September 5, 2023 • 23 mins
Mike and Wes discuss Week 1 opponent Chicago, examining the Bears’ offense with QB Justin Fields (4:14), the defense anchored by its linebackers (9:07), and the potential atmosphere at Soldier Field (13:00). They also look at some of the young players on the Packers’ roster making their NFL debuts (16:14).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from
Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spofford, joined as always
by my trusted colleague West and Hodkowitz. We're coming to
you hear from our studios at lambeau Field and West.
Week one has finally arrived. Are you ready for this?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I am. I know you can make a lot of
jokes here about how long the offseason was, and you know,
training camp and everything, But to me, this is almost
more like the Christmas Morning kind of thing that it's like,
we know how good this team can be. We've seen
the potential and all these things. But when you have
one of the youngest rosters in the National Football League,
as much as you and I can pontificate about the
(00:45):
various different possibilities of this team, you want to see
it on in the football field. And what better way
from the Green Bay Packers and the Jordan love Ara
to kick things off than going down to Soldier Field
to play their longest rival. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Absolutely, And I've done a little bit of research and
I'm gonna be writing about this later on in the week.
This is actually the twenty fifth time that the Packers
and Bears will open a season against one another. I
believe the current count is the Packers have the lead
thirteen wins, ten losses, one tie. Some of those have
(01:19):
been significant. You know, the Packers and Bears played the
first game at lambeau Field, The Packers and Bears were
the first game of the Vince Lombardi era, the first
game of the Mike McCarthy era, a lot of those,
and the first game of the Matt Lafleur era, and
now the first game of the Jordan Love era with
him taking over for Aaron Rodgers. And now it'll be
(01:44):
interesting because you know, there's going to be all of
the excitement, all the build up, all of the nerves
and all that. But I think what one thing that
I think will really work to Jordan Love's advantage in
this situation on Sunday at Soldier Field is that he
has actually started an NFL game before, and he did
it on the road at Arrowhead Stadium in a tough
(02:07):
place to play. So as much as there is so
much anticipation for this game and signaling the transition to
the new era at starting quarterback, at least from Jordan
Love's perspective, everything about going through the pregame and the
preparation and knowing that you're going to go out there
and play four quarters against an opponent with the crowd
against you and all that kind of stuff. He's been
(02:27):
through it before, and I think that that is at
least a little bit of something that he can hang
his hat on as he makes this momentous start.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, I think it's a lot a bit of something,
to be honest with you, because when you're a young
quarterback that has been the understudy for Aaron Rodgers for
three years, the opportunities to play were few and far between,
especially early on in twenty twenty when there was not
a preseason. But I thought that when you look at
every step of Jordan Love's journey from the first preseason
(02:58):
to that game against Kansas City Spots start in twenty one,
playing a little bit against Detroit later that same season
in the second half when the Packers already had their
seed wrapped up, and then lastly last year against Philadelphia,
every single time I thought you saw progress from him,
not just in the stat books, but in how he
carried himself as a quarterback, in the way in which
(03:18):
he played the position. This is going to be a
hostile environment because the Chicago Bears and their fans, they're
going to be energized. As much as you and I
think have talked about, you know, expectations on the Detroit
Lions this year as they've continued to make this progress
underneath Dan Campbell. The Bears feel likewise. They feel like
with Justin Fields, they have their quarterback of the future.
They feel like they've drafted well, They've made the right signings.
(03:39):
Are they going to be a team that's going to
contend for a Super Bowl this year? I wouldn't think so,
But they believe they should go into this game and
be able to change the tide here in this rivalry
against the Packers, and from the Packers' perspective, from Love's perspective,
what better way to put your stamp on things than
going back down into Soldier Field and continue in this
winning streak that Matt Lafleur has been I'm sure he's
(04:01):
not going to want to talk about it this week,
but eight tries against the Chicago Bears and eight victories
so far, Green Bay has really controlled the tempo of
this thing, and obviously, now that's something that Jordan Love
wants to continue to build upon.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah. Absolutely. And let's talk about this Bears team a
little bit because it is the second year of the
Matt Eberflus era as the head coach. Luke Getzi, the
former Packers assistant coach, as the offensive coordinator down there
in Chicago, working with Justin Fields. He is in his
third year as the starting quarterback, which is the second
year with this regime on the coaching staff. So there
(04:37):
are a lot of hopes and aspirations for Justin Fields
to make some major strides this year. Now, this is
a young man, he bleeve. He rushed for over a
thousand yards last year, which doesn't happen very often at
the quarterback position. I think the word out of Chicago
is that they would like Justin Fields to not have
to run as much, to not maybe run as much
(04:59):
as the did last year, to try to hang in
the pocket and make more plays with his arm, because
he certainly does have the arm to do that. And
one thing the Bears did to help him significantly in
that regards they went out and got DJ Moore, the
wide receiver from Carolina, who may not be a household
name in terms of wide receivers, but you look at
(05:20):
what he accomplished in five seasons at Carolina over five
thousand receiving yards. Three of those years he was over
eleven hundred receiving yards. This is the most accomplished offensive
perimeter weapon that the Bears have to go with Justin
Fields now, and he's going to be a player to
keep an eye on come Sunday.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Well, and you can't really draw too much out of
the preseason, right, but I thought some of the early
signs that we saw, you know, the catch and run,
the things that he's going to be able to do
with the ball in his hands, if you can get
him free in space. I'm sure that's what they're going
to be scheming up. I'm sure that's what Luke Getz
He's going to be looking to achieve. But even the
way they've built the rest of this roster out now, right,
Mercedes lewis up in Chicago, Robert Tunyan is in Chicago now,
(06:03):
Cole Kmet just got a you know, extension, got rewarded,
and they feel like he's going to be a big
part of this thing too. I think the Bears have
tried to figure out this offseason. Okay, what does Justin
Fields do well? Where can we help him and in
what areas can we take what he's already done well
and improve upon that. Having a guy like Mercedes does that.
Having you know, an offensive line that I think is
(06:24):
trying to make steps forward here and trying to galvanize
itself is going to do that. But at the end
of the day, the Bears needed receivers, and as good
of a story as Darnell Mooney was last year, they
just didn't really have a lot of guys that fields
could go to. So he did have to improvise a lot.
You're right, Mike. Last year he ran for eleven hundred yards.
You know, he threw for seventeen touchdowns. But at the
(06:44):
end of the day, the Bears still worth three and fourteen.
It didn't translate to wins. They needed to deepen out
this roster on both sides of the ball, and I
think when you see someone like more come in that
has the amount of energy that he has, there's a
feeling that this is one of those number one receivers
that we've been missing and a guy that could potentially,
you know, kind of pick up for what they've lacked
since Alan Robinson left.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, and in the backfield. The Bears have now seemingly
have turned things over to Khalil Herbert as their number
one running back that David Montgomery is gone. He's now
actually with division rival Detroit, and Herbert as a guy,
you know, showed a lot of flashes, broke some big plays.
I don't have his exact statistics from last year in
(07:27):
front of me, but this is a he's a got
packs of punch, I guess is maybe the best way
to describe his running style. It's nothing that's overly dynamic,
but he's not exactly easy to bring down a lot
of times.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
No, I mean he's a little powerhouse. I mean five
nine two ten pounds whatever he goes at. Yeah, you
were talking about last year with his stats. He ended
up finishing with seven hundred and thirty one rushing yards
four touchdowns. But the biggest thing of all for him
was the five point seven yards per clip on the attempts.
That's one thing that I thought last year the Bears
sort of saw is Okay, David Montgomery's our guy for
a few seasons, you know, But you go back to
(08:03):
the way that this offense was built originally. It's that
Matt Forte type back right, and obviously Herbert is not
forte in terms of size, but a guy that could
be in every down type of presence for you. I
think that's probably where they wanted to get back to
a little bit this offseason. Montgomery ends up with the
Detroit Lions, and the Bear said, you know what, we
like what we have in house. We're going to continue
(08:24):
to develop this guy. Now, what's always going to be
interesting is I looked at the pairing of fields in
Montgomery almost as like a running back tandem, right, Yeah,
you know, not so much thunder and lightning, but just
different guys that can do different things with their ball
in their hands. Herbert gets them back to probably more
of just the between the tackles type runner, and I'm
very curious to see how he can make, you know,
(08:45):
fields life a little bit easier too in that regard.
But at the end of the day, it comes down
to being healthy. And I think when you look at
the Montgomery era in Chicago, that was one area where
they just they had to keep turning to different running
backs because Montgomery got banged up. If Herbert can be
the guy and stay on the field him like he
has the past two seasons for the most part, you know,
this is gonna be someone that I think they feel
like they can hang their hat on in this season
(09:06):
and years to come.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yeah. Well, on the defensive side of the ball for
the Bears, it's definitely been a I guess you'd almost
say an ongoing transition over the last couple of years
because the days of that defensive front of you know,
a Keem Hicks and Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn and
those guys they're all gone. Ye, And it's not a
bunch of household names up front on the defensive line.
(09:28):
But what catches your eye when you look at this
Bears lineup on the defensive side is the three off
the ball linebackers in this four to three because they
have They got TJ. Edwards from the Philadelphia Eagles, they
got Tremaine Edmonds from the Buffalo Bills, and then Jack
Sanborn who they developed he was a rookie last season.
(09:51):
And of course I don't want my you know, Wisconsin
bias to shine through too much here, but TJ. Edwards
and Jack Sanborn, former Wisconsin and Badgers who are are
making their way here in the NFL. And then you
plug in a former, you know, very high draft pick
in Tremaine Edmonds coming out coming out of Buffalo. That's
(10:13):
the that sort of seems to be what the core
of the Bears defense is going to be. Now, not
to say that they're completely hearkening back to you know,
the Brian Erleck or Lance Briggs days of those off
the ball linebackers, but in some senses that's that's going
to be the you know, where the targets are when
you try to go after the Chicago Bears defense.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah, and I felt like, you know, in last year,
they did everything right. You know, they made trades, they
kind of cleared house a little bit, and you know,
Sanborn sort of fell into that void, sort of came
out of nowhere. Although I think there was a lot
of people when they signed him as a UFA and
saw him early on, thought that this guy could actually
be a player for us. But Edmunds is a guy
I really like because I feel like you always have
to have an athletic, rangey type of linebacker that can
(10:58):
do all the grunt work but also can drop back
in the coverage. I thought TJ. Edwards is a great
compliment to that as well. In a lot of ways
you hope for the Bears. You know, I'm sure the
Bears are hoping it's more successful than what they did
about what was that five six years ago when they
completely overhauled their linebacker situation when they signed Danny Travathian.
When they signed I think it was Darrell Freeman and
(11:19):
that inside backer do just didn't quite get them to
where they needed to be. You know, this to these
two guys a little bit more athletic, I think, a
little bit younger in kind of looking to see what
they have in front of them. But they need that
to be the nucleus because I don't know right now
what that defensive front gives them in terms of pressing
the quarterback. That is probably the biggest area they've transitioned here.
(11:41):
A lot of those household names that they had for
so many years upfront that you could count on for,
you know, ten fifteen sacks, they're not there now. You know,
there's no Khalil Mack, the Akeem Hickses of the world
in his prime, like those type of players set the
tone for that entire unit. That's gonna be one of
the big transitions. But they still do have veterans too though.
I mean you look at the back end, Eddie Jackson
is still doing his thing back there. They have depth,
(12:04):
but it's now just gonna be a question of what
does that pass rush offer in behind it? How do
they handle opposing offenses? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Absolutely, I think when you look at Matt eber Matt
Eberflus's background, coming from coaching the defense in Indianapolis and
now transitioning to the head coach, the defenses with the
Indianapolis Colts were nothing flashy. They didn't put up a
whole bunch of great numbers or you know anything, you know,
a whole bunch of big time highlights or anything. But
(12:33):
they were defenses that we that were just sound that
were difficult to solve that times because they didn't have
any you know, big weak spots that that stood out
to you. That's what Matt Eberflus is trying to build.
That's why he's trying to build the middle of that
defense with those linebackers as as the core of things.
And and we'll see how how it works out for
(12:56):
them going into going into year two. Give me your
sense of what you feel the atmosphere will be like
at Soldier Field, because there is so much anticipation for
this Bears team, but yet it only had three victories
last year. You know, it's hard when we're not in
Chicago every day to get a sense of, Okay, just
(13:18):
how patient are Bears fans going to be with this
new regime and everything else, and certainly starting off against
the Packers, it's a big time opportunity for the Bears
to make a statement in week one, as you said earlier,
coming off of you know, kind of three decades of
dominance by Brett Farv and Aaron Rodgers as Packers quarterbacks.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
And even different from that, like three decades with a
few exceptions of the pressure always being on Green Bay.
Heading into that atmosphere, I think the pressure in the
pendulum kind of swings back to the Bears now. I
think they're favored in this game at the time in
which they're taping this, And to me, it's funny, I
feel like I'm almost echoing myself when you and I
(13:59):
talked to this game last year in that it's all
justin fields. Yeah, everything that the Bears have, all their
hopes are hanging on that young quarterback. Think about it,
This was a great year to be going into the
quarterback business. A lot of guys went off the board,
a lot of teams moving up to get guys, a
lot of equity being traded around trying to find the
(14:21):
next franchise guy. The Bears fell into that number one
spot and they said, you know what, We're good. We
got our guy. We're excited about this dude. And here
they are now kind of going into another season, marching
into another season. The part that always strikes me as
interesting is it follows the same script. I don't know
if it's media driven, I don't know if it's just
a response from coaches, but this script is always the same.
(14:42):
When a young quarterback that is a scrambler, that's a runner,
produces on the ground with his feet, the narrative always
changes in year two and three, sometimes four, to hey
can they throw more? Can they become more of a
pocket passer. That's where the Chicago Bears are going to
know better than you and I as far as what
they feel like fields can be in the long run,
because you do need to keep them healthy, you do
(15:03):
need to keep him out there. But he also utilizes
his feet in a way a lot of quarterbacks haven't
been able to. I don't take it as just a
flight or flight mechanism with him. I look at it
as he is a legitimate running threat, running back threat,
and I don't think I think there's been a dearth
of those in the league. There's been guys who can
run like Patrick Mahomes that are natural passers, and there's
(15:24):
been guys that they just run for the sake of
running because they're getting out of their progressions. Fields went
through his progressions, but a lot of times it kind
of went to him having to scramble to make plays
with his feet last year with more weapons this season.
When you ask me the expectations, what the atmosphere is
going to be like, I think this one's going to
be really electric for the Bear standpoint, but I think
it's also predicated on them being able to keep some
(15:45):
wins going the first month of the season to keep
that energy flowing in that direction. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
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(16:10):
in a bowl. Cousin Subs fifty years of better. All right. So,
as much as the spotlight in this game is on
Jordan Love making his first start as the air parent
to Aaron Rodgers, there are a lot of guys. We
talked about our last couple of shows about how young
this Packers roster is. A lot of a lot of
(16:31):
green Bay Packers will be making their NFL debuts. There
are a whole bunch of rookies on this roster. Now
we don't know who all necessarily is going to play,
but you talk about a way to sort of shake
off those first NFL jitters, Throw yourself into a Packers
Bears game in week one of your rookie season and
here we go.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
It reminds me the old Don Hodkoitz go learn how
to ride a bike, which was, okay, we can do
the training wheel thing, or I can just get you
in the front yard and start taking some tumbles and
figure it out.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
That's probably what this is gonna be like for Green Bay.
They're gonna take some bumps early on, Jordan Love is
gonna take some bumps early on. But what I've been saying,
and you've had to edit it when I've written it
an insider inbox congratulations to you, is the Packers have
veteran depth where accounts right. If you're gonna pick Okay,
you're gonna have rookies here, You're gonna have veterans here, Mike,
where do you want to make sure you have veteran help.
You want to have it on the blind side of
your quarterback. The Packers have that in David Baktiari and
(17:25):
Elton Jenkins. They have guys in the backfield that know
what they're doing and blood, you know, blitz protection and
being able to be a checkdown option in Aaron Jones
and aj Dillon. Where they're young is the position where
sometimes you want to be young, right. You want to
have young receivers like Jayden Reid come into your offense,
a guy like Malik Heath who's probably gonna see some
snaps right out of the gate even though he was
(17:46):
an undrafted rookie, and someone like Luke Musgrave who will
be ling learning on the job this year as a
tight end one. But I'll tell you what, Mike for
being a rookie, really impressed me in camp in terms
of what he was able to do out of the
gate at a very complicated position. This is going to
be a supreme challenge for this football team. They're going
to have to hang their hat at times on their
defense and they're going to need the defense to play
(18:07):
to that standard. But that being said, as you myself,
Larry mccaern, we've all talked about the Packers team, assuming
they can stay healthy, that takes the field, that soldier
field in week one is not going to look anything
like the last one. In Week eighteen when the Bears
come to Green Bay to play the Packers, right, it
is going to be developed, It is going to be matured,
and you just hope through the course of that season,
(18:28):
those eighteen weeks, those seventeen games, you can pick up
enough wins along the way that keeps you hunting the
hunt for playoffs. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Absolutely, And the Packers are young as well. Obviously at
the specialist position. You have the rookie kicker and Anders
Carlson six round pick out of Auburn. He'll make his
NFL debut and then Daniel Wheelan at Punter. He's taking
over there for the veteran pat O'Donnell. And I use
that as a transition because I have to clarify something,
and I'll do it right here on the show. Because
(18:56):
it was on our last show that I made a
comment in talking about Daniel Wheelan and in trying to
tease the feature story that I wrote on him, that
that is on our website. You can go find it
if you'd still like to read it. But I made
the passing comment that Daniel Wheeler went to a small
school in California. Okay, no, no, wait, wait, listen, listen, listen.
(19:18):
Because I took a couple of days off this last weekend,
I disconnected. I disappeared quite frankly for a couple of days,
and then I came back and I read a defense
of that line from the last unscripted show that you
put an insider inbox. It was a reader named William
from Colorado. I run into the fire here, Mike, and
(19:40):
I appreciate him pointing this out. But the reason and
what you said is that obviously you see Davis, which
is where Daniel Wheelan went, is it is not a
small school because it has forty thousand students, but it's
an FCS school, it's not an FBS, it's not a
Power five conference, and I appreciate you providing that defense
(20:02):
for me. What I need to clarify, though, is what
actually what actually happened in my brain when I said
small school in California, I got and this is the
honest truth. I got the school for Daniel Wheelan and
long snapper Matt Orzick mixed up Pacific because Orzick went
(20:25):
to Azusa Pacific, which is a school in California that
has I believe ten thousand students, and half of those
are grad students. It's only like five thousand undergraduate students.
That's where he played his college football, and I got
it mixed up with Wheelan, who also played at a
school in California, not a small school, but an FCS school.
(20:47):
So I should have just said, if I had had
it right, I would have said that Daniel Wheelan went
to an FCS school and not a Power five school.
The small school line was actually a mistake on my
part because I got his school mixed up with his
long snappers, with Orza going to a Zusa Pacific. So
William from Colorado. I appreciate, I appreciate you bringing that
(21:11):
line to my attention, and I appreciate my colleagues defense
and insider inbox of me. But I needed to set
the record straight right here. So hopefully William is listening
or watching this show and the clarification has been made.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I'm glad you did that. You're an upstanding citizen, You're
a man of honor. I will say this though, it
had been twenty one years now since the last time
a player has been drafted out of UC Davis, Right,
so they've had forty thousand students a year or whatever.
The last time is two thousand and two. You're not
gonna guess, so I might as well just.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Tell no, I'm not gonna be able to get hast.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Ties to the Green Bay Packers. Really, former Packers quarterback J. T.
O'Sullivan was the last player to get drafted out of
UC Davis, not by the Packers, by the Saints.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah. I was gonna say he wasted by New Orleans,
but then he ended up up and ended up in
Green Bay briefly. Y, But that's the other thing I
love about specialists.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Though, Now you have andres Carlson, who you know, he
comes from a kicking family. Him and his brother were
what the kickers at Auburn for a decade. But I
love that. That's what I always love. You know, these
specialists U see Davis Azusa, Pacific Old Dominion, you know
br Hatcher when he was here in camp. Like you
get these guys that aren't like from the big Power
five schools, that get an opportunity, and certainly from Wheland
(22:26):
if you had any chance to check out the story yet,
be sure to do that because he has an incredible story, yes,
and such a little part of it is actually his
background from Ireland. I mean, they's just the things that
he's done to make his dream come true here and
obviously you hope for the best for the kid.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, well, one of many young players that will take
the field for the Packers that soldier field in Week one.
On our next show, we'll get to the keys to
victory and break things down a little bit more with
another look at this Packers Bears matchup, but for now
we'll call it a rap. On this edition of Packers Unscripted,
be sure to follow all of our coverage of the
team throughout Week one. We will have it all four
(23:00):
for you on packers dot com for Wesi, Am Mike,
thank you for tuning in everybody. We will see you
next time. Mm hmm
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from
Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spofford, joined as always
by my trusted colleague West and Hodkowitz. We're coming to
you hear from our studios at lambeau Field and West.
Week one has finally arrived. Are you ready for this?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I am. I know you can make a lot of
jokes here about how long the offseason was, and you know,
training camp and everything, But to me, this is almost
more like the Christmas Morning kind of thing that it's like,
we know how good this team can be. We've seen
the potential and all these things. But when you have
one of the youngest rosters in the National Football League,
as much as you and I can pontificate about the
(00:45):
various different possibilities of this team, you want to see
it on in the football field. And what better way
from the Green Bay Packers and the Jordan love Ara
to kick things off than going down to Soldier Field
to play their longest rival. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Absolutely, And I've done a little bit of research and
I'm gonna be writing about this later on in the week.
This is actually the twenty fifth time that the Packers
and Bears will open a season against one another. I
believe the current count is the Packers have the lead
thirteen wins, ten losses, one tie. Some of those have
(01:19):
been significant. You know, the Packers and Bears played the
first game at lambeau Field, The Packers and Bears were
the first game of the Vince Lombardi era, the first
game of the Mike McCarthy era, a lot of those,
and the first game of the Matt Lafleur era, and
now the first game of the Jordan Love era with
him taking over for Aaron Rodgers. And now it'll be
(01:44):
interesting because you know, there's going to be all of
the excitement, all the build up, all of the nerves
and all that. But I think what one thing that
I think will really work to Jordan Love's advantage in
this situation on Sunday at Soldier Field is that he
has actually started an NFL game before, and he did
it on the road at Arrowhead Stadium in a tough
(02:07):
place to play. So as much as there is so
much anticipation for this game and signaling the transition to
the new era at starting quarterback, at least from Jordan
Love's perspective, everything about going through the pregame and the
preparation and knowing that you're going to go out there
and play four quarters against an opponent with the crowd
against you and all that kind of stuff. He's been
(02:27):
through it before, and I think that that is at
least a little bit of something that he can hang
his hat on as he makes this momentous start.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, I think it's a lot a bit of something,
to be honest with you, because when you're a young
quarterback that has been the understudy for Aaron Rodgers for
three years, the opportunities to play were few and far between,
especially early on in twenty twenty when there was not
a preseason. But I thought that when you look at
every step of Jordan Love's journey from the first preseason
(02:58):
to that game against Kansas City Spots start in twenty one,
playing a little bit against Detroit later that same season
in the second half when the Packers already had their
seed wrapped up, and then lastly last year against Philadelphia,
every single time I thought you saw progress from him,
not just in the stat books, but in how he
carried himself as a quarterback, in the way in which
(03:18):
he played the position. This is going to be a
hostile environment because the Chicago Bears and their fans, they're
going to be energized. As much as you and I
think have talked about, you know, expectations on the Detroit
Lions this year as they've continued to make this progress
underneath Dan Campbell. The Bears feel likewise. They feel like
with Justin Fields, they have their quarterback of the future.
They feel like they've drafted well, They've made the right signings.
(03:39):
Are they going to be a team that's going to
contend for a Super Bowl this year? I wouldn't think so,
But they believe they should go into this game and
be able to change the tide here in this rivalry
against the Packers, and from the Packers' perspective, from Love's perspective,
what better way to put your stamp on things than
going back down into Soldier Field and continue in this
winning streak that Matt Lafleur has been I'm sure he's
(04:01):
not going to want to talk about it this week,
but eight tries against the Chicago Bears and eight victories
so far, Green Bay has really controlled the tempo of
this thing, and obviously, now that's something that Jordan Love
wants to continue to build upon.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah. Absolutely. And let's talk about this Bears team a
little bit because it is the second year of the
Matt Eberflus era as the head coach. Luke Getzi, the
former Packers assistant coach, as the offensive coordinator down there
in Chicago, working with Justin Fields. He is in his
third year as the starting quarterback, which is the second
year with this regime on the coaching staff. So there
(04:37):
are a lot of hopes and aspirations for Justin Fields
to make some major strides this year. Now, this is
a young man, he bleeve. He rushed for over a
thousand yards last year, which doesn't happen very often at
the quarterback position. I think the word out of Chicago
is that they would like Justin Fields to not have
to run as much, to not maybe run as much
(04:59):
as the did last year, to try to hang in
the pocket and make more plays with his arm, because
he certainly does have the arm to do that. And
one thing the Bears did to help him significantly in
that regards they went out and got DJ Moore, the
wide receiver from Carolina, who may not be a household
name in terms of wide receivers, but you look at
(05:20):
what he accomplished in five seasons at Carolina over five
thousand receiving yards. Three of those years he was over
eleven hundred receiving yards. This is the most accomplished offensive
perimeter weapon that the Bears have to go with Justin
Fields now, and he's going to be a player to
keep an eye on come Sunday.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Well, and you can't really draw too much out of
the preseason, right, but I thought some of the early
signs that we saw, you know, the catch and run,
the things that he's going to be able to do
with the ball in his hands, if you can get
him free in space. I'm sure that's what they're going
to be scheming up. I'm sure that's what Luke Getz
He's going to be looking to achieve. But even the
way they've built the rest of this roster out now, right,
Mercedes lewis up in Chicago, Robert Tunyan is in Chicago now,
(06:03):
Cole Kmet just got a you know, extension, got rewarded,
and they feel like he's going to be a big
part of this thing too. I think the Bears have
tried to figure out this offseason. Okay, what does Justin
Fields do well? Where can we help him and in
what areas can we take what he's already done well
and improve upon that. Having a guy like Mercedes does that.
Having you know, an offensive line that I think is
(06:24):
trying to make steps forward here and trying to galvanize
itself is going to do that. But at the end
of the day, the Bears needed receivers, and as good
of a story as Darnell Mooney was last year, they
just didn't really have a lot of guys that fields
could go to. So he did have to improvise a lot.
You're right, Mike. Last year he ran for eleven hundred yards.
You know, he threw for seventeen touchdowns. But at the
(06:44):
end of the day, the Bears still worth three and fourteen.
It didn't translate to wins. They needed to deepen out
this roster on both sides of the ball, and I
think when you see someone like more come in that
has the amount of energy that he has, there's a
feeling that this is one of those number one receivers
that we've been missing and a guy that could potentially,
you know, kind of pick up for what they've lacked
since Alan Robinson left.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, and in the backfield. The Bears have now seemingly
have turned things over to Khalil Herbert as their number
one running back that David Montgomery is gone. He's now
actually with division rival Detroit, and Herbert as a guy,
you know, showed a lot of flashes, broke some big plays.
I don't have his exact statistics from last year in
(07:27):
front of me, but this is a he's a got
packs of punch, I guess is maybe the best way
to describe his running style. It's nothing that's overly dynamic,
but he's not exactly easy to bring down a lot
of times.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
No, I mean he's a little powerhouse. I mean five
nine two ten pounds whatever he goes at. Yeah, you
were talking about last year with his stats. He ended
up finishing with seven hundred and thirty one rushing yards
four touchdowns. But the biggest thing of all for him
was the five point seven yards per clip on the attempts.
That's one thing that I thought last year the Bears
sort of saw is Okay, David Montgomery's our guy for
a few seasons, you know, But you go back to
(08:03):
the way that this offense was built originally. It's that
Matt Forte type back right, and obviously Herbert is not
forte in terms of size, but a guy that could
be in every down type of presence for you. I
think that's probably where they wanted to get back to
a little bit this offseason. Montgomery ends up with the
Detroit Lions, and the Bear said, you know what, we
like what we have in house. We're going to continue
(08:24):
to develop this guy. Now, what's always going to be
interesting is I looked at the pairing of fields in
Montgomery almost as like a running back tandem, right, Yeah,
you know, not so much thunder and lightning, but just
different guys that can do different things with their ball
in their hands. Herbert gets them back to probably more
of just the between the tackles type runner, and I'm
very curious to see how he can make, you know,
(08:45):
fields life a little bit easier too in that regard.
But at the end of the day, it comes down
to being healthy. And I think when you look at
the Montgomery era in Chicago, that was one area where
they just they had to keep turning to different running
backs because Montgomery got banged up. If Herbert can be
the guy and stay on the field him like he
has the past two seasons for the most part, you know,
this is gonna be someone that I think they feel
like they can hang their hat on in this season
(09:06):
and years to come.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yeah. Well, on the defensive side of the ball for
the Bears, it's definitely been a I guess you'd almost
say an ongoing transition over the last couple of years
because the days of that defensive front of you know,
a Keem Hicks and Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn and
those guys they're all gone. Ye, And it's not a
bunch of household names up front on the defensive line.
(09:28):
But what catches your eye when you look at this
Bears lineup on the defensive side is the three off
the ball linebackers in this four to three because they
have They got TJ. Edwards from the Philadelphia Eagles, they
got Tremaine Edmonds from the Buffalo Bills, and then Jack
Sanborn who they developed he was a rookie last season.
(09:51):
And of course I don't want my you know, Wisconsin
bias to shine through too much here, but TJ. Edwards
and Jack Sanborn, former Wisconsin and Badgers who are are
making their way here in the NFL. And then you
plug in a former, you know, very high draft pick
in Tremaine Edmonds coming out coming out of Buffalo. That's
(10:13):
the that sort of seems to be what the core
of the Bears defense is going to be. Now, not
to say that they're completely hearkening back to you know,
the Brian Erleck or Lance Briggs days of those off
the ball linebackers, but in some senses that's that's going
to be the you know, where the targets are when
you try to go after the Chicago Bears defense.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah, and I felt like, you know, in last year,
they did everything right. You know, they made trades, they
kind of cleared house a little bit, and you know,
Sanborn sort of fell into that void, sort of came
out of nowhere. Although I think there was a lot
of people when they signed him as a UFA and
saw him early on, thought that this guy could actually
be a player for us. But Edmunds is a guy
I really like because I feel like you always have
to have an athletic, rangey type of linebacker that can
(10:58):
do all the grunt work but also can drop back
in the coverage. I thought TJ. Edwards is a great
compliment to that as well. In a lot of ways
you hope for the Bears. You know, I'm sure the
Bears are hoping it's more successful than what they did
about what was that five six years ago when they
completely overhauled their linebacker situation when they signed Danny Travathian.
When they signed I think it was Darrell Freeman and
(11:19):
that inside backer do just didn't quite get them to
where they needed to be. You know, this to these
two guys a little bit more athletic, I think, a
little bit younger in kind of looking to see what
they have in front of them. But they need that
to be the nucleus because I don't know right now
what that defensive front gives them in terms of pressing
the quarterback. That is probably the biggest area they've transitioned here.
(11:41):
A lot of those household names that they had for
so many years upfront that you could count on for,
you know, ten fifteen sacks, they're not there now. You know,
there's no Khalil Mack, the Akeem Hickses of the world
in his prime, like those type of players set the
tone for that entire unit. That's gonna be one of
the big transitions. But they still do have veterans too though.
I mean you look at the back end, Eddie Jackson
is still doing his thing back there. They have depth,
(12:04):
but it's now just gonna be a question of what
does that pass rush offer in behind it? How do
they handle opposing offenses? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Absolutely, I think when you look at Matt eber Matt
Eberflus's background, coming from coaching the defense in Indianapolis and
now transitioning to the head coach, the defenses with the
Indianapolis Colts were nothing flashy. They didn't put up a
whole bunch of great numbers or you know anything, you know,
a whole bunch of big time highlights or anything. But
(12:33):
they were defenses that we that were just sound that
were difficult to solve that times because they didn't have
any you know, big weak spots that that stood out
to you. That's what Matt Eberflus is trying to build.
That's why he's trying to build the middle of that
defense with those linebackers as as the core of things.
And and we'll see how how it works out for
(12:56):
them going into going into year two. Give me your
sense of what you feel the atmosphere will be like
at Soldier Field, because there is so much anticipation for
this Bears team, but yet it only had three victories
last year. You know, it's hard when we're not in
Chicago every day to get a sense of, Okay, just
(13:18):
how patient are Bears fans going to be with this
new regime and everything else, and certainly starting off against
the Packers, it's a big time opportunity for the Bears
to make a statement in week one, as you said earlier,
coming off of you know, kind of three decades of
dominance by Brett Farv and Aaron Rodgers as Packers quarterbacks.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
And even different from that, like three decades with a
few exceptions of the pressure always being on Green Bay.
Heading into that atmosphere, I think the pressure in the
pendulum kind of swings back to the Bears now. I
think they're favored in this game at the time in
which they're taping this, And to me, it's funny, I
feel like I'm almost echoing myself when you and I
(13:59):
talked to this game last year in that it's all
justin fields. Yeah, everything that the Bears have, all their
hopes are hanging on that young quarterback. Think about it,
This was a great year to be going into the
quarterback business. A lot of guys went off the board,
a lot of teams moving up to get guys, a
lot of equity being traded around trying to find the
(14:21):
next franchise guy. The Bears fell into that number one
spot and they said, you know what, We're good. We
got our guy. We're excited about this dude. And here
they are now kind of going into another season, marching
into another season. The part that always strikes me as
interesting is it follows the same script. I don't know
if it's media driven, I don't know if it's just
a response from coaches, but this script is always the same.
(14:42):
When a young quarterback that is a scrambler, that's a runner,
produces on the ground with his feet, the narrative always
changes in year two and three, sometimes four, to hey
can they throw more? Can they become more of a
pocket passer. That's where the Chicago Bears are going to
know better than you and I as far as what
they feel like fields can be in the long run,
because you do need to keep them healthy, you do
(15:03):
need to keep him out there. But he also utilizes
his feet in a way a lot of quarterbacks haven't
been able to. I don't take it as just a
flight or flight mechanism with him. I look at it
as he is a legitimate running threat, running back threat,
and I don't think I think there's been a dearth
of those in the league. There's been guys who can
run like Patrick Mahomes that are natural passers, and there's
(15:24):
been guys that they just run for the sake of
running because they're getting out of their progressions. Fields went
through his progressions, but a lot of times it kind
of went to him having to scramble to make plays
with his feet last year with more weapons this season.
When you ask me the expectations, what the atmosphere is
going to be like, I think this one's going to
be really electric for the Bear standpoint, but I think
it's also predicated on them being able to keep some
(15:45):
wins going the first month of the season to keep
that energy flowing in that direction. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
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(16:10):
in a bowl. Cousin Subs fifty years of better. All right. So,
as much as the spotlight in this game is on
Jordan Love making his first start as the air parent
to Aaron Rodgers, there are a lot of guys. We
talked about our last couple of shows about how young
this Packers roster is. A lot of a lot of
(16:31):
green Bay Packers will be making their NFL debuts. There
are a whole bunch of rookies on this roster. Now
we don't know who all necessarily is going to play,
but you talk about a way to sort of shake
off those first NFL jitters, Throw yourself into a Packers
Bears game in week one of your rookie season and
here we go.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
It reminds me the old Don Hodkoitz go learn how
to ride a bike, which was, okay, we can do
the training wheel thing, or I can just get you
in the front yard and start taking some tumbles and
figure it out.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
That's probably what this is gonna be like for Green Bay.
They're gonna take some bumps early on, Jordan Love is
gonna take some bumps early on. But what I've been saying,
and you've had to edit it when I've written it
an insider inbox congratulations to you, is the Packers have
veteran depth where accounts right. If you're gonna pick Okay,
you're gonna have rookies here, You're gonna have veterans here, Mike,
where do you want to make sure you have veteran help.
You want to have it on the blind side of
your quarterback. The Packers have that in David Baktiari and
(17:25):
Elton Jenkins. They have guys in the backfield that know
what they're doing and blood, you know, blitz protection and
being able to be a checkdown option in Aaron Jones
and aj Dillon. Where they're young is the position where
sometimes you want to be young, right. You want to
have young receivers like Jayden Reid come into your offense,
a guy like Malik Heath who's probably gonna see some
snaps right out of the gate even though he was
(17:46):
an undrafted rookie, and someone like Luke Musgrave who will
be ling learning on the job this year as a
tight end one. But I'll tell you what, Mike for
being a rookie, really impressed me in camp in terms
of what he was able to do out of the
gate at a very complicated position. This is going to
be a supreme challenge for this football team. They're going
to have to hang their hat at times on their
defense and they're going to need the defense to play
(18:07):
to that standard. But that being said, as you myself,
Larry mccaern, we've all talked about the Packers team, assuming
they can stay healthy, that takes the field, that soldier
field in week one is not going to look anything
like the last one. In Week eighteen when the Bears
come to Green Bay to play the Packers, right, it
is going to be developed, It is going to be matured,
and you just hope through the course of that season,
(18:28):
those eighteen weeks, those seventeen games, you can pick up
enough wins along the way that keeps you hunting the
hunt for playoffs. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Absolutely, And the Packers are young as well. Obviously at
the specialist position. You have the rookie kicker and Anders
Carlson six round pick out of Auburn. He'll make his
NFL debut and then Daniel Wheelan at Punter. He's taking
over there for the veteran pat O'Donnell. And I use
that as a transition because I have to clarify something,
and I'll do it right here on the show. Because
(18:56):
it was on our last show that I made a
comment in talking about Daniel Wheelan and in trying to
tease the feature story that I wrote on him, that
that is on our website. You can go find it
if you'd still like to read it. But I made
the passing comment that Daniel Wheeler went to a small
school in California. Okay, no, no, wait, wait, listen, listen, listen.
(19:18):
Because I took a couple of days off this last weekend,
I disconnected. I disappeared quite frankly for a couple of days,
and then I came back and I read a defense
of that line from the last unscripted show that you
put an insider inbox. It was a reader named William
from Colorado. I run into the fire here, Mike, and
(19:40):
I appreciate him pointing this out. But the reason and
what you said is that obviously you see Davis, which
is where Daniel Wheelan went, is it is not a
small school because it has forty thousand students, but it's
an FCS school, it's not an FBS, it's not a
Power five conference, and I appreciate you providing that defense
(20:02):
for me. What I need to clarify, though, is what
actually what actually happened in my brain when I said
small school in California, I got and this is the
honest truth. I got the school for Daniel Wheelan and
long snapper Matt Orzick mixed up Pacific because Orzick went
(20:25):
to Azusa Pacific, which is a school in California that
has I believe ten thousand students, and half of those
are grad students. It's only like five thousand undergraduate students.
That's where he played his college football, and I got
it mixed up with Wheelan, who also played at a
school in California, not a small school, but an FCS school.
(20:47):
So I should have just said, if I had had
it right, I would have said that Daniel Wheelan went
to an FCS school and not a Power five school.
The small school line was actually a mistake on my
part because I got his school mixed up with his
long snappers, with Orza going to a Zusa Pacific. So
William from Colorado. I appreciate, I appreciate you bringing that
(21:11):
line to my attention, and I appreciate my colleagues defense
and insider inbox of me. But I needed to set
the record straight right here. So hopefully William is listening
or watching this show and the clarification has been made.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I'm glad you did that. You're an upstanding citizen, You're
a man of honor. I will say this though, it
had been twenty one years now since the last time
a player has been drafted out of UC Davis, Right,
so they've had forty thousand students a year or whatever.
The last time is two thousand and two. You're not
gonna guess, so I might as well just.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Tell no, I'm not gonna be able to get hast.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Ties to the Green Bay Packers. Really, former Packers quarterback J. T.
O'Sullivan was the last player to get drafted out of
UC Davis, not by the Packers, by the Saints.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah. I was gonna say he wasted by New Orleans,
but then he ended up up and ended up in
Green Bay briefly. Y, But that's the other thing I
love about specialists.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Though, Now you have andres Carlson, who you know, he
comes from a kicking family. Him and his brother were
what the kickers at Auburn for a decade. But I
love that. That's what I always love. You know, these
specialists U see Davis Azusa, Pacific Old Dominion, you know
br Hatcher when he was here in camp. Like you
get these guys that aren't like from the big Power
five schools, that get an opportunity, and certainly from Wheland
(22:26):
if you had any chance to check out the story yet,
be sure to do that because he has an incredible story, yes,
and such a little part of it is actually his
background from Ireland. I mean, they's just the things that
he's done to make his dream come true here and
obviously you hope for the best for the kid.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, well, one of many young players that will take
the field for the Packers that soldier field in Week one.
On our next show, we'll get to the keys to
victory and break things down a little bit more with
another look at this Packers Bears matchup, but for now
we'll call it a rap. On this edition of Packers Unscripted,
be sure to follow all of our coverage of the
team throughout Week one. We will have it all four
(23:00):
for you on packers dot com for Wesi, Am Mike,
thank you for tuning in everybody. We will see you
next time. Mm hmm
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