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 here from our studios at
Speaker 1: lambeau Field and West. Coming off of Monday Night football,
Speaker 1: we watch the New Orleans Saints pretty much dismantled the
Speaker 1: Indianapolis Colts. The reason I'm starting there is because with
Speaker 1: two weeks to go now in the regular season, we
Speaker 1: have four teams in the NFC that are all at
Speaker 1: eleven and three the forty Niners, the Seahawks, the Saints,
Speaker 1: and the Packers. So the race is on for division
Speaker 1: titles in the NFC West and the NFC North. The
Speaker 1: race is on for those top two seeds and the
Speaker 1: first round buys that would go with those in the
Speaker 1: NFC and Matt Lafleur on Monday, his weekly Monday Day
Speaker 1: after game press conference made the Packers objective over these
Speaker 1: last two weeks pretty clear. It is about winning to
Speaker 1: earn as many home games in January as possible. This
Speaker 1: team wants to be playing at lambeau Field because as
Speaker 1: of now they aren't coming back two road games. The
Speaker 1: Packers want to get back to Lambo in January and
Speaker 1: play at home again. Yeah, and Zadarius Smith kind of
Speaker 1: talked about it too with wearing his jacket and this
Speaker 1: is nice leather kind of fur jacket in the locker room. Uh,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be out there in January. It's
Speaker 1: it's tough. It's a tough environment to play and the
Speaker 1: Packers are able to practice in every single week at
Speaker 1: this point. And it's been a very cold November and December,
Speaker 1: so that is a big advantage for them if they
Speaker 1: can make this thing go. And you know, I've talked
Speaker 1: to a nauseum about you know, Roger's feelings on it
Speaker 1: and importance of it, and I know there's been this sentiment.
Speaker 1: I even had this conversation with my buddy Scott a
Speaker 1: few days ago. Roger seems to always play well in
Speaker 1: warmer environments. Are in domes, sure, but you're talking about
Speaker 1: communication issues, You're talking about cross noise. I mean you
Speaker 1: think of the Supernome, what that place is like when
Speaker 1: it's not a playoff game. You know, Levi Stadium I
Speaker 1: think has a really good environment to it as well
Speaker 1: in a home field advantage for the forty Niners. So
Speaker 1: unless they're playing in at and T Stadium in Dallas,
Speaker 1: which just seems to beat Lambo South. It's just you
Speaker 1: want to be able to play these January games at
Speaker 1: lambou Field, and the way that this line's up for
Speaker 1: green Bay right now, with back to back games against
Speaker 1: Minnesota Detroit, they're in a position to not only do
Speaker 1: that right now, but also get that first round by,
Speaker 1: that very coveted first round by. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean
Speaker 1: to go through the scenarios quickly. The Packers need one
Speaker 1: win to win the NFC North Championship. They can either
Speaker 1: beat the Vikings this coming week or beat the Lions
Speaker 1: in week seventeen to win the NFC North. If you
Speaker 1: win the NFC North, you're guaranteed at least one home game.
Speaker 1: The Packers would be no worse than the three seed.
Speaker 1: But to get a top two seed, which would come
Speaker 1: with which a first round by would come with that,
Speaker 1: the Packers need to win their last two games that
Speaker 1: would get them no worse than the two seed, and
Speaker 1: then the number one seed is also in play, because
Speaker 1: if the Packers were to win their last two games,
Speaker 1: and if both the Seahawks and the forty Niners each
Speaker 1: take one more loss, then the Packers would actually be
Speaker 1: the one seed. So if you can keep all that straight,
Speaker 1: and I'm doing my best too, but at this point,
Speaker 1: it's one week at a time, because the Packers can
Speaker 1: win the NFC North and that's all they can win
Speaker 1: Monday night in Minneapolis. The Packers can win the NFC North. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the Vikings are looking to clinch a playoff spot because
Speaker 1: they need one more win to knock the Rams officially
Speaker 1: out of contention and get themselves in the playoffs here.
Speaker 1: So um, but yeah, this whole thing, I mean, we've
Speaker 1: heard Aaron Rodgers talk about wanting to play games at home. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the Packers, we all know they made their Super Bowl
Speaker 1: run in two thousand and ten. It was all on
Speaker 1: the road. They but they have not in the Aaron
Speaker 1: Rodgers era, they have not played an NFC Championship game
Speaker 1: at home. Lost on the road at Seattle with the
Speaker 1: big comeback obviously, and then you remember the game in
Speaker 1: the Georgia Dome. I mean once that once, once the
Speaker 1: snowball started going the wrong way down the hill, there
Speaker 1: was just there was just no stopping it. And and
Speaker 1: that that's the thing that is, it's so hard to
Speaker 1: rally in those situations when you're on the road in
Speaker 1: the playoffs and and you know that crowd, that home
Speaker 1: crowd is feeling the excitement of their team advancing. And
Speaker 1: that's what's funny about this year, and people when asking
Speaker 1: about the identity stuff and in the conversations around that,
Speaker 1: I still feel like this two thousand nineteen team slants
Speaker 1: more towards that two thousand fourteen team than sixteen sixteen.
Speaker 1: That was an amazing train that took them all the way.
Speaker 1: That was a completely different type of season. When you're
Speaker 1: sitting at four and six in the last six weeks
Speaker 1: of the regular season, you're playing with your back against
Speaker 1: the wall. And when they got to the NFC title game,
Speaker 1: not that that was a consolation or just a moral victory,
Speaker 1: but let's be honest, Mike. I mean, they were really
Speaker 1: up against some stuff in that game. With where the
Speaker 1: roster was at at that point. There's attrition that hadn't
Speaker 1: taken to put themselves on that run in the gas
Speaker 1: kind of ran out. What's exciting about this particular, you
Speaker 1: know team is I just feel like, even though we've
Speaker 1: talked over and over again about they still have that
Speaker 1: best game out there. They're healthy, they have players have
Speaker 1: stepped up at different positions, and they are in a
Speaker 1: position where they're finally controlling their own destiny again during
Speaker 1: this final stretch of the season. Yeah, they have it
Speaker 1: in their own hands. And when you don't have to
Speaker 1: rely on X, Y, and Z to to play out
Speaker 1: for you to have the scenario that you want for
Speaker 1: your playoff implications, that just goes such a long way.
Speaker 1: But you and I both know it, Mike, and you
Speaker 1: can play it back if we had a little bit
Speaker 1: better technology, we could play back the last three weeks
Speaker 1: of unscripted's talking about how you had to beat the Giants,
Speaker 1: you had to be Washington, you had to beat Chicago
Speaker 1: to make this game meaningful. Well, Mike, this game on
Speaker 1: Monday night at US Bank Stadium is the most important
Speaker 1: game in the season for the Green Bay Packers, and
Speaker 1: they've put themselves in a position for it to have
Speaker 1: those kind of stakes. Yeah, it is the biggest game
Speaker 1: of the regular season, no question about that. And I
Speaker 1: do believe, as I said an insider inbox on Monday,
Speaker 1: I think the Packers are going to have to play
Speaker 1: their best game of the season in order to win it.
Speaker 1: I know we're a little bit short on time today,
Speaker 1: so I want to get to a couple of other things,
Speaker 1: and we certainly have plenty of time the rest of
Speaker 1: the week to talk about this big Monday night matchup
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis. A couple of players that are starting to
Speaker 1: make their presence is felt a little bit. I guess
Speaker 1: you'd call them role players for lack of a better term,
Speaker 1: but roles that we might see increasing in significance here
Speaker 1: as the Packers continue down this stretch around. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about one guy on each side of the ball, Jake
Speaker 1: Kumero at wide receiver and Rashawn Gary, the rookie first
Speaker 1: round pick on defense. Starting with Kumarro, he hasn't had
Speaker 1: a whole lot of catches this season. He's not lighting
Speaker 1: up the stat sheet by any means. But if there
Speaker 1: is one stat that jumps out about Jake Kumero, it's
Speaker 1: that he's averaging I believe it's around nineteen yards per
Speaker 1: catch team point three yards from point three. When he
Speaker 1: does make a play, it's a significant one. And obviously,
Speaker 1: his one play against the Chicago Bears was a huge
Speaker 1: one forty nine yards with the catch and run. He's
Speaker 1: a guy I don't know how there's certain guys have
Speaker 1: a knack for it was, certain guys have a knack
Speaker 1: for being able to get yards after the catch. Kumaro
Speaker 1: showed on that play against Chicago that he's just he's
Speaker 1: got some kind of some kind of a knacker and
Speaker 1: instinct for that because that was a very simple play
Speaker 1: and he turned it into a big explose. He is
Speaker 1: a gritty, gritty, gritty grit warrior. I mean, that's just
Speaker 1: the type of player he is right now, because here's
Speaker 1: the thing, like, Okay, let's just start off from the
Speaker 1: beginning of that play. Jake Kumro didn't know whether or
Speaker 1: not he stepped out of bounds. He knew what his
Speaker 1: assignment was. He fulfilled it, and he did exactly what
Speaker 1: he was supposed to do on the play. And because
Speaker 1: he trusted all those things and trusted his instincts, it
Speaker 1: put him in a position and not only catch the
Speaker 1: ball where Aaron Rodgers put it, but it kept him
Speaker 1: in bounce. Okay, so that's the beginning of it. He
Speaker 1: got the first down, fair, big first down. You get
Speaker 1: Clinton Dix coming from the top. So that's this incident
Speaker 1: where a lot of times the receiver can get the
Speaker 1: you know here, the footsteps make you double think catching
Speaker 1: that ball, make you double think where your footwork is.
Speaker 1: But Kumro stayed true to all of his fundamentals, all
Speaker 1: of his technique not only catches the ball but avoids
Speaker 1: Clinton Dixon turns up field. The one thing everyone wants
Speaker 1: to compare players, right, the one thing since the very
Speaker 1: beginning that Jake Kumar reminds me of a lot of
Speaker 1: is Randall cop And they are completely different receivers, but
Speaker 1: if you look at how they approached the game after
Speaker 1: the ball is in their hand, they look to turn
Speaker 1: up field, and they can make guys miss for different reasons,
Speaker 1: but they can make guys miss. And and I just
Speaker 1: think when you see Kumarro, this is him and al
Speaker 1: Lazard are one and the same in this and that
Speaker 1: these are two guys that were undrafted free agents, absolutely
Speaker 1: nothing given to them. They just need to drop one
Speaker 1: pass and they probably would have been cut, honestly, But
Speaker 1: it's that kind of scenario a lot of times with
Speaker 1: those guys at the bottom of the depth chart. And
Speaker 1: they did every single thing right. And Matt Lafleur went
Speaker 1: to the podium, he said, yeah, we gotta get that
Speaker 1: guy more involved. Elvis Witted, his receiver's coach, said, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we gotta get this guy more involved. He's the type
Speaker 1: of player that I think when you look about a
Speaker 1: stretch run here, and I'm not guaranteeing Jake Rumro is
Speaker 1: gonna have a hundred fifty yards every week and eight catches,
Speaker 1: but he's the guy that when he steps up and
Speaker 1: is accountable in all of his assignments, it's going to
Speaker 1: create opportunities for him to make big plays at critical
Speaker 1: points and football games. Yeah, and he's also he is
Speaker 1: one of many receivers in this Packers wide receiver corps
Speaker 1: that does his part with the blocking and the run
Speaker 1: game and whatnot, and that is why he gets the
Speaker 1: snaps that he does. And we've heard it for years
Speaker 1: and years and years, whether you go back to Donald
Speaker 1: Driver or Greg Jennings or Jamichael Finley or whoever with
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers, it's about taking advantage of that opportunity when
Speaker 1: it comes your way. And Jake Kumero is one of
Speaker 1: those guys who does take advantage of the opportunity when
Speaker 1: it comes his way. In that nineteen point three yards
Speaker 1: per catch, I think speaks to that. And by the way,
Speaker 1: not that this would qualified because he doesn't have enough catches.
Speaker 1: The league leader right now is twenty yards per catch.
Speaker 1: I believe that was Mike Williams from the charge from
Speaker 1: the Chargers. Yeah, so it just shows you. I mean again,
Speaker 1: he needs more of a workload. But that's the type
Speaker 1: of impact he's making in a short, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of window here. Yeah, well, switching gears quickly to Gary
Speaker 1: on the defensive side of the ball. This is a
Speaker 1: young man. Fans have been wondering, where are the snaps,
Speaker 1: When is he going to play more? Where is the
Speaker 1: impact from the number twelve overall pick in the draft.
Speaker 1: The Packers have been bringing him along slowly. They haven't
Speaker 1: needed to throw him in there for fifty snaps a
Speaker 1: game because you have the two Smiths that outside linebacker.
Speaker 1: The last couple of games against Washington and Chicago, we've
Speaker 1: seen Gary play. I believe it was thirteen snaps against Washington,
Speaker 1: eighteen snaps against Chicago, starting to rack up tackles, starting
Speaker 1: to rack up more of an impact. I featured him
Speaker 1: in my What You Might have Missed a little bit
Speaker 1: last week. You're featuring him as a player on the
Speaker 1: rise in a written piece Um this week, he got
Speaker 1: his second sack of the season against the Chicago Bears.
Speaker 1: This is a young man who has embraced the role
Speaker 1: he's been given. He has raced the tutelage that he
Speaker 1: can receive from the all three of the Smiths, including
Speaker 1: Mike Smith's position coach and Uhum. And he's he's he's
Speaker 1: right where he needs to be, and he's in a
Speaker 1: position to really help this defense down the stretch. He
Speaker 1: really is Mike because it's actually really funny. For the
Speaker 1: first time in eons, outside linebacker is not a real
Speaker 1: question going into next season. They know what the foundation is.
Speaker 1: It's the Smith's and it's going to be Gary. Is
Speaker 1: that up and comer behind them. You go back to
Speaker 1: either one of those young men, Preston or Zadarius. Now,
Speaker 1: they might have had a few more sacks, they might
Speaker 1: have played a few more snaps, but it took time
Speaker 1: to hold that position and find their way in this league.
Speaker 1: And and both of them are breaking out now in
Speaker 1: year five with Green Bay, Rashan Gary turned twenty two
Speaker 1: years young earlier this month. I mean, and I the
Speaker 1: one thing that Mike, Mike Smith says over and over again.
Speaker 1: This is a guy that gets it. He buys in
Speaker 1: and he trusts what I was being asked of him.
Speaker 1: Because everyone just thinks, okay, you just you draft a
Speaker 1: pass rusher, Mike, you throw them out there, you get
Speaker 1: the quarterback. That's your goal. See it at your contract extension.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work like that. It's about knowing, okay, being
Speaker 1: in a three point stance, what's asked of you inside,
Speaker 1: like what Darius Smith does. What do you gotta do
Speaker 1: to pop up and explode into that rush? So it's
Speaker 1: not just you're popping up and then being stood up
Speaker 1: right away. It's your pad level. It's being on the
Speaker 1: outside of the and and getting the proper step on
Speaker 1: the tackle because if you don't, he's already back to
Speaker 1: step or two into his stands, and now all you
Speaker 1: have to go with is your bul rush. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's knowing those little intricacies that are so important, and
Speaker 1: those are fundamentals. Those are fundamentals. Those are fundamentals that
Speaker 1: you can when you have the talent and the athletic ability,
Speaker 1: you can get away with not being completely on your
Speaker 1: p's and ques with your fundamentals. In college football, you
Speaker 1: get into the NFL, the other guy is flat out
Speaker 1: gonna beat you if you are not on top of
Speaker 1: those fundamentals on every single snap. And that's what young
Speaker 1: players have to because it doesn't matter if you're Sadarius
Speaker 1: or pre Sin Smith or you're a young guy like
Speaker 1: Rashaan Gary. I guarantee you that tackle has seen every
Speaker 1: single rep that his coach has put up of you
Speaker 1: in the previous week and showing all of your tendencies,
Speaker 1: so being able to evolve adapt. But more than anything,
Speaker 1: I asked Mike Smith this is at the end of
Speaker 1: his news conference, his meeting with the press on Thursday.
Speaker 1: There is some confidence that goes into this too, because
Speaker 1: Mike Smith isn't a guy that hands out, you know,
Speaker 1: celebratory cakes for his guys when they get a sack. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not walking out of that outside linebacker's room with
Speaker 1: lollipops in their mouth after film session. Always talks about pressures,
Speaker 1: but in some cases sacks are important because because a
Speaker 1: young guy like Gary, who maybe he hasn't had as
Speaker 1: many sacks as he wants, when you get that one,
Speaker 1: it reaffirms that you're doing everything right and you're on
Speaker 1: the path. The results do matter. When you're trying to
Speaker 1: build something as a young player, yea. And for him
Speaker 1: to be able to understand his role in that room
Speaker 1: and the fact that, Okay, this is what is being
Speaker 1: asked to me today. It's a beautiful situation for him
Speaker 1: right now because so often you get a frockie first
Speaker 1: round pick that's immediately thrown into lineup and you're to
Speaker 1: be a pro bowler all the way. The Packers didn't
Speaker 1: take that tact with him. They're taking a very methodical
Speaker 1: approach with them that you know what, this is a
Speaker 1: guy that's going to be better tomorrow. You already know
Speaker 1: what you're getting with the Smith brothers. This is the
Speaker 1: guy that's coming up, and it's going to be that
Speaker 1: next guy that you can continue to build with and
Speaker 1: create more packages like they did against the Bears and
Speaker 1: using so many three outside back or packages as they did,
Speaker 1: changing things up, going with a little bit of variety there.
Speaker 1: And whether it's Coomro or whether or not it's Gary,
Speaker 1: those are the type of guys that when you see
Speaker 1: those guys emerged late in the season, that's the wrinkle
Speaker 1: that you can add to your football team now as
Speaker 1: you shift into a playoff. Yeah, One of the cool
Speaker 1: things too with Rashawn Gary is when you're in the
Speaker 1: locker room and you see that his locker is right
Speaker 1: in between Preston Smith and Zadarius Smith. That's just kind
Speaker 1: of a cool set up. Talk about sending a message
Speaker 1: right as you're supposed to be learned from. Well, I
Speaker 1: know we're short on time. I apologize for the short
Speaker 1: show today, but we've got a long week ahead of
Speaker 1: us to talk about this Packers Vikings game, and we
Speaker 1: will do that as the week goes along. But for now,
Speaker 1: that's a wrap on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Please
Speaker 1: follow all of our coverage of the team on Packers
Speaker 1: dot com and subscribe to us like us on iTunes
Speaker 1: and other podcast services. The Packers YouTube channel is also
Speaker 1: out there with all kinds of great video content for West.
Speaker 1: I'm Mike. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: M