2: Aiden Hutchinson is the guy who makes that defense go,
Speaker 2: I think, And if the Packers can whether David Baktier
Speaker 2: is gonna play, we don't know, you know, Zach Tom
Speaker 2: injured his knee, you know, at right tackle. We don't
Speaker 2: really know where the Packers are going to be on
Speaker 2: the offensive line for this game. But man, you've got
Speaker 2: to keep Aiden Hutchinson from taking command of this thing
Speaker 2: because he can wreck a whole lot offense.
Speaker 3: And if you haven't watched the Lions yet this year,
Speaker 3: I haven't seen a lot of them. What I would
Speaker 3: suggest is in the back of your mind, kind of
Speaker 3: keep twenty nineteen Zadarius Smith in your head. I mean,
Speaker 3: they are going to move him around all over the place.
Speaker 3: I mean John Runyon, Royce Newman, if he gets the
Speaker 3: call again at left guard, They're going to have to
Speaker 3: be aware of his whereabouts in this one because they
Speaker 3: just they don't plug him in at one spot. It's
Speaker 3: not even about playing them off the edges. They'll play
Speaker 3: him anywhere now at this point, and the guy can
Speaker 3: actually wreck the game from there because it's not just
Speaker 3: about the sacks that he gets, it's the way in
Speaker 3: which the defense around him adjust to that. I'll tell
Speaker 3: you this, man, at the end of last year, I
Speaker 3: know the Lions statistically we're not very good. I think
Speaker 3: we saw two of the best performances that they had
Speaker 3: against Green Bay, both at their place and then here
Speaker 3: in the finale.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree entirely, but that.
Speaker 3: Momentum they had at the end of last season with
Speaker 3: Aaron Glenn's unit, they continued to build off of it,
Speaker 3: and I think they've been one of the more stingy
Speaker 3: defenses so far this season. You had to read about
Speaker 3: it when I wrote about it in Inbox. But you know,
Speaker 3: Brian Branch is looking like an absolute gem of a
Speaker 3: pick there in the middle of the second round, a
Speaker 3: guy that had a first round grade. But everybody's like, oh,
Speaker 3: it's twenty twenty three. Do you want to spend a
Speaker 3: first round pick on a safety. He's reminding everybody about
Speaker 3: how impactful that position can be. And again, Michael, that
Speaker 3: is a spot in that secondary that they really have
Speaker 3: struggle gold in recent years. To Phill they had some
Speaker 3: decent pass rushers, they had some good linebackers, but they
Speaker 3: didn't have defensive backs. They're starting to find some defensive backs.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah they are.
Speaker 2: It's it's coming together for the Lions defensively, and you wonder,
Speaker 2: I mean, they they certainly certainly made life difficult for
Speaker 2: the Chiefs, and that kickoff opener. They had some some
Speaker 2: ups and downs against Geno Smith. That was kind of
Speaker 2: a high scoring game there in Week two, although the
Speaker 2: Seahawks did have a pick six off of golf in
Speaker 2: that game, so that that added to the point total.
Speaker 2: That when it comes to points against, that counts against
Speaker 2: your defense kind of unfairly in that respect. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean holding the holding the Atlanta Falcons, a two
Speaker 2: to zero team that had a lot going for him,
Speaker 2: holding those guys to just six points last week. These
Speaker 2: short weeks, you never you never know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: Both teams are up against the same limitations quickly before
Speaker 2: we go. Aside from anything that we've already talked about,
Speaker 2: anything else that jumps out at you as a key
Speaker 2: to victory for Green Bay in.
Speaker 3: This field, position and time of possession, the Lions have
Speaker 3: done a really good job of both of those things.
Speaker 3: I personally said for a number of years, I think
Speaker 3: Jack Fox is probably one of the more underrated punters
Speaker 3: in the NFL. A lot of people don't talk about
Speaker 3: this guy, but the guy only puts together solid performance
Speaker 3: after solid performance, a consistent forty two net punter. When
Speaker 3: the Lions are playing their brand of football, they are
Speaker 3: controlling the temple, those things, the tempo of it. Khalif
Speaker 3: Raymond involved in that, and you mentioned it Michael a
Speaker 3: couple weeks back with that pick six. That's the one
Speaker 3: thing that Green Bay I think is going to need
Speaker 3: in this game to succeed. I'm not saying you have
Speaker 3: to go and score a touchdown, but I'm just saying
Speaker 3: you need to find ways to take away the football
Speaker 3: and generate points off those takeaways. That's been one area
Speaker 3: outside of the you know, the kuway Walker interception that
Speaker 3: they've kind of struggled with here early on. But if
Speaker 3: you can win the turnover battle, you can win the
Speaker 3: time of possession. I think the Green Bit Packers can
Speaker 3: get out of this thing. Three and one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the thing that jumps out to me,
Speaker 2: and a lot of it comes off of just with
Speaker 2: what the Packers are struggling with with their ground game
Speaker 2: in particular, and then also you look at what the
Speaker 2: Lions did to the Falcons offensively. The Packers have to
Speaker 2: find a way to stay balanced in this game, and
Speaker 2: Green Bay's run game is not where they want it
Speaker 2: to be. Certainly, if Aaron Jones can get back and
Speaker 2: be able to play in this game, that would be
Speaker 2: a huge boost in that regard. But as much as
Speaker 2: the ground game is struggling, You're still going to have
Speaker 2: to find a way to be effective in some fashion
Speaker 2: on the ground, because the Falcons found out last week
Speaker 2: what it's like if you become one dimensional against this
Speaker 2: Lion's defense, it's lights out. I mean, Desmond Ritter just
Speaker 2: had no chance back there. He was getting buried every
Speaker 2: other play when he's trying to throw, and the Packers
Speaker 2: can't get into Packers can't get into that kind of game.
Speaker 2: You've got to find a way to get something you
Speaker 2: can rely on, something that can be consistent on the
Speaker 2: ground so that Lion's defense has to play You, honest,
Speaker 2: I agree with you.
Speaker 3: And the other thing I'll close on this. You know,
Speaker 3: you're absolutely right there's a lot of corrections green By
Speaker 3: need to make coming out of that game against the Saints.
Speaker 3: But to me, now, maybe this is just me being
Speaker 3: too much of a softy. I guess you could say,
Speaker 3: but it's like, well, a soft, sensitive softy. No. But
Speaker 3: to me, I had almost bring up those last ten
Speaker 3: minutes of film and just put that in front of
Speaker 3: the team too and be like, this is what it's
Speaker 3: supposed to look like.
Speaker 1: This, Yeah, this is who this is who we are.
Speaker 3: This is who we are, because you know what's great
Speaker 3: about that sequence, Michael, It's not like the Packers just
Speaker 3: completed every single pass and they everything went right. No,
Speaker 3: Jordan Love had plenty of incompletions during that time as well,
Speaker 3: but they kept getting after it. They kept chopping wood.
Speaker 3: I think was one of the expressions that Preston Smith
Speaker 3: used after the game. And these are the type of
Speaker 3: matchups you want to be able to do. Because I'm
Speaker 3: telling you, Michael, the way the schedule's lining up, things
Speaker 3: are favorable for Green Bay. They needed to get out
Speaker 3: of this first stretch of the season. Okay, you know
Speaker 3: this wasn't advantageous to go two weeks on the road
Speaker 3: and then come back home if you go, if you
Speaker 3: split on the road, and when your first your first
Speaker 3: two at home, you go into that Monday night game
Speaker 3: against the Raiders feeling pretty good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And obviously everybody's crossing their fingers. We're probably not
Speaker 2: going to know until ninety minutes before kickoff just where
Speaker 2: the Packers are health wise with all of these guys
Speaker 2: who have been who have been missing time. But hey,
Speaker 2: that's life in the NFL, and the Packers are dealing
Speaker 2: with it every day.
Speaker 3: Now, Packers kept eleven offensive linemen at least on the
Speaker 3: initial fifty three minute man roster, and every day we're
Speaker 3: being reminded about how you need those guys in order
Speaker 3: to navigate a season.
Speaker 1: There's a reason for it.
Speaker 2: Right with that, we'll call it a rap on this
Speaker 2: edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of
Speaker 2: our coverage of the team and everything from Thursday night's
Speaker 2: big game against the Lions at lambeau Field. We'll have
Speaker 2: it all for you on Packers dot com. For Wes,
Speaker 2: I'm Mike. Thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1: Everybody. We will see you next time.