Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from
Speaker 1: Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spoffer, joined as always
Speaker 1: by my trusted colleague Weston Hodquitz, coming to you here
Speaker 1: from our studios at lambeau Field. After taking a week
Speaker 1: off from the show Wes, but OTAs are still going
Speaker 1: here for the Packers, and shortly after we are done
Speaker 1: recording this episode, you and I will be heading out
Speaker 1: to the practice field for the open ota of week
Speaker 1: number three. But let's get caught up on our observations
Speaker 1: from last week, since we did not do a show
Speaker 1: to talk about those, and I think really the conversation
Speaker 1: starts with one position in particular. You wrote a story
Speaker 1: about one guy, I wrote a story about the other,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about the cornerback position. Jyr Alexander and
Speaker 1: Eric Stokes both soundlike young men with a new lease
Speaker 1: on life in twenty twenty four with the Packers, four
Speaker 1: different reasons. I'll let you start with Stokes because you
Speaker 1: were in on the media huddle around him last week.
Speaker 1: And a guy who has dealt with a lot injury
Speaker 1: wise over the last year and a half and seems
Speaker 1: to be getting to the point that he's putting that
Speaker 1: stuff behind him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I made this comment to you a couple weeks
Speaker 3: ago about how in twenty twelve, thirteen fourteen, I learned
Speaker 3: more about cervical neckfusions than I'd ever known, just because
Speaker 3: of the injury that the Packers kept getting in that area.
Speaker 3: I've learned more about the hamstring muscle than I think
Speaker 3: I ever wanted to know and will ever know. But
Speaker 3: here's what was interesting about Stokes and I sat there
Speaker 3: for fifteen minutes with Christian Watson. I sat there for
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes with Eric Stokes last week, and they're completely
Speaker 3: different injuries, but they both ended up going to Badger
Speaker 3: Athletic Performance to try to get some answers on why
Speaker 3: they had these recurring hamstring issues last season. For Watson,
Speaker 3: it was an imbalance. They were looking for more symmetry
Speaker 3: between his two legs and the strength in them, the muscles,
Speaker 3: everything that attaches to that. As it turns out, with
Speaker 3: Eric Stokes, everything for him started back in Detroit in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, really where he suffers that devastating list
Speaker 3: Frank injury. Also, I believe had a meniscous injury to
Speaker 3: his knee. Goes through an arduous rehab to get back
Speaker 3: on the field. He's gonna get back out there for
Speaker 3: training camp, and then he tweaks the hamstring. So when
Speaker 3: it looked like things were starting to clear for him,
Speaker 3: he ends up having this hamstring injury that will not
Speaker 3: go away, and much like Watson, exervads it multiple times
Speaker 3: during the season, and as they found out after the year,
Speaker 3: it all started with that Liz Frank and the fact.
Speaker 1: That Frank being a very very serious foot injury sort
Speaker 1: of deals with the arch of the foot and what. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it requires surgery to get it fixed, and it
Speaker 1: is not an easy Recovery's not.
Speaker 3: An easy recovery, especially because I think there's some tool
Speaker 3: parts that have to go in there as well, and
Speaker 3: trying to build up the strength not just in the foot,
Speaker 3: but in all the muscles that support the foot. Right.
Speaker 3: As it turns out, it was the same exact type
Speaker 3: of origin story as what happened with Watson. When you
Speaker 3: are lacking in one area, you're going to overcompensate in another,
Speaker 3: and that's where you increase the.
Speaker 2: Risk for injury. So here we are with Eric Stokes. Now.
Speaker 3: Now, Matt Lafleur is always one to coach his statements.
Speaker 3: He never wants to make two overwhelming comments on players,
Speaker 3: especially this time of the year. But I still think
Speaker 3: it was illuminating that he said this is the best
Speaker 3: he's looks since he's seen Eric Stokes mentally on the field.
Speaker 3: He just looks like he is kind of mentally clear
Speaker 3: of everything he dealt with last year. He's feeling good again.
Speaker 3: You have to get through training camp, you have to
Speaker 3: get through the season. But I think at the very least, Mike,
Speaker 3: what we've learned with both Watson and Stokes in the
Speaker 3: last three four weeks is these are guys who.
Speaker 2: Got their confidence back.
Speaker 3: They have confidence back in their bodies, and they feel
Speaker 3: like they can get back to playing the game they
Speaker 3: way they did.
Speaker 2: Once again.
Speaker 3: I did a Packers Daily a couple days ago with
Speaker 3: Adam Hobelheinrich that's also on Packers dot Com. Going back
Speaker 3: and looking at some of those highlights of Stokes from
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one when he was almost he was this
Speaker 3: close to being an All Rookie PFWA remember that year,
Speaker 3: just narrowly missed out on it, and he just hasn't
Speaker 3: been able to get those trains back quite on the tracks.
Speaker 3: You hope that this is hopefully the start that he
Speaker 3: needs to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: I think it's been very interesting with regard to Stokes
Speaker 1: that again, it's OTA's you take everything with the proper
Speaker 1: perspective for where things are this time of year. But
Speaker 1: basically a guy who, other than a few cameo appearances
Speaker 1: last year in between his hamstring injuries, really has missed
Speaker 1: the last season and a half of football. Yet here
Speaker 1: we are in OTA's heading into twenty twenty four and
Speaker 1: he's running with the first team defense, you know, And
Speaker 1: that's taking nothing away from Carrington Valentine, what he did
Speaker 1: as a seventh round rookie and everything last year. But
Speaker 1: Stokes is the guy with the ones right now. And
Speaker 1: that took me back, As I mentioned in our Insider
Speaker 1: Inbox column, it took me back to the Combine when
Speaker 1: we're at a you know, at one of the hotels
Speaker 1: at the Combine, a bunch of the members of the media.
Speaker 1: I know you weren't on that trip. I was. We're
Speaker 1: sitting around at big conference table talking with Brian Gudokunst
Speaker 1: kind of an annual thing that's done in Indianapolis, and
Speaker 1: we didn't know anything about where Eric Stokes was at
Speaker 1: in his recovery, how things are going.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: All we knew was that was that he seemed to
Speaker 1: be getting past the foot injury last year. But then
Speaker 1: all the hamstring stuff started coming up. And I asked
Speaker 1: Gudakun sort of out of the blue, do you see
Speaker 1: Eric Stokes playing a big role in this defense in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four and with the changes that defensive coordinator
Speaker 1: and everything that's going on, And it was like Guducun's
Speaker 1: almost couldn't start answering the question soon enough as if unequivocally,
Speaker 1: unequivocally to say yes that he believes Eric Stokes is
Speaker 1: going to be a big part of this defense in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. And that reinforced for me at the time.
Speaker 1: And then now what we're seeing in OTAs with him
Speaker 1: running with the ones that the decision makers here really
Speaker 1: believe in Eric Stokes and they are going to give him. Now,
Speaker 1: nobody's going to hand him anything, but they are going
Speaker 1: to give him every opportunity to regain the status that
Speaker 1: he had as a first round draft pick a few
Speaker 1: years ago and a guy who played a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of snaps as a rookie and played pretty darn well
Speaker 1: because he led the team in passes broken up if
Speaker 1: I recall correctly, in twenty twenty one. So it's going
Speaker 1: to be interesting to see how this evolves because because
Speaker 1: Carrington Valentine certainly did some good things there. You know,
Speaker 1: Corey Ballentine is a veteran that they brought back for
Speaker 1: depth and all that.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a.
Speaker 1: Lot of curiosity around Kalen King and how you know,
Speaker 1: why he fell the seventh round and what can he
Speaker 1: do as a rookie in the NFL. But this is
Speaker 1: a pretty big spotlight and a big time opportunity for
Speaker 1: Eric Stokes to really move forward in his career. And
Speaker 1: I will say because of the injuries, the Packers passed
Speaker 1: on the fifth year option that goes with the first
Speaker 1: round draft picks, so he is in the last year
Speaker 1: of his contract. Now. This is a contract year for
Speaker 1: Eric Stokes as well.
Speaker 3: And Stokes said he feels like he because of all
Speaker 3: this leg work he's done.
Speaker 2: He feels fat.
Speaker 3: He's just as fast, if not faster, than he ever was.
Speaker 3: Obviously a guy that was running in the four threes
Speaker 3: at the time the Packers drafted him. Didn't get the combine,
Speaker 3: so we didn't get that cement type of score like
Speaker 3: you usually do in that area. But the other thing
Speaker 3: I really like about Eric and I thought it was
Speaker 3: a testament to the type of dude he is. You know,
Speaker 3: he said, because he was asked the question of like,
Speaker 3: you know, they could have easily taken a cornerback in
Speaker 3: the first round. They've done it before, They've taken defensive backs, gudakuns,
Speaker 3: that's the position he's drafted more than any other in
Speaker 3: the first round so far. They didn't do that, And
Speaker 3: you know what did he make of that? And he's like, listen,
Speaker 3: I would have been totally fine had they done that,
Speaker 3: because he looked at Kevin King and a guy that
Speaker 3: he actually trained with this offseason down in Atlanta as
Speaker 3: Kevin's trying to get his career restarted after a couple
Speaker 3: devastation injuries. Kevin King did never treated Eric like he
Speaker 3: was going to be a threat, like he was somebody
Speaker 3: that I have to knock this kid down. He's like
Speaker 3: he helped him from the day he walked in the building.
Speaker 3: And Eric said, had they drafted a guy in the
Speaker 3: first round, I would have been the first one reaching
Speaker 3: out my hand to try to help that guy. They
Speaker 3: didn't do that. But he doesn't look at that any
Speaker 3: different than working with a Kaylan King. Now, he doesn't
Speaker 3: look at that any different is dealing with the Carrenton
Speaker 3: Valentines of the world. So he wants to earn this job.
Speaker 3: He wants to be that guy, and he wants to
Speaker 3: show that he can get this thing back going the
Speaker 3: way it was going in twenty twenty one. And I
Speaker 3: think for the Green Bay Packers' perspective, when you listen
Speaker 3: to the guys talk about him, whether it's Matt Lafleur,
Speaker 3: the fellow defensive backs, everybody in that locker room is
Speaker 3: cheering for Eric Stokes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And he's an easy guy to cheer for too,
Speaker 1: when you get to know him and you sense his
Speaker 1: personality and and how he interacts and how he treats
Speaker 1: other people. The other cornerback worth talking about here, of course,
Speaker 1: is JayR Alexander. We heard from him as well after
Speaker 1: last week's open Ota session, and again another guy who's
Speaker 1: seems to sort of have a new lease on life,
Speaker 1: but for different reasons. He you know, he had a
Speaker 1: very forgettable twenty twenty three season. You know, make no
Speaker 1: mistake about that. He you know, injuries off and on
Speaker 1: to completely different parts of the body. One was once
Speaker 1: it was the shoulder, there was the back injury, all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff going on. Then there was the suspension
Speaker 1: that was related to the coin toss captain stunt in
Speaker 1: Carolina and all that. Then he came back from that,
Speaker 1: played pretty good football down the stretch as the Packers
Speaker 1: tried to make the run, had the big interception in
Speaker 1: the playoff game off of Dak Prescott down in Dallas.
Speaker 1: But JayR Alexander is everything we had heard until we
Speaker 1: actually heard from him, hearing from Matt Lafleur, from Brian Gudakum's,
Speaker 1: from assistant coaches, everything was that that JayR Alexander is
Speaker 1: being is being the guy, being the locker room guy,
Speaker 1: being the player on the field off the field that
Speaker 1: the Packers want him to be. And then and he
Speaker 1: confirmed that he sounds he sounds like a guy who
Speaker 1: was so much more cited about where things are going
Speaker 1: right now than maybe we've heard from him in a while.
Speaker 1: And I know there is something about the new coordinator,
Speaker 1: the whole change in defensive philosophy and everything that has
Speaker 1: a lot to do with that. I think. I think
Speaker 1: Alexander felt last year he lost, you know, one of
Speaker 1: his allies when Jerry Gray left, you know, as far
Speaker 1: as an ally on the coaching staff and whatnot. He's
Speaker 1: trying to put all that behind him, and it's it's
Speaker 1: moving forward now with Jeff Haffley and the staff that
Speaker 1: the that the Packers have here. And I get the
Speaker 1: sense that I get the sense that jay R Alexander
Speaker 1: is out to prove that the twenty twenty two Alexander
Speaker 1: that got an All Pro second team selection for the
Speaker 1: second time in his career, that that's the guy the
Speaker 1: Packers are going to see moving forward, not the you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say malcontent, but the but the
Speaker 1: less enthusiastic and somewhat selfish guy that we saw in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: Couple things to all that. One, there is something to
Speaker 3: be said for the even years in Jo's career tends
Speaker 3: to be the big ones for him were kind of
Speaker 3: like the present Smith thing a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3: We've now entered that again. I've always said this, I
Speaker 3: will continue to say this because just getting the conversations.
Speaker 2: I've had with JayR. Over the years.
Speaker 3: I told people even last year when things weren't going great,
Speaker 3: this is not a prima donna. This is not a
Speaker 3: pretentious dude. This is not a guy that is going
Speaker 3: to be a problem for a football team. But he's
Speaker 3: very proud and if you understand where he came from
Speaker 3: his upbringing, what he had to do to fight to
Speaker 3: get to Louisville, to get to the National Football League,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of pride that's involved in that in
Speaker 3: his football game. And I think when he has had
Speaker 3: a chance to kind of step back a little bit
Speaker 3: and look at where he's at. How many times did
Speaker 3: he say during that news conference Mike that press scrum
Speaker 3: talking about him being a seventh year guy, a seventh
Speaker 3: year VET, a guy that he wants to be a leader.
Speaker 3: And I think JayR, at this juncture of his career
Speaker 3: is really fully embracing that. And I just want to
Speaker 3: mention this too, because you know, some people have talked
Speaker 3: about the Charlotte thing in Carolina, and I'm probably more
Speaker 3: than anyone, the one that's kind of let Gyr off
Speaker 3: the hook on that. But the thing I think people
Speaker 3: need to understand, I want to make sure this gets
Speaker 3: this point gets made. I can't imagine what that must
Speaker 3: have felt like for him to be back in his
Speaker 3: city because there isn't a lot of those opportunities the Packers,
Speaker 3: you know, Caroline Panthers are not an uncommon opponent, but
Speaker 3: the Packers have not played there very often, so oftentimes
Speaker 3: I've kind of put myself in Gyr's shoes, and I
Speaker 3: don't want to say I understood what he did, but
Speaker 3: there's a part of me that when I look back
Speaker 3: on it, I think the way that that got painted
Speaker 3: publicly is a lot different than what it was in reality.
Speaker 3: And what I'm excited about listening to joh talk this
Speaker 3: week is in addition to him saying the best cornerback
Speaker 3: in the league has entered the chat. I enjoyed that intro,
Speaker 3: but I think this is a guy that has always
Speaker 3: been highly motivated. I don't think that's ever gone away,
Speaker 3: but he just seems so focused on what his goals are,
Speaker 3: on what the Packers' goals are, and the understanding too,
Speaker 3: Mike that seven years in there's probably not another seven
Speaker 3: on the other.
Speaker 2: End of this.
Speaker 3: Maybe he's Narl Green, who knows, Yeah, you know, but
Speaker 3: I think JayR understands it's now about winning championships, it's
Speaker 3: about building a legacy, and he has an opportunity to
Speaker 3: do that with this football team. And I think that
Speaker 3: is definitely something too when you look at this shift
Speaker 3: and the coordinator of the shift in this philosophy that
Speaker 3: I think really excites him.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned how often during that media session he
Speaker 1: brought up year seven, seventh year guy. The other thing
Speaker 1: that he mentioned several times is that he's focused on
Speaker 1: what he means to the team. Yes, not just what
Speaker 1: he means for jay R Alexander at number twenty three,
Speaker 1: It's about what he means for the team. And I
Speaker 1: think that that mental shift is I think it's refreshing
Speaker 1: to hear, and I think it's not only going to
Speaker 1: be good for the Green Bay Packers, it's going to
Speaker 1: be good for a JayR Elis sure as well. And
Speaker 1: because I'm with you on the Charlotte thing, I think
Speaker 1: there's I think there's a way to understand what happened
Speaker 1: there without excusing it, right, you know, from the insubordination kind.
Speaker 3: Of, and I understand why the Packers had to do
Speaker 3: what they had.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one hundred percent you had to you can't
Speaker 1: you can't not let something like that go by. And
Speaker 1: we were told that that wasn't that that was sort
Speaker 1: of like the last incident. There were some other things
Speaker 1: to a lesser degree and obviously less publicly people didn't
Speaker 1: know about him, that had gone on behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: So but again, it's about for Alexander, it's about putting
Speaker 1: all of that behind him. It's about moving forward with
Speaker 1: a new focus, not only on the team, but but
Speaker 1: on the new defense, the new coaches he's working with,
Speaker 1: the new approach on the defensive side that he seems
Speaker 1: to be really excited about. And uh, And as you said,
Speaker 1: I think I think the word for a j Alexander
Speaker 1: is focus. He's not he's not worried. He's not worried
Speaker 1: about a contract right now. He's not worried about out
Speaker 1: an injury, you know, a rehab recovery thing. Those are
Speaker 1: the kinds of things that have been that have been
Speaker 1: you know, a part of a part of his approach
Speaker 1: to different seasons in the past. And and uh, and
Speaker 1: none of that is on the table right now. It's
Speaker 1: it's about Uh, it's about what's in front of him.
Speaker 1: And uh, I think I think it's going to be
Speaker 1: It's going to be very interesting to see how that evolves,
Speaker 1: because for everything that has happened, there's absolutely no question
Speaker 1: nobody is questioning whatsoever that JayR Alexander is the number
Speaker 1: one cornerback.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this team and the thing I love too.
Speaker 3: He mentioned the communication with Matt Lafleur and Brian Goodekuntz
Speaker 3: as well, in addition to Jeff Hafley and the part
Speaker 3: that I really and this goes back to when you
Speaker 3: have a good culture and your football team, the fact
Speaker 3: that you can have everything that happened at the end
Speaker 3: of last season, Charlotte, him getting suspended from Minnesota and
Speaker 3: at the end of the year, even before the end
Speaker 3: of the year, everybody came together and put their cards
Speaker 3: on the table. In the amount of maturity that was
Speaker 3: shown both by the front office and Jai Air to
Speaker 3: keep this thing going. How often do you that yarn
Speaker 3: just continually unravel They nipped it in the butt at
Speaker 3: that point, and Josh said, I mean he was back here,
Speaker 3: you know, when he was asked the question why are
Speaker 3: you here this year, He's like, well, I.
Speaker 2: Was already here. We've talked about that before.
Speaker 3: I mean, he'll train here during the off season when
Speaker 3: they aren't here for OTAs and everything else, and he
Speaker 3: decided to stick around and see where things took him.
Speaker 3: The one thing I love about John and again, he's
Speaker 3: the He's the type of dude that fascinates me as
Speaker 3: a human being because money is important. Don't get me wrong,
Speaker 3: It's very important. But if you remember when he signed
Speaker 3: his contract extension, he mentioned he was wearing like a
Speaker 3: polo shirt that he had bought from Goodwill. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is a guy that he doesn't live extravagantly by
Speaker 3: any means, but it is about what it meant to
Speaker 3: him to be the highest paid cornerback in the league,
Speaker 3: what it means to him to be a leader in
Speaker 3: this locker room. And I think when you have that
Speaker 3: type of drive in you, even if there's going to
Speaker 3: be some moments of adversity, that's going to continually inject
Speaker 3: that fuel back into the engine to keep this thing going.
Speaker 3: And that's why I'm excited to see what Jock can
Speaker 3: do now in twenty twenty four, for injuries aside, he
Speaker 3: can get this thing going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I'm with you one hundred percent on that.
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Speaker 1: of better. All right, another guy worth talking about here.
Speaker 1: I actually just posted a story on him on Monday
Speaker 1: on our website from last week's interviews. And that's the
Speaker 1: new number one running back in town, Josh Jacobs coming
Speaker 1: over as a free agent from the Las Vegas Raiders.
Speaker 1: And the crux of the story, and the crux of
Speaker 1: a very long conversation with multiple reporters at his locker,
Speaker 1: was that, and setting aside that a course in free agency,
Speaker 1: a lot of times it does come down to the
Speaker 1: best offer, you know, the best contract. A big money
Speaker 1: contract doesn't hurt a guy who'd been looking for that
Speaker 1: kind of money and then played on the franchise tag
Speaker 1: his his fifth year with the Raiders, but he's looking
Speaker 1: for a place to establish a legacy, and for him,
Speaker 1: a legacy for the best players in football is drawn
Speaker 1: up in postseason football. He wants to play in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: the biggest games, the ones that matter the most, and
Speaker 1: he wants to prove in those biggest games that he
Speaker 1: is a big time player. And in his five years
Speaker 1: in Vegas he made exactly one playoff appearance.
Speaker 2: Who is his coach?
Speaker 1: Rich Basaccia as the at the time the interim coach
Speaker 1: of the Raiders. Got the Raiders into the wild card round.
Speaker 1: They were playing in Cincinnati, and Jacobs actually had a
Speaker 1: pretty good game.
Speaker 2: He was he had a hell heck of a game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had. He had one hundred and twenty seven
Speaker 1: yards from scrimmage. It was I believe it was eighty
Speaker 1: three rushing, forty four receiving.
Speaker 2: Game seventeen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he he had a heck of a game. The
Speaker 1: Raiders came up short. They had basically what was looking
Speaker 1: to be a game tying or potentially game winning drive
Speaker 1: if they had scored and gone for two, ball got
Speaker 1: intercepted at like the goal line or the two yard
Speaker 1: line or something like that in the final seconds of
Speaker 1: the game. So Cincinnati moved on. Cincinnati ended up going
Speaker 1: to the Super Bowl that year. But that's the only
Speaker 1: postseason game that Josh Jacobs has played in. And when
Speaker 1: you come from Alabama and you know, it's about national championships,
Speaker 1: it's about making the college football Playoff and all that,
Speaker 1: and then you play five years in the NFL and
Speaker 1: you get exactly one playoff game. You know, this is
Speaker 1: a guy. And this is what I wrote about it. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's had three thousand yard seasons, he has an NFL
Speaker 1: rushing title. He you know, he's been named first team
Speaker 1: All Pro obviously the year that he won the NFL
Speaker 1: rushing title. He's now got the you know, the big
Speaker 1: money contract that he saw. So the goals start to
Speaker 1: change for veteran players in those in those in and
Speaker 1: Josh Jacobs is all about getting to the playoffs and
Speaker 1: chasing a championship, which then for him personally, he hopes
Speaker 1: to leave a legacy in a place like Green Bay.
Speaker 3: I was talking to a member of the packers I
Speaker 3: will not name, but you know, we were talking about
Speaker 3: how difficult it is losing Aaron Jones. But the fact
Speaker 3: that from a personality standpoint and a human standpoint, we'll
Speaker 3: see how things work on the field. But Josh Jacobs
Speaker 3: has been that everything and then some when it comes
Speaker 3: to filling those type of shoes that Jones left. I mean,
Speaker 3: you're talking about an extremely positive, high character individual. If
Speaker 3: you know anything about his background, you know, growing up homeless,
Speaker 3: you know things like that, how that shaped him in
Speaker 3: the ways that that can drive a person. And I
Speaker 3: don't know Mike a little bit, and I haven't had
Speaker 3: a huge amount of interaction with him so far, but
Speaker 3: I don't know if I've yet to see him without
Speaker 3: a smile on his face, whether it be on the
Speaker 3: practice field in the locker room.
Speaker 2: He just s has that type of disposition.
Speaker 3: Of himself in an easy going kind of move, much
Speaker 3: like Aaron Jones in terms of just the approachability. The
Speaker 3: guy did the Packers Junior Power Plaque Kids clinic on Saturday.
Speaker 3: Our ladies in Brandon Marketing and everybody over in that
Speaker 3: side of the building, they do a tremendous job with it.
Speaker 3: I my nephews have been a part of it. Highly
Speaker 3: encourage you to take part in that. But a lot
Speaker 3: of times it's a lot of the rookies, It's a
Speaker 3: lot of the young guys getting back to Jiro Alexander,
Speaker 3: Josh Jacobs, and jyr Alexander were over there. Yeah on
Speaker 3: a weekend. You're these guys are able to leave town.
Speaker 3: They don't need to be here for anything. But it
Speaker 3: shows you again, and he's taking pictures with kids. He's
Speaker 3: embracing that aspect of it. Now, the other side of it,
Speaker 3: the professional athlete side of it, is, this is a
Speaker 3: guy's highly motive to get back to the postseason. He's
Speaker 3: highly motivated to show that he's still the player he
Speaker 3: was two years ago.
Speaker 2: When he was the NFL rushing champion.
Speaker 3: And he's still relatively young even for that position. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I believe at twenty six years old. So I think
Speaker 3: when you're looking to what was the biggest question the
Speaker 3: Packers had this offseason, what's going to happen with Aaron
Speaker 3: Jones and what is going on in the secondary the
Speaker 3: back end with safety Xavier McKinney and also bringing in
Speaker 3: Josh Jacobs. They solve those two answers before we even
Speaker 3: got to the draft, and I'm just really excited to
Speaker 3: see hopefully there was a little bit of a hamstring
Speaker 3: flare up, hopefully nothing going on there. We're expecting to
Speaker 3: see him more this week, But all in all, Man,
Speaker 3: this is a guy that's been a belcoll in the league.
Speaker 3: He's played at the football at the highest level, both
Speaker 3: in the pros and college, and now he's hungry to
Speaker 3: be able to build onto that legacy with potentially a
Speaker 3: Super Bowl championship.
Speaker 2: Yah.
Speaker 1: And he's he's excited about what he's seen of Matt
Speaker 1: Lafleur's playbook as well, just in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: when you think about you think about the times that
Speaker 1: you know Aaron Jones would motion out of the backfield
Speaker 1: and line up in the slot or maybe even line
Speaker 1: up wide, you know, on the weak side of the formation,
Speaker 1: but the running back is split out wide and you're
Speaker 1: trying to get the defense to commit to something to
Speaker 1: create a matchup somewhere. Josh Jacobs sees himself and I
Speaker 1: think Matt Lafleur has told him that he's going to
Speaker 1: be used in some in similar ways, and he couldn't
Speaker 1: be more fired up about that. This is not just
Speaker 1: a guy who's gonna, you know, take twenty two handoffs
Speaker 1: a game and pound the ball between the tackles. The
Speaker 1: Packers are going to use him. Now, there are certain
Speaker 1: things Aaron Jones could do that that Josh Jacobs might
Speaker 1: not be able to do. But there are also some
Speaker 1: things that Josh Jacobs maybe is able to do. Matt
Speaker 1: Lafleur can set him up for some certain situations that
Speaker 1: that maybe didn't necessarily apply to Aaron Jones. So there's
Speaker 1: gonna be there's there will be some interesting x's and
Speaker 1: o's that go along with his incorporation into this offense.
Speaker 1: And from what I could tell, he's pretty fired.
Speaker 2: Up about it. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3: Man, watching the running backs a little bit and these
Speaker 3: ota practice so far, you see the body types of
Speaker 3: Josh Jacobs, Aj Dillon and then rounding that out with
Speaker 3: Marshawn Lloyd. Yeah, especially in Lloyd and Jacob's case, guys
Speaker 3: that are you know, shorter dudes, but just are so
Speaker 3: well built and put together. I mean, guys that pack
Speaker 3: a series also add some explosive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a there's a thickness to those guys without
Speaker 1: looking slow at all. And that's what That's what strikes you,
Speaker 1: and and it just it it makes me that much
Speaker 1: more curious to see. Okay, when when they put the
Speaker 1: pads on, because we haven't other than the Monday night game.
Speaker 1: You know, last year out in Vegas, we haven't really
Speaker 1: seen you know, Josh Jacobs, you know, going full speed
Speaker 1: in the NFL, and you know guys like that, you know,
Speaker 1: put the pads on and start to you know, start
Speaker 1: to sync those hips into a move and then see
Speaker 1: who can tackle them. It's going to be fun to watch.
Speaker 3: And I'll be honest with you, Mike, I haven't really
Speaker 3: watched a lot of Josh Jacobs football until the last
Speaker 3: couple of months, going back and watching some, you know,
Speaker 3: because again when the Raiders, you know, they've been struggling,
Speaker 3: they've gone through some tough times, and they aren't always
Speaker 3: a nationally televised team right now. And but the more
Speaker 3: highlights I've watched, and especially when you mentioned the pass
Speaker 3: catching element, does that guy just not strike you as
Speaker 3: a dude that's just champing at the bit to have
Speaker 3: that part of his game showing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no question. He averaged about forty receptions per season
Speaker 1: in his five years in Vegas, and we had talked
Speaker 1: about this before. I think he's I think he and
Speaker 1: Matt Lafleur are looking for a potentially significantly larger number
Speaker 1: than that. Talking about pushing maybe fifty five sixty receptions
Speaker 1: over the course of the season as opposed to like
Speaker 1: high thirties low f It'll be interesting to see how
Speaker 1: it plays out.
Speaker 3: He ain't get too much into the scheme stuff, and
Speaker 3: certainly we haven't really even done a lot of this
Speaker 3: in the off season program. But when you I don't
Speaker 3: expect the you know, the pistol looks with the two backs,
Speaker 3: I don't expect any of that to go away. I
Speaker 3: think there's still a lot of those pony type elements
Speaker 3: of this offense there that are still going to be
Speaker 3: parts of it. Because as much as it helped to
Speaker 3: have Aaron Jones, it's not like the Packers built their
Speaker 3: entire offense just around that one guy, right It was
Speaker 3: built out for multiple backs. It's the thing Mattlefloor has
Speaker 3: talked about for years that he wants multiple options, and
Speaker 3: right now, in Josh Jacobs, you have a guy that
Speaker 3: I don't know if he's gonna get the three hundred
Speaker 3: touches that he was getting there per season in Vegas
Speaker 3: and originally Oakland.
Speaker 1: But I had a lot of guys to share the
Speaker 1: ball with around here, whereas in Vegas the last couple
Speaker 1: of years it was sort of Jacobs and DeVante Adams
Speaker 1: and and other than that, you know, everybody else was
Speaker 1: kind of playing a real secondary role.
Speaker 2: Pretty simple.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm excited to see where it takes us,
Speaker 3: and and certainly year and a chance to have him
Speaker 3: talk some more. And I think he's gonna be guy.
Speaker 3: It's to me extremely popular throughout the course of the
Speaker 3: season in the locker room. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a story on Jacobs that was posted Monday
Speaker 1: on Packers Dot. Another one, one last thing before we
Speaker 1: go If you didn't catch Mark Murphy's monthly MT five
Speaker 1: Murphy Takes five, which was posted on the website on Saturday.
Speaker 1: He decided to break some news for us. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: he did, because he announced in that column that the Packers'
Speaker 1: first training camp practice will be the morning of Monday,
Speaker 1: July twenty second, and the shareholders meeting is going to
Speaker 1: be that afternoon. This will be a first a training
Speaker 1: camp practice and the shareholders meeting on the same day.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a wild and crazy day at Lambeufield.
Speaker 1: I might call him sick that day, just warning you.
Speaker 1: I can see, I could see you're already thrilled about
Speaker 1: what the first day of training Camp is bringing here.
Speaker 2: But that was the news.
Speaker 1: That was news we learned over the weekend. Is the
Speaker 1: start of training camp and the shareholders meeting on the
Speaker 1: same day, Monday, July twenty two.
Speaker 3: If you call him sick that day, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to do the full on like scarface thing to you,
Speaker 3: but there might be some dead fish heads in your
Speaker 3: bed that morning or something like that. July twenty second, Mike,
Speaker 3: July twenty.
Speaker 1: Second, it's gonna get it's going to get rolling. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's no there's no stop in that train once
Speaker 1: it leaves that station.
Speaker 3: My selfishness aside, I think it's a great idea. I
Speaker 3: like the idea of training Camp. I know it's because
Speaker 3: of Brazil, but training Camp and shareholders I think is
Speaker 3: I think they're onto something. There being on the same day,
Speaker 3: I think that's that can be a really big deal
Speaker 3: for people. It's a way to keep it because I
Speaker 3: think there's one thing about Green Bay. It's an awesome city,
Speaker 3: it's an aweso community. It's cool to be around. But
Speaker 3: training camp practice, especially those that first one is like
Speaker 3: an hour and a half. Then what do you do? Well,
Speaker 3: you got the shareholders you got some stuff around the stadium.
Speaker 3: I think that's a great idea. Just wish it was
Speaker 3: July twenty ninth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd be nice if it were a week later,
Speaker 1: if we had another week of summer before we dive
Speaker 1: into things. But Mini Campus next week, Mini Campus next week,
Speaker 1: and the off season program ends, and then you and I
Speaker 1: are probably gonna figure out a way to not.
Speaker 3: See each other unless you're coming to Vegas with me
Speaker 3: five weeks.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not coming to Vegas with you. I'll be
Speaker 1: following your uh, I'll be following your social media timeline though.
Speaker 1: On that Vegas follow yeah, there will be. With that,
Speaker 1: we're gonna call it a rap on this edition of
Speaker 1: Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our coverage
Speaker 1: of the team. One more week of OTAs this week,
Speaker 1: Mini Camp next week. We will continue with Packers Unscripted
Speaker 1: shows through the end of the off season program. So
Speaker 1: for Wes, I am Mike, thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 3: Everybody.
Speaker 2: We will see you next time.