October 29, 2024 • 37 mins
Mike and Wes review the last-second victory at Jacksonville, including the performance of backup QB Malik Willis (2:28), the big play to WR Jayden Reed (7:41), the Packers’ injury situation (15:39), and the games turned in by RB Josh Jacobs (19:04) and Green Bay’s defense (22:58). They also look at the NFL’s Week 8 (29:51).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from
Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spoffor, joined as always
by my trust and colleague Wes Hodkowitz. We're coming to
you here from our studios at lambeau Field to review Wes.
Yet another walk off victory for green Bay, this one
thirty to twenty seven over the Jacksonville Jaguars on the road.
(00:36):
A fourth straight win for green Bay six and two
record now, as I said, second straight walkoff victory, and man,
just whatever it takes at the end, the Packers are
finding a way here.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Survive in advance that you have to learn from it,
you have to improve from it. And as Tucker Craft
said after the game, there's certain things that have happened
in this first half of the season that they have
to very much get corrected if they're going to be
a championship team. If this is gonna be a team that
is going to make some noise in January and potentially
into February. But all that being said, Mike, you have
to win these football games. And I was reminded on
(01:09):
Sunday night and watching some of these games unfold, and
we'll talk about it later in the show. But obviously
what happened with Washington. You saw the game between Dallas
and San Francisco and the high stakes of that matchup
with both of those teams and the slow starts they've
been off to. You have to win games in this league.
You have to find ways through your errors, through your mistakes,
you have to continue to keep stacking things. And that's
(01:31):
what the Packers have done during this four game win streak.
They were able to sweep the AFC SOL in this
non conference action. They were able to build some momentum
here through the first half of the season. And if
you're going to take the situation that the Packers found
themselves in Week nine last year in compared to this year,
being able to come out on the winning side of
this thing, I think shows the maturity of this football
(01:53):
team in the fact that it can go so many
different ways, whether it was the takeovers that turning those
takeovers into points, overcoming the loss of Jordan Love, but
Willis going back in there, Josh Jacob's rushing for one
hundred and twenty seven yards. Everybody pulled together in this one,
and as you said, it eventually came down to the
first time ever in NFL history, According to Elias, a
(02:16):
kicker in his first two games with the team, as
time expires, making a game wining field goal. Yeah, I mean,
it just doesn't get any bigger than that.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, this one was a lot shorter in that regard,
a chip shot for Brandon McManus to win the game.
But of course it starts with Malik Willis doing it
yet again. He comes in for Jordan Love. Love injures
is groin on the first possession of the game for
the Packers. It was a third down. He's trying to
scramble to his right a little bit and throw back
(02:43):
across the field to Josh Jacobs and he strains the
groin muscle. He stays in for the rest of the
first half. The Packers score thirteen points, and Love is
in there. On the opening series of the second half,
he's almost at two hundred yards pass I mean, but
he's he's gutting it out, not clearly, not one hundred percent.
(03:05):
The mobility is not there. And on that opening essentially
the opening third down of the second half for the Packers,
it's like, that's it. Love can't do it anymore. Malik
Willis has to go in and this is where what
I think was a remarkable turning point in this game.
And I know it came down to the last possession
(03:26):
and all that, and we'll certainly get into that. But
Malik Willis comes into the game. He obviously this is
very different from his previous two games in relief in
place of Jordan Love, because those other two times he
had had the whole week of practice, they designed the
whole game plan with him playing quarterback in mind, all
that kind of stuff. This is emergency duty off the bench.
(03:50):
Willis has to adjust, the coaching staff has to adjust.
Everything's going on. And on that opening third down, the
first play he replaces Love, the Packers don't get the
first down and they punt the ball. So the next
time Malik Willis gets the football for his first full possession,
the Packers are trailing. Jacksonville went down long ninety plus
(04:12):
yard drive for a touchdown, took a seventeen to thirteen lead.
And this is the first time Malik Willis has been
the Packers quarterback playing with a deficit. Both of the
wins back in weeks two and three, Packers were never
behind in those games. And what did he do with
using Josh Jacobs pounding away, he scrambles once for himself,
hits a crucial third down conversion to don Tavian Wicks,
(04:36):
and then Josh Jacobs busts the long touchdown run and
Malik Willis is in the game and the Packers aren't
trailing again. Boom, They're right back out in front. I
thought that drive in the third quarter showed an incredible
amount of just poison, moxie and whatever you want to
say about Malik Willis to be thrown into that situation,
(04:57):
to be losing, to be on the road, and he
put the Packers right back in front. And yes, Jacksonville
ended up tying the game later, but the Packers never
trailed again.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
A few things I want to touch on here, first
and foremost, before Malik Willis even threw a pass, before
even scrambled, before even went under center, I thought it
was really apropos in the postgame locker room, how Josh
Jacobs Tuckercraft had both talked about this, the sense of
calm with the offense when Willis is entering the game.
As you said, there was a lot of adversity that hit.
(05:28):
The tide had turned at the end of the second
quarter two, Jacksonville started with four straight possessions where they
went three and out or had the interception as well.
In there, I think, yeah, but four straight possessions without
a first down, without a first down, Yeah, and here
they are. They start to get some momentum, and now
you're asking your backup quarterback for some magic. I even
(05:50):
tweeted it. I was like, they're asking Malik Willis for
a little bit more magic here. And then what happens
immediately after that? He scrambles for twenty yards. They get
the thirty eight yard touchdown run by Josh Jacobs. But
before any of that happened, Tucker Kraft saying to those
guys in the huddle, Hey, we've been here before. We've
been in this situation before where we don't have Jordan Love.
This guy made it right, but we also need to
(06:11):
step up collectively to help him do his job. And
I felt like that's what this offense did. It was
more efficient, it ran on time, and really, with the
exception of just that one slant route they weren't able
to complete with Romeo Dobbs, I thought pretty much did
everything blueprint for what you want to accomplish. But what
I like the most about Malik Willis man in winning time.
(06:32):
The guy gets it done. They go out there again.
Another adverse situation that the Jacksonville Jiggers go whatever it was,
ninety some yards, get down the field, they score, they
tie the game. There's less than two minutes left, and
Packers are thinking, all right, we'll run here with Jacobs,
drain a little bit of clock off, make sure that's
(06:52):
in your favor so you don't go three and out
and give them too much time with two timeouts left,
and then they dial up the play for Jayden Reid
and one a brilliant play call for Matt LeFlore, a
brilliant job by the Packers' coaching staff and the players
for executing and building towards that moment, but just an
incredibly important play for Malik Heath or Balik Willis. Excuse
(07:14):
me to hit Reid on that play. He didn't have
to make a tight window throw, but you had to
get it there. He had to allow him to go
up make a field goal. And listening to Brandon McManus
talking to locker room afterwards about how you know you're
preparing for whatever the situation might be. Maybe fifty maybe forty,
you're not sure. And then here you are with a
twenty four yard field goal to win a football game. Michael,
(07:36):
this football team behind Malik Willis once again picked each
other up.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah they did. They did pick each other up. And
the explanation of how the play to Jayden Reid came
about is pretty fascinating because and I've got the breakdown
of the plays both first out and second down on
that final drive. It's in my what you might have missed.
If you want to look at the clips. I'll try
(07:59):
to blame it as best I can here. Essentially earlier
in the game, the Packers had run a play action
bootleg and Jason Vrabel, the team's passing game coordinator, one
of a longtime offensive assistant for Matt Lafleur, he had
noticed something where he thought that Jaden Reid, coming from
(08:22):
essentially an inline position on the right side of the
offensive formation, leaking through the traffic and out to the left.
He thought that that would be open off of the
what they what they call a key pass or a
bootleg pass. So that play wasn't actually in the game
plan for this week, but based on Vrabel's suggestion, they
(08:43):
talked about it on the sideline, et cetera, et cetera.
They so they put it in and they had it
ready well. On that final possession, then the Packers get
the ball, a buck forty eight on the clock. They
got two timeouts. The game is tied, and Lafleur says, okay.
He calls a running play to Josh Jacobs, but it
(09:06):
has what's known as a can or an audible to
the pass play to Jaden Reed. He calls it on
first down, and they're looking for the safeties to be
in a certain alignment in the secondary for Jacksonville, for
Read's route to be open on first out. It's not there.
They don't get the look they want. They just run
(09:26):
the standard hand off to Jacobs. They get four yards,
same personnel, same formation, same play call, with the same
can call to the pass to Read. The Jacksonville safeties
Savage and Cisco. They end up playing second down differently.
Cisco comes down to help and run support where the
(09:50):
run to Jacob's had just gone on first down. When
Cisco comes down, Willis puts his hands up to his ears.
That's the can call. We're going to the alternate play.
The other guys on the team also put their hands
up to their ears. Everybody's on the same page. Everything
looks exactly the same, except it's a play action fake
and a bootleg and instead of blocking Jaden, Reid leaks
(10:13):
out and he's wide open. I mean, everything that went
into getting to that moment with the game on the line.
It's fascinating, but it's an example. It's also an example
of the complex level at which the game is played
in the NFL. This is the kind of stuff that
(10:35):
goes on all the time. We just don't necessarily hear
about it. We don't get all the explanations. And there
are things that happen like this where it goes wrong
and it doesn't work and all that kind of stuff.
But the Packers pulled this off with a guy, a
quarterback who'd come off the bench in an emergency situation
and suddenly the game is on the line, on the road,
(10:55):
and the last thing you want to do is give
the ball back to Trevor Lawrence because he's scored ten
points on his last two possessions. It was a It
was a remarkable finish and and they're they're just there's
so many people who deserve credit for it, and ultimately
Malik Willis to execute the way he did and to
put that ball on the money for Jaden Reid not
(11:18):
only so we could catch it, but so that he
could get all the extra yards after the catch and
get well into field goal range. Just an incredible finish
and a great win for Green Bay.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I couldn't summon up any better mic and for the
packers of me. Again, it's it's like eleven different chess
games gonna go on simultaneously out there when you're trying
to figure out how all these things are going to
fit together. But what I like the most about that
play too is, you know, Jaden Reid he had he
had a couple of tough moments in this game, you know,
a couple passes where he had his hands on him
he wasn't able to bring him in. But it's a
sixty minute game, and it's why you have to have
(11:49):
a short memory. And Josh Jacobs even said when I
asked him about it in the locker room, you know,
watching the play from where he was standing, he thought
Jayden Reid was gone, just because the way he is,
the way he plays, and how quick he is. There's
just very few guys in the league that can catch him,
and for Green Bay then to be at what it
whatever was the fifteen yard line, they start running it again.
(12:09):
Chris Brooks, the reserve running back on this roster who
is getting more playing time in this game. The Jagors
try to let him get in the end zone because
they're out of timeouts now. The only way they have
to potentially win this game is to let the Packers
score and then try to tie it again. Yeah, or
potentially go for two. If they would get the touchdown
(12:30):
and Brooks has the presence of mind to go down,
it ends up being a twenty four yard field goal
and an easier field goal than if they were kicking
an extra point, and McManus and the operation was smooth
and write what it needed to be. I keep saying this, Mike.
I tweeted it the moment when I was waiting for
you to finish up with the game recap. I remember
tweeting this in the press box. I said, there's so
(12:52):
many moves that happened, and so much that goes down
during the offseason program and free agency and the draft
and everything. The Packers signing Brandon McManus in trading for
Malik Willis and potentially how many wins that has already
saved or produced for the Packers, depending how you look
at it. Yeah, for the total cost of a seventh
(13:12):
round pick next year. Again, Brian Goudicuins wants no flowers
and there is an other trophy that he is more
enamored with than any type of individual accolade that could
be thrown his way. But I'll tell you what, man,
having the pulse on your football team and having that
type of communication with your coaching staff and understanding how
the team needs to continue to get better as the
season wears on. The Willis and McManus acquisitions, I just
(13:35):
you cannot stress just how critical those have been for
literally ten cents on the dollar for what they paid.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, and Brian Gudiicuns would be the first one to
say that finding guys like Malik Willis when you need
to make a change at backup quarterback and Brandon McManus
when you need to make a change at kicker. This
is the pro personnel side, yes, right, scouting department, and
and there's a there's a team of them, a bunch
(14:03):
of great guys. And Gutakuns always wants to give them credit.
This is an example of why these guys are watching
everything at all times. They have they they're watching film,
they have scouting reports, they are paying attention to what
is going on everywhere around the league in terms of
who is available, who might become available, and because you
(14:25):
have to make these decisions fairly quickly when the need arises.
And UH again, that's just that, that's a that's a
piece of what goes on behind the scenes. That it's yes,
it's Brian Gutukunz who makes the final decision, but he's
getting a lot of input and a lot of research
and and a lot of the scouting is being done
by the other guys on his team. And to make
(14:46):
that collective decision for uh, for what to do.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
A lot of GMS in that room too. You you
you made me write that story in the off season
for the ear.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
There's a lot of guys that I think well and
and and Ted Thompson had the same had the same
group of guys who did go on to become GMS elsewhere.
And Brian Gudakountz now has that team of guys that
they're going to be you know, as they say, running
their own show pretty soon. You know, in the in
the Ted Thompson area, you had John Schneider and Reggie
(15:16):
McKenzie and John Dorsey, those guys, and now it's you know, John,
Eric Sullivant, John wi Jakowski, Mill Hendrickson, you know Williams,
you know Richie Williams.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
All these guys are there. They're going to get a
chance someday to to be in charge of their own shop.
So it uh, it speaks to uh to what the
Packers have here, sort of behind the curtains, so to speak.
We do need to get to where things are on
the injury front. Matt Lafleur did not really have an
(15:46):
update on quarterback Jordan Love on Monday, but the way
he talked about things, uh, Jordan Love has not necessarily
been ruled out for Sunday against the Lions. It's a
it's a wait and see kind of thing. They're gonna
see where Love is at the end of the week
and they'll make a decision there. But just the fact
that that's even part of the conversation is obviously tremendous
(16:09):
news for the Packers. Other guys who exited this game,
Josh Jacobs went out right at the end, which is
why Chris Brooks was in the game, and then he
sort of took the dive inside the five yard line
to keep the clock running. Jayi Alexander got hurt on
the game tying touchdown pass to Evan Ingram and Evan Williams,
(16:31):
the rookie safety. He had left the game in the
first half with a hamstring injury. Not a lot of
updates necessarily to pass along, although I'll say this, Josh
Jacobs wanted to go back into the game and they
just they held him out and said, you know, no,
we Brooks will take these last couple of handoffs as
we kill the clock. That's what we're going to do here.
So by all accounts, hopefully Jacobs is okay. Not really
(16:53):
sure on Alexander or Williams. I know there are some
media reports out there and whatnot. Lafleur didn't say anything
specifically about their chances other than obviously the Packers would
be in a tough spot defensively if they're missing one
or both of those guys with the high powered, high
flying Detroit Lions coming in. But it's going to be
a week where we're going to be watching the injury
(17:15):
report and seeing where things go here for Green Bay.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It's funny how every coach to some extent, has their
own phrases or little statements. I remember Mike McCarthy back
in the day was always, you know, so and so
is going to be stressed to play this week. Yeah,
you know, he didn't want to go into all the things,
but sometimes you use that stress to play. And one
of the things I've noticed with Matt Lafleur, when when
(17:39):
things are good, he doesn't want to go into everything.
He doesn't want to talk about it. He mentioned he
still needed to talk to the training staff, but he
said Jordan Love was in good spirits on Monday, and
if you go back and look at some of the
track record, Matt has said that type of stuff. I'm
not guaranteed anybody's playing on Sunday, but I will say
for what I thought that could have potentially been when
he left the game, I remember telling you, and I
relayed that too, that it was a groin injury. You
even double checked with me on that, just because we're
(18:01):
thinking knee, we're thinking calf, we're thinking something else. Groin
injuries can be pretty severe too. You always worry about
the core muscle issues and the sports hernias, but the
fact that it wasn't knee related, I think first and
foremost was a sigh relief that there were no setbacks
with that. But again, we'll see where the week goes
on everything. But the fact is, man, you're seeing some
(18:22):
of these things happen in the league right now. Where
the Detroit game, you know, Aiden Hutchinson's sitting there with
his leg up there, everyone giving him a big ovation,
but he's out of the cards for them the rest
of the season. We saw what happened with Christian Darisol
last week for the Minnesota Vikings. And it is a
league in a sport that takes its toll on a
football team. So for the Green Bay Packers at the
(18:42):
very least, we'll see again how things go. But with
Jai Air, with Evan Williams or Jordan Love probably all
top ten top players for this team. The fact that
we're not worrying about the worst case scenario there, I think.
I hate to keep using that Dodger bullet analogy, but
you do feel somewhat better that it's not anything more significant.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, absolutely, well, you mentioned it earlier a few other
things that we do need to get to as far
as reviewing this game. Josh Jacobs twenty five carries one
hundred and twenty seven yards two touchdowns, including that thirty
eight yarder, which I thought was one of the one
of the most remarkable touchdown runs I've seen in quite
a while. The blocking initially at the point of attack
(19:28):
was obviously really good, but then he makes the one
guy miss in the hole with incredible footwork. Then he
breaks another tackle as a guy is trying to grab
him by the shoulders, and then he's off to the
races with getting a nice downfield block from Watson. The
more I watched Josh Jacobs, I haven't seen I haven't
seen a running back. And this is no knock on
(19:52):
Ryan Grant or Eddie Lacy or Aaron Jones or Jamal
Williams or any of these guys. But I have not
seen a running back in Green Bay with the combination
of the vision and the footwork that Josh Jacobs has,
because Jacobs is not how shall I say, Aaron Jones
(20:13):
always look like a slippery running back. Like the way
he ran. He was hard, he was hard to tackle.
He had he had a quickness, and a slipperiness to him.
Josh Jacobs doesn't quite have that. But what he does
with his feet to make guys miss and to get
tacklers off balance and then to accelerate to get the
(20:34):
yardage that he can, he's a He's just he's a
different type of runner. But man, he is fun to
watch that he is. He is more talented than I
ever knew previously, whether it was you know, at Alabama
with the Raiders seeing him in person, and now seeing
him every game for the Green Bay Packers, I couldn't
be more impressed with what he brings to the table.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Here's the way I work through these situations now, because
I don't want to make it about comparables, because anytime
we see something nice about somebody makes sound like it
was something a detriment to the others.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Exactly, And that's not what I'm doing here either.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
What I'm doing and what my strategy is now is
let's pretend that Josh Jacobs is the only running back
the Green Bay Packers have ever had. No Paul Horning,
no Jim Taylor, no Aaron you know, Jones, Amon Green,
this is the only guy. So here we are. You're
watching him play the first thing I thought, and again
he had to work through some stuff, he said. He
(21:26):
was telling the coaches, hey, trust me, trust me. Because
the first happened that he had thirty six rushing yards.
He had ninety six in the second half. He was
seeing the holes, he was seeing what he was looking for.
Even when he was going down, he felt like the
big play was still there. And even on the big play,
the thirty eight yard touchdown, he broke a couple of
rules to make that happen. Yeah, because he wanted to
be able to exercise that and be able to try
to find, you know, a touchdown. But here's the thing
(21:47):
about Josh Jacobs, and this is what I've this is
why I figured out he's a first round pick. He
went to Alabama, he as all these things that go
for him. The guy's a professional football player. The way
he approaches this game, it's like watching a sign test
work in figuring out what he wants to do and
what certain traits he wants to utilize on any given play.
You know, whether it's diagnosing what's happening at the line
(22:08):
of scrimmage in one cutting, whether it's him with kind
of that jump cut that he does, or sometimes the
guy can just go north and south on you and
push you forward for seven yards. That has happened plenty
of times this season too. Yea, and he does it again.
We'll see how everything looks this week on the injury
report front. But he does it while being an incredibly
durable force at that position. And when you look at
(22:28):
Brian Goodekoin's tract record for wanting to sign free agents,
durability is a big part of that. So while he
was an All Pro, and while he was a rushing champion,
while he had all these things going for him with
the Raiders, the fact that he did all this while
being a workhorse belcow back and being able to still
improve throughout that workload, I think it just shows you
the type of athlete Green Bay Packers were bringing into
their program independent of anybody else who's ever carried the
(22:51):
football for him this twenty twenty four football team, Josh
Jacobs is the right answer.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah. I want to talk about the defense a little
bit too here because this was this was just it
was a strange, weird day. I thought. On defense, we
mentioned earlier the first four times the Jaguars had the ball,
they didn't get a single first downright, Packers defense was
on top of it. They were flying high. It was
(23:18):
looking like a continuation and a building off of what
we had seen against Arizona, against Houston and getting to
this point and then all of a sudden, it wasn't
just that the Jaguars started moving the ball it started.
It was that they started taking chunks of the field.
The number of explosive plays, the twenty plus yard pass plays.
(23:39):
They got a few of them at the end of
the first halt when the Jaguars got ten points before
halftime on their last two possessions, and then we saw
it again at the end of the game late in
the fourth quarter where they got ten points again and honestly,
Wes might have had two touchdowns, It might have had
fourteen points there if not for the third down shotgun snap.
(24:02):
That was a bad snap that bounces off Trevor Lawrence's
leg and they just have to fall on it, right
over it and then they have to kick the field goal.
So they didn't even get the opportunity to convert on
third down there near the red zone because because of
the bad snap. But it was just it was this
up and down like jekylin high day. You know, two
(24:22):
massive takeaways. Xavier McKinney gets his sixth interception, still leading
the NFL in that category. Edgrin Cooper makes a great
play getting the strip sack backed by the goal line.
Devonte Wyatt, you know, somebody called it like a musical
chairs type of gam like he bumped the Jaguars lineman
out of the way to recover. It sets up an
(24:43):
easy touchdown Malik Willis to Tucker Craft. So though you know,
two takeaways, that's that gave the Packers fourteen points, set
up fourteen points on the day. There's a lot of
good things the Packers defense did, but there are a
lot of things that, you know, you're kind of scratching
your head going, you know, what is with suddenly giving
up eight pass pigs of twenty plus yards in the
(25:06):
same game when all these other good things were also happening.
It was just it's strange. It's hard to get a
handle on exactly what was going on out excuse me.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Ten explosive plays for the Packers or that they allowed
in this game, including some of the rushing stuff. Here's
what stood out to me the most. So you look
at this as like a verdict right with the jury,
who was giving what type of evidence and who was
ultimately going to be the winner. From the Packers' perspective,
it was the fact that they did come out on
ahead on the turnover margin, the fact that they turned
(25:37):
those turnovers into fourteen points whereas the Jacksonville Jaguars immediately
gave it back, and the fact that Green Bay was
able to be a little bit more efficient in some
of the situational stuff, not necessarily red zone and goal
to go, but some of the other aspects of this game.
The Jaguars went zero for eight to start this game
on third down and really struggled to get into their operation,
(25:59):
but they overcame that with some of those explosive plays
late in the matchup. Despite losing Christian Kirk to a
broken collar bone and then also you know Thomas leaving,
Brian Thomas Junior leaving with the chest injury. Trevor Lawrence
was exceptional down the stretch, but the Green Bay Packers
just gave him too many holes and too many openings
with which to work. And as Matt Lafleur said, I mean,
(26:21):
there's a lot of things you can diagnose for what
went wrong there in the second half of green Bay.
But the amount of times that green Bay was in
cover two in trying to get them to play in
front of them, trying to hit the check downs dictating
the terms of the game. But then they're missing tackles
and those things are turning into explosive plays. It wasn't
good enough. So that's the lesson the Packers have to learn.
(26:41):
Fortunately for them, they did have the comeback with the takeaways.
They were very pragmatic about how they utilize those. Edgrin
Cooper with thirty four snaps, has eight tackles, a huge
pass deflection on a trail route on the play in
which Kirk got hurt and then also punches the ball
out for the old only sack of the game ends
up becoming a strip sack that leads to seven points.
(27:03):
Very opportunistic game for green Bay. But what's what's coming
on the horizon now against the Detroit Lions. I mean,
you also have to be very much cautious here about
how you proceed.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, and with you know, a lot of fans are asking, well,
you know, where was where was the pass rush and
everything that you know that the Packers had shown against
Arizona against Houston leading up to this, with with the
quarterbacks not being comfortable and all that, sometimes the other
team just does a better job. I mean, it's it's
not like it's not like the Packers weren't dialing up
(27:34):
some of the same stuff that they do with the
pass rush. We saw Minnesota, Minnesota for the for the
entire first half of that game at Lambellfield, they just
handled everything that green Bay's defense was thrown at him.
I thought Jackson Jacksonville's offensive line they handled green Bay's
pass rush much like much like Minnesota did. Unlike Arizona
(27:57):
and Houston that had a hard time with the stunts
and you know, and and that's you know, those guys
breaking through on on on, you know, the the games
and stunts up front, and that's how those quarterbacks got uncomfortable.
Sometimes that's gonna happen. But then also what happened in
this game is the couple of times that Jeff Halfley
did dial up a blitz. It's like, Okay, the foreman
(28:18):
rush isn't getting there. You got to pick your spots
and send a fifth guy, maybe send a sixth guy.
Lawrence Burned, I mean, you know, he saw he saw
it coming. He got the ball out, you know, to
somebody who was in open space, you know, the vacated
space where the blitzer comes from. Lawrence was on top
of that. So just suddenly saying, okay, we're not getting
any pressure. We got to keep dialing up blitz is
that wasn't going to be the answer because because Trevor
(28:41):
Lawrence had made the Packers pay a couple of times,
so they got into a tough spot defensively there where
the foreman rush wasn't getting home, but but Lawrence was
taking care of him against the blitz and it just
it just becomes a matter of survival at that point,
and and it's tough. Fortunately, when the Jaguars did get
things going there in the fourth quarter, then ultimately they
(29:02):
didn't get the ball back. The game didn't go to overtime.
The Packers were able to kill the entire clock and
getting those last points, they didn't get the ball back,
and sometimes that's sometimes that's what it takes to win
in this league.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
And why did it happen because of the way green
Bay started the game, and it's why it's a four quarter,
sixty minute football game. And the hole that the Jacksonville
Jaguars found themselves in. Even though it wasn't huge by
any means, it's what enabled Green Bay to make a
few plays there in the second half that ultimately tipped
the scales in their favor.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah, all right, a little bit of sponsor business here.
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(29:55):
the league weeks week eight. Excuse me, I was about
to say week six for some reason. I don't know why.
This is why I was going to say six, because
including the Packers game, there were six games wes in
which there was a score in the final minute the
final sixty seconds of regulation where the lead changed hands.
(30:18):
Six games in the league in one week, which is
actually tied for the most in the league in one
week of games since the league Mercher in nineteen seventy
was that the Ackers loll in that the Packers game
was involved in that. And then, of course, as you
had alluded to earlier, Washington defeating the Chicago Bears on
the hail Mary in the Nation's Capital, and we were
(30:43):
all we were all watching that on our little TV
screens on the flight, on the flight coming back, and
that was quite the Uh, it was quite the reaction
from everyone on the plane. It was probably about fifteen
to twenty seconds later than everybody else's re action around
the country because of the delay of the satellite fever. Yeah,
(31:04):
for the live of the quote unquote live TV broadcast.
But but man, Jade and Daniels. Strange game in Washington,
with the Commanders kicking a bunch of field goals, they
couldn't punch in any touchdowns. They kick a whole bunch
of field goals. The Bears can't do anything until late
in the third quarter. Then the Bears finally get on
the board, they blow another chance to score. Then they
(31:26):
do get the go ahead points in the final in
the final minute, but they left just enough time for
Jade and Daniels to try a hail Mary. And we
you know, we don't need to get into everything with
Tyreek Stevenson. But the bottom line is the Bears botched it.
The Bears botched it on the hail mary. They didn't
knock the ball down, they tipped it. And not only
(31:48):
did they tip it, they had nobody guarding the tip man.
Noah Brown is standing all alone in the back of
the end zund and a successful hail mary. That'll go
down as as one of the plays of the year
and felt.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, and if you if you're your defensive coach at
any level of football, that that goes down as teaching
tape for how not to defend a hail mary. I mean,
it's just it's true. I mean under fash. The other
thing about that was you weren't even in the end zone,
like I could see it, like the like the uh
Randall Cobb went against the Giants many years ago in
the playoff game. Randall was at the back of the end.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, it was the very ball came out.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
So yeah, Noah Brown was one of the only people
actually standing in the end zone when he caught that passage.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Which is all the more reason why you can't have
somebody standing there all by himself and from what I've
heard and what I've read, it sounded like Tyreek Stevenson
who was kind of off in his own little world
for a while there. He's the guy who's supposed to
be boxing out the tip man, or at least to
be there in case the ball is tips so that
there isn't an uncontested catch of the tip. That's exactly
(32:47):
what happened, and uh and Washington wins a game.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Instead, he ended up being the stocked into to his malone.
I mean, it just it's terrible the way that worked out.
I feel terrible for the young man because from all
accounts it sounds like it's a good dude, but it
just made a huge mental air on that game. Without
perseverating on everything that Bears did wrong, though, I do
want to say something about Jayden Daniels because I said
this to a good friend of mine, Scott Vencey, on
the way home that night after I was driving home
(33:09):
from the airport. I am already ready to put Jade
and Daniels in the elite category for quarterbacks. I don't
want to talk about rookies. I don't want to talk
about young player. I'm talking about legitimate, elite quarterbacks. And
this is why I'm willing to say this. He proved
in this game, and he's done at intervals of the season,
but he definitely proved in this game. I can put
this entire team on my back and win a football game.
(33:31):
And Mike, there are so few guys in this league,
regardless of position, but definitely quarterbacks that can do that
where it's like I am going to will you to
a win, a w a little tally in that win margin.
And Daniels is that guy. So even when things aren't
going right, he has so much arm talent and the
fact that he was able to pull that off after
(33:53):
basically trying to execute the Aaron Rodgers scramble drill and
then having to roll it back. Yeah, it's just can't
say enough about him in Washington. For as much as
we talked about the Green Bay Packers being the outpost
of the NFL in the early nineties, late eighties, early nineties,
that's what the Washington Commanders have been here for the
last six seven eight years. Really.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah, and yeah, they've been out in the wilderness.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
There's a lot of hype on them right now and rightfully.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
So yeah, absolutely, Well, quickly the NFC North as things
stand right now, the Detroit Lions coming off a blowout
win over the Titans. We can talk about that more
on our next show. They are six and one on
top of the division, the Packers right behind at six
and two. The Minnesota Vikings lost two games in a
span of five days. They are five and two, yep.
(34:37):
And the Chicago Bears, with the Hail Mary defeat in DC,
they are four and three. So lambeau Field this Sunday
and we'll get into it all in our next show.
But the top two teams in the NFC North going
ahead to head for the first of two times this season.
Six and one versus six and two. This is what
you put yourself in these positions for, is to have
(35:00):
these opportunities. And the Packers are a team kind of
piecing it together, and there's all these questions about the
injury report and everything else. And the Lions are a
team that is just rolling right now. They are a
freight train coming down the tracks. I'm going to be
a heck of a week and a heck of a
matchup on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I'll save all my comments on the Lions for Thursday's
show because we'll need something to talk about. Yeah, but
their win was incredibly impressive. Certainly the Los Angeles Rams
doing the Packers a favor, some controversy a little bit
at the end of the game, but the Rams still
did have control that thing late to be able to
now send the Vikings to a second straight loss. But
(35:38):
why is this so important? Because the Green Bit Packers
are six and two, but they're two and two in
conference right now. Tampa Bay Buccaneers are on the outside
looking into the playoff picture. They're four and four. They're
four and two in the NFC. Those are the type
of things you got to keep an eye on as
you look towards tiebreakers and other things here down the stretch.
But the Green Bit Packers did exactly what you and
I have been saying for the last month. Mike. You
have to take care of business. You couldn't work try
(36:00):
about any more of these NFC North opponents until they're
finally here. Well, guess what, man, This Sunday, Lambeufield, the
Detroit Lions are coming to town. Yeah, and we'll see
who's all out there, and it'll probably be a take
the entire week to see who's available. But a massive,
massive opportunity the green Bait Packers have ever earned by
being able to reel off these four straight victories.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yep. And we will get into it on our next
show in a couple of days, but for now, we'll
call it a rap on this edition of Packers n Scripting.
Be sure to follow all of our coverage of the
team on Packers dot com for Wesiam Mike. Oh wait,
hold on, oh, we got to talk about the draft.
Hold on, mark your calendars, folks. Yep, I almost forgot
you'd lose your job. I would mark your calendars. The
(36:41):
twenty twenty five NFL Draft is coming to Green Bay.
Be among the thousands of football fans cheering on their
team's picks by joining us April twenty four through April
twenty six, twenty twenty five. Visit green Bay dot com
slash Draft twenty five for more information.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
We should just start doing that. During the intro, I'm
Mike alongside my partner in crime, Wes Hodkowitz. We are
here from our Packers studios to let you know that
the twenty twenty five NFL Draft is coming to Green Bay,
and then we can start the show.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Thank you for tuning. In everybody. We will see you
next time.
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from
Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spoffor, joined as always
by my trust and colleague Wes Hodkowitz. We're coming to
you here from our studios at lambeau Field to review Wes.
Yet another walk off victory for green Bay, this one
thirty to twenty seven over the Jacksonville Jaguars on the road.
(00:36):
A fourth straight win for green Bay six and two
record now, as I said, second straight walkoff victory, and man,
just whatever it takes at the end, the Packers are
finding a way here.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Survive in advance that you have to learn from it,
you have to improve from it. And as Tucker Craft
said after the game, there's certain things that have happened
in this first half of the season that they have
to very much get corrected if they're going to be
a championship team. If this is gonna be a team that
is going to make some noise in January and potentially
into February. But all that being said, Mike, you have
to win these football games. And I was reminded on
(01:09):
Sunday night and watching some of these games unfold, and
we'll talk about it later in the show. But obviously
what happened with Washington. You saw the game between Dallas
and San Francisco and the high stakes of that matchup
with both of those teams and the slow starts they've
been off to. You have to win games in this league.
You have to find ways through your errors, through your mistakes,
you have to continue to keep stacking things. And that's
(01:31):
what the Packers have done during this four game win streak.
They were able to sweep the AFC SOL in this
non conference action. They were able to build some momentum
here through the first half of the season. And if
you're going to take the situation that the Packers found
themselves in Week nine last year in compared to this year,
being able to come out on the winning side of
this thing, I think shows the maturity of this football
(01:53):
team in the fact that it can go so many
different ways, whether it was the takeovers that turning those
takeovers into points, overcoming the loss of Jordan Love, but
Willis going back in there, Josh Jacob's rushing for one
hundred and twenty seven yards. Everybody pulled together in this one,
and as you said, it eventually came down to the
first time ever in NFL history, According to Elias, a
(02:16):
kicker in his first two games with the team, as
time expires, making a game wining field goal. Yeah, I mean,
it just doesn't get any bigger than that.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, this one was a lot shorter in that regard,
a chip shot for Brandon McManus to win the game.
But of course it starts with Malik Willis doing it
yet again. He comes in for Jordan Love. Love injures
is groin on the first possession of the game for
the Packers. It was a third down. He's trying to
scramble to his right a little bit and throw back
(02:43):
across the field to Josh Jacobs and he strains the
groin muscle. He stays in for the rest of the
first half. The Packers score thirteen points, and Love is
in there. On the opening series of the second half,
he's almost at two hundred yards pass I mean, but
he's he's gutting it out, not clearly, not one hundred percent.
(03:05):
The mobility is not there. And on that opening essentially
the opening third down of the second half for the Packers,
it's like, that's it. Love can't do it anymore. Malik
Willis has to go in and this is where what
I think was a remarkable turning point in this game.
And I know it came down to the last possession
(03:26):
and all that, and we'll certainly get into that. But
Malik Willis comes into the game. He obviously this is
very different from his previous two games in relief in
place of Jordan Love, because those other two times he
had had the whole week of practice, they designed the
whole game plan with him playing quarterback in mind, all
that kind of stuff. This is emergency duty off the bench.
(03:50):
Willis has to adjust, the coaching staff has to adjust.
Everything's going on. And on that opening third down, the
first play he replaces Love, the Packers don't get the
first down and they punt the ball. So the next
time Malik Willis gets the football for his first full possession,
the Packers are trailing. Jacksonville went down long ninety plus
(04:12):
yard drive for a touchdown, took a seventeen to thirteen lead.
And this is the first time Malik Willis has been
the Packers quarterback playing with a deficit. Both of the
wins back in weeks two and three, Packers were never
behind in those games. And what did he do with
using Josh Jacobs pounding away, he scrambles once for himself,
hits a crucial third down conversion to don Tavian Wicks,
(04:36):
and then Josh Jacobs busts the long touchdown run and
Malik Willis is in the game and the Packers aren't
trailing again. Boom, They're right back out in front. I
thought that drive in the third quarter showed an incredible
amount of just poison, moxie and whatever you want to
say about Malik Willis to be thrown into that situation,
(04:57):
to be losing, to be on the road, and he
put the Packers right back in front. And yes, Jacksonville
ended up tying the game later, but the Packers never
trailed again.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
A few things I want to touch on here, first
and foremost, before Malik Willis even threw a pass, before
even scrambled, before even went under center, I thought it
was really apropos in the postgame locker room, how Josh
Jacobs Tuckercraft had both talked about this, the sense of
calm with the offense when Willis is entering the game.
As you said, there was a lot of adversity that hit.
(05:28):
The tide had turned at the end of the second
quarter two, Jacksonville started with four straight possessions where they
went three and out or had the interception as well.
In there, I think, yeah, but four straight possessions without
a first down, without a first down, Yeah, and here
they are. They start to get some momentum, and now
you're asking your backup quarterback for some magic. I even
(05:50):
tweeted it. I was like, they're asking Malik Willis for
a little bit more magic here. And then what happens
immediately after that? He scrambles for twenty yards. They get
the thirty eight yard touchdown run by Josh Jacobs. But
before any of that happened, Tucker Kraft saying to those
guys in the huddle, Hey, we've been here before. We've
been in this situation before where we don't have Jordan Love.
This guy made it right, but we also need to
(06:11):
step up collectively to help him do his job. And
I felt like that's what this offense did. It was
more efficient, it ran on time, and really, with the
exception of just that one slant route they weren't able
to complete with Romeo Dobbs, I thought pretty much did
everything blueprint for what you want to accomplish. But what
I like the most about Malik Willis man in winning time.
(06:32):
The guy gets it done. They go out there again.
Another adverse situation that the Jacksonville Jiggers go whatever it was,
ninety some yards, get down the field, they score, they
tie the game. There's less than two minutes left, and
Packers are thinking, all right, we'll run here with Jacobs,
drain a little bit of clock off, make sure that's
(06:52):
in your favor so you don't go three and out
and give them too much time with two timeouts left,
and then they dial up the play for Jayden Reid
and one a brilliant play call for Matt LeFlore, a
brilliant job by the Packers' coaching staff and the players
for executing and building towards that moment, but just an
incredibly important play for Malik Heath or Balik Willis. Excuse
(07:14):
me to hit Reid on that play. He didn't have
to make a tight window throw, but you had to
get it there. He had to allow him to go
up make a field goal. And listening to Brandon McManus
talking to locker room afterwards about how you know you're
preparing for whatever the situation might be. Maybe fifty maybe forty,
you're not sure. And then here you are with a
twenty four yard field goal to win a football game. Michael,
(07:36):
this football team behind Malik Willis once again picked each
other up.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah they did. They did pick each other up. And
the explanation of how the play to Jayden Reid came
about is pretty fascinating because and I've got the breakdown
of the plays both first out and second down on
that final drive. It's in my what you might have missed.
If you want to look at the clips. I'll try
(07:59):
to blame it as best I can here. Essentially earlier
in the game, the Packers had run a play action
bootleg and Jason Vrabel, the team's passing game coordinator, one
of a longtime offensive assistant for Matt Lafleur, he had
noticed something where he thought that Jaden Reid, coming from
(08:22):
essentially an inline position on the right side of the
offensive formation, leaking through the traffic and out to the left.
He thought that that would be open off of the
what they what they call a key pass or a
bootleg pass. So that play wasn't actually in the game
plan for this week, but based on Vrabel's suggestion, they
(08:43):
talked about it on the sideline, et cetera, et cetera.
They so they put it in and they had it
ready well. On that final possession, then the Packers get
the ball, a buck forty eight on the clock. They
got two timeouts. The game is tied, and Lafleur says, okay.
He calls a running play to Josh Jacobs, but it
(09:06):
has what's known as a can or an audible to
the pass play to Jaden Reed. He calls it on
first down, and they're looking for the safeties to be
in a certain alignment in the secondary for Jacksonville, for
Read's route to be open on first out. It's not there.
They don't get the look they want. They just run
(09:26):
the standard hand off to Jacobs. They get four yards,
same personnel, same formation, same play call, with the same
can call to the pass to Read. The Jacksonville safeties
Savage and Cisco. They end up playing second down differently.
Cisco comes down to help and run support where the
(09:50):
run to Jacob's had just gone on first down. When
Cisco comes down, Willis puts his hands up to his ears.
That's the can call. We're going to the alternate play.
The other guys on the team also put their hands
up to their ears. Everybody's on the same page. Everything
looks exactly the same, except it's a play action fake
and a bootleg and instead of blocking Jaden, Reid leaks
(10:13):
out and he's wide open. I mean, everything that went
into getting to that moment with the game on the line.
It's fascinating, but it's an example. It's also an example
of the complex level at which the game is played
in the NFL. This is the kind of stuff that
(10:35):
goes on all the time. We just don't necessarily hear
about it. We don't get all the explanations. And there
are things that happen like this where it goes wrong
and it doesn't work and all that kind of stuff.
But the Packers pulled this off with a guy, a
quarterback who'd come off the bench in an emergency situation
and suddenly the game is on the line, on the road,
(10:55):
and the last thing you want to do is give
the ball back to Trevor Lawrence because he's scored ten
points on his last two possessions. It was a It
was a remarkable finish and and they're they're just there's
so many people who deserve credit for it, and ultimately
Malik Willis to execute the way he did and to
put that ball on the money for Jaden Reid not
(11:18):
only so we could catch it, but so that he
could get all the extra yards after the catch and
get well into field goal range. Just an incredible finish
and a great win for Green Bay.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I couldn't summon up any better mic and for the
packers of me. Again, it's it's like eleven different chess
games gonna go on simultaneously out there when you're trying
to figure out how all these things are going to
fit together. But what I like the most about that
play too is, you know, Jaden Reid he had he
had a couple of tough moments in this game, you know,
a couple passes where he had his hands on him
he wasn't able to bring him in. But it's a
sixty minute game, and it's why you have to have
(11:49):
a short memory. And Josh Jacobs even said when I
asked him about it in the locker room, you know,
watching the play from where he was standing, he thought
Jayden Reid was gone, just because the way he is,
the way he plays, and how quick he is. There's
just very few guys in the league that can catch him,
and for Green Bay then to be at what it
whatever was the fifteen yard line, they start running it again.
(12:09):
Chris Brooks, the reserve running back on this roster who
is getting more playing time in this game. The Jagors
try to let him get in the end zone because
they're out of timeouts now. The only way they have
to potentially win this game is to let the Packers
score and then try to tie it again. Yeah, or
potentially go for two. If they would get the touchdown
(12:30):
and Brooks has the presence of mind to go down,
it ends up being a twenty four yard field goal
and an easier field goal than if they were kicking
an extra point, and McManus and the operation was smooth
and write what it needed to be. I keep saying this, Mike.
I tweeted it the moment when I was waiting for
you to finish up with the game recap. I remember
tweeting this in the press box. I said, there's so
(12:52):
many moves that happened, and so much that goes down
during the offseason program and free agency and the draft
and everything. The Packers signing Brandon McManus in trading for
Malik Willis and potentially how many wins that has already
saved or produced for the Packers, depending how you look
at it. Yeah, for the total cost of a seventh
(13:12):
round pick next year. Again, Brian Goudicuins wants no flowers
and there is an other trophy that he is more
enamored with than any type of individual accolade that could
be thrown his way. But I'll tell you what, man,
having the pulse on your football team and having that
type of communication with your coaching staff and understanding how
the team needs to continue to get better as the
season wears on. The Willis and McManus acquisitions, I just
(13:35):
you cannot stress just how critical those have been for
literally ten cents on the dollar for what they paid.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, and Brian Gudiicuns would be the first one to
say that finding guys like Malik Willis when you need
to make a change at backup quarterback and Brandon McManus
when you need to make a change at kicker. This
is the pro personnel side, yes, right, scouting department, and
and there's a there's a team of them, a bunch
(14:03):
of great guys. And Gutakuns always wants to give them credit.
This is an example of why these guys are watching
everything at all times. They have they they're watching film,
they have scouting reports, they are paying attention to what
is going on everywhere around the league in terms of
who is available, who might become available, and because you
(14:25):
have to make these decisions fairly quickly when the need arises.
And UH again, that's just that, that's a that's a
piece of what goes on behind the scenes. That it's yes,
it's Brian Gutukunz who makes the final decision, but he's
getting a lot of input and a lot of research
and and a lot of the scouting is being done
by the other guys on his team. And to make
(14:46):
that collective decision for uh, for what to do.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
A lot of GMS in that room too. You you
you made me write that story in the off season
for the ear.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
There's a lot of guys that I think well and
and and Ted Thompson had the same had the same
group of guys who did go on to become GMS elsewhere.
And Brian Gudakountz now has that team of guys that
they're going to be you know, as they say, running
their own show pretty soon. You know, in the in
the Ted Thompson area, you had John Schneider and Reggie
(15:16):
McKenzie and John Dorsey, those guys, and now it's you know, John,
Eric Sullivant, John wi Jakowski, Mill Hendrickson, you know Williams,
you know Richie Williams.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
All these guys are there. They're going to get a
chance someday to to be in charge of their own shop.
So it uh, it speaks to uh to what the
Packers have here, sort of behind the curtains, so to speak.
We do need to get to where things are on
the injury front. Matt Lafleur did not really have an
(15:46):
update on quarterback Jordan Love on Monday, but the way
he talked about things, uh, Jordan Love has not necessarily
been ruled out for Sunday against the Lions. It's a
it's a wait and see kind of thing. They're gonna
see where Love is at the end of the week
and they'll make a decision there. But just the fact
that that's even part of the conversation is obviously tremendous
(16:09):
news for the Packers. Other guys who exited this game,
Josh Jacobs went out right at the end, which is
why Chris Brooks was in the game, and then he
sort of took the dive inside the five yard line
to keep the clock running. Jayi Alexander got hurt on
the game tying touchdown pass to Evan Ingram and Evan Williams,
(16:31):
the rookie safety. He had left the game in the
first half with a hamstring injury. Not a lot of
updates necessarily to pass along, although I'll say this, Josh
Jacobs wanted to go back into the game and they
just they held him out and said, you know, no,
we Brooks will take these last couple of handoffs as
we kill the clock. That's what we're going to do here.
So by all accounts, hopefully Jacobs is okay. Not really
(16:53):
sure on Alexander or Williams. I know there are some
media reports out there and whatnot. Lafleur didn't say anything
specifically about their chances other than obviously the Packers would
be in a tough spot defensively if they're missing one
or both of those guys with the high powered, high
flying Detroit Lions coming in. But it's going to be
a week where we're going to be watching the injury
(17:15):
report and seeing where things go here for Green Bay.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It's funny how every coach to some extent, has their
own phrases or little statements. I remember Mike McCarthy back
in the day was always, you know, so and so
is going to be stressed to play this week. Yeah,
you know, he didn't want to go into all the things,
but sometimes you use that stress to play. And one
of the things I've noticed with Matt Lafleur, when when
(17:39):
things are good, he doesn't want to go into everything.
He doesn't want to talk about it. He mentioned he
still needed to talk to the training staff, but he
said Jordan Love was in good spirits on Monday, and
if you go back and look at some of the
track record, Matt has said that type of stuff. I'm
not guaranteed anybody's playing on Sunday, but I will say
for what I thought that could have potentially been when
he left the game, I remember telling you, and I
relayed that too, that it was a groin injury. You
even double checked with me on that, just because we're
(18:01):
thinking knee, we're thinking calf, we're thinking something else. Groin
injuries can be pretty severe too. You always worry about
the core muscle issues and the sports hernias, but the
fact that it wasn't knee related, I think first and
foremost was a sigh relief that there were no setbacks
with that. But again, we'll see where the week goes
on everything. But the fact is, man, you're seeing some
(18:22):
of these things happen in the league right now. Where
the Detroit game, you know, Aiden Hutchinson's sitting there with
his leg up there, everyone giving him a big ovation,
but he's out of the cards for them the rest
of the season. We saw what happened with Christian Darisol
last week for the Minnesota Vikings. And it is a
league in a sport that takes its toll on a
football team. So for the Green Bay Packers at the
(18:42):
very least, we'll see again how things go. But with
Jai Air, with Evan Williams or Jordan Love probably all
top ten top players for this team. The fact that
we're not worrying about the worst case scenario there, I think.
I hate to keep using that Dodger bullet analogy, but
you do feel somewhat better that it's not anything more significant.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, absolutely, well, you mentioned it earlier a few other
things that we do need to get to as far
as reviewing this game. Josh Jacobs twenty five carries one
hundred and twenty seven yards two touchdowns, including that thirty
eight yarder, which I thought was one of the one
of the most remarkable touchdown runs I've seen in quite
a while. The blocking initially at the point of attack
(19:28):
was obviously really good, but then he makes the one
guy miss in the hole with incredible footwork. Then he
breaks another tackle as a guy is trying to grab
him by the shoulders, and then he's off to the
races with getting a nice downfield block from Watson. The
more I watched Josh Jacobs, I haven't seen I haven't
seen a running back. And this is no knock on
(19:52):
Ryan Grant or Eddie Lacy or Aaron Jones or Jamal
Williams or any of these guys. But I have not
seen a running back in Green Bay with the combination
of the vision and the footwork that Josh Jacobs has,
because Jacobs is not how shall I say, Aaron Jones
(20:13):
always look like a slippery running back. Like the way
he ran. He was hard, he was hard to tackle.
He had he had a quickness, and a slipperiness to him.
Josh Jacobs doesn't quite have that. But what he does
with his feet to make guys miss and to get
tacklers off balance and then to accelerate to get the
(20:34):
yardage that he can, he's a He's just he's a
different type of runner. But man, he is fun to
watch that he is. He is more talented than I
ever knew previously, whether it was you know, at Alabama
with the Raiders seeing him in person, and now seeing
him every game for the Green Bay Packers, I couldn't
be more impressed with what he brings to the table.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Here's the way I work through these situations now, because
I don't want to make it about comparables, because anytime
we see something nice about somebody makes sound like it
was something a detriment to the others.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Exactly, And that's not what I'm doing here either.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
What I'm doing and what my strategy is now is
let's pretend that Josh Jacobs is the only running back
the Green Bay Packers have ever had. No Paul Horning,
no Jim Taylor, no Aaron you know, Jones, Amon Green,
this is the only guy. So here we are. You're
watching him play the first thing I thought, and again
he had to work through some stuff, he said. He
(21:26):
was telling the coaches, hey, trust me, trust me. Because
the first happened that he had thirty six rushing yards.
He had ninety six in the second half. He was
seeing the holes, he was seeing what he was looking for.
Even when he was going down, he felt like the
big play was still there. And even on the big play,
the thirty eight yard touchdown, he broke a couple of
rules to make that happen. Yeah, because he wanted to
be able to exercise that and be able to try
to find, you know, a touchdown. But here's the thing
(21:47):
about Josh Jacobs, and this is what I've this is
why I figured out he's a first round pick. He
went to Alabama, he as all these things that go
for him. The guy's a professional football player. The way
he approaches this game, it's like watching a sign test
work in figuring out what he wants to do and
what certain traits he wants to utilize on any given play.
You know, whether it's diagnosing what's happening at the line
(22:08):
of scrimmage in one cutting, whether it's him with kind
of that jump cut that he does, or sometimes the
guy can just go north and south on you and
push you forward for seven yards. That has happened plenty
of times this season too. Yea, and he does it again.
We'll see how everything looks this week on the injury
report front. But he does it while being an incredibly
durable force at that position. And when you look at
(22:28):
Brian Goodekoin's tract record for wanting to sign free agents,
durability is a big part of that. So while he
was an All Pro, and while he was a rushing champion,
while he had all these things going for him with
the Raiders, the fact that he did all this while
being a workhorse belcow back and being able to still
improve throughout that workload, I think it just shows you
the type of athlete Green Bay Packers were bringing into
their program independent of anybody else who's ever carried the
(22:51):
football for him this twenty twenty four football team, Josh
Jacobs is the right answer.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah. I want to talk about the defense a little
bit too here because this was this was just it
was a strange, weird day. I thought. On defense, we
mentioned earlier the first four times the Jaguars had the ball,
they didn't get a single first downright, Packers defense was
on top of it. They were flying high. It was
(23:18):
looking like a continuation and a building off of what
we had seen against Arizona, against Houston and getting to
this point and then all of a sudden, it wasn't
just that the Jaguars started moving the ball it started.
It was that they started taking chunks of the field.
The number of explosive plays, the twenty plus yard pass plays.
(23:39):
They got a few of them at the end of
the first halt when the Jaguars got ten points before
halftime on their last two possessions, and then we saw
it again at the end of the game late in
the fourth quarter where they got ten points again and honestly,
Wes might have had two touchdowns, It might have had
fourteen points there if not for the third down shotgun snap.
(24:02):
That was a bad snap that bounces off Trevor Lawrence's
leg and they just have to fall on it, right
over it and then they have to kick the field goal.
So they didn't even get the opportunity to convert on
third down there near the red zone because because of
the bad snap. But it was just it was this
up and down like jekylin high day. You know, two
(24:22):
massive takeaways. Xavier McKinney gets his sixth interception, still leading
the NFL in that category. Edgrin Cooper makes a great
play getting the strip sack backed by the goal line.
Devonte Wyatt, you know, somebody called it like a musical
chairs type of gam like he bumped the Jaguars lineman
out of the way to recover. It sets up an
(24:43):
easy touchdown Malik Willis to Tucker Craft. So though you know,
two takeaways, that's that gave the Packers fourteen points, set
up fourteen points on the day. There's a lot of
good things the Packers defense did, but there are a
lot of things that, you know, you're kind of scratching
your head going, you know, what is with suddenly giving
up eight pass pigs of twenty plus yards in the
(25:06):
same game when all these other good things were also happening.
It was just it's strange. It's hard to get a
handle on exactly what was going on out excuse me.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Ten explosive plays for the Packers or that they allowed
in this game, including some of the rushing stuff. Here's
what stood out to me the most. So you look
at this as like a verdict right with the jury,
who was giving what type of evidence and who was
ultimately going to be the winner. From the Packers' perspective,
it was the fact that they did come out on
ahead on the turnover margin, the fact that they turned
(25:37):
those turnovers into fourteen points whereas the Jacksonville Jaguars immediately
gave it back, and the fact that Green Bay was
able to be a little bit more efficient in some
of the situational stuff, not necessarily red zone and goal
to go, but some of the other aspects of this game.
The Jaguars went zero for eight to start this game
on third down and really struggled to get into their operation,
(25:59):
but they overcame that with some of those explosive plays
late in the matchup. Despite losing Christian Kirk to a
broken collar bone and then also you know Thomas leaving,
Brian Thomas Junior leaving with the chest injury. Trevor Lawrence
was exceptional down the stretch, but the Green Bay Packers
just gave him too many holes and too many openings
with which to work. And as Matt Lafleur said, I mean,
(26:21):
there's a lot of things you can diagnose for what
went wrong there in the second half of green Bay.
But the amount of times that green Bay was in
cover two in trying to get them to play in
front of them, trying to hit the check downs dictating
the terms of the game. But then they're missing tackles
and those things are turning into explosive plays. It wasn't
good enough. So that's the lesson the Packers have to learn.
(26:41):
Fortunately for them, they did have the comeback with the takeaways.
They were very pragmatic about how they utilize those. Edgrin
Cooper with thirty four snaps, has eight tackles, a huge
pass deflection on a trail route on the play in
which Kirk got hurt and then also punches the ball
out for the old only sack of the game ends
up becoming a strip sack that leads to seven points.
(27:03):
Very opportunistic game for green Bay. But what's what's coming
on the horizon now against the Detroit Lions. I mean,
you also have to be very much cautious here about
how you proceed.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, and with you know, a lot of fans are asking, well,
you know, where was where was the pass rush and
everything that you know that the Packers had shown against
Arizona against Houston leading up to this, with with the
quarterbacks not being comfortable and all that, sometimes the other
team just does a better job. I mean, it's it's
not like it's not like the Packers weren't dialing up
(27:34):
some of the same stuff that they do with the
pass rush. We saw Minnesota, Minnesota for the for the
entire first half of that game at Lambellfield, they just
handled everything that green Bay's defense was thrown at him.
I thought Jackson Jacksonville's offensive line they handled green Bay's
pass rush much like much like Minnesota did. Unlike Arizona
(27:57):
and Houston that had a hard time with the stunts
and you know, and and that's you know, those guys
breaking through on on on, you know, the the games
and stunts up front, and that's how those quarterbacks got uncomfortable.
Sometimes that's gonna happen. But then also what happened in
this game is the couple of times that Jeff Halfley
did dial up a blitz. It's like, Okay, the foreman
(28:18):
rush isn't getting there. You got to pick your spots
and send a fifth guy, maybe send a sixth guy.
Lawrence Burned, I mean, you know, he saw he saw
it coming. He got the ball out, you know, to
somebody who was in open space, you know, the vacated
space where the blitzer comes from. Lawrence was on top
of that. So just suddenly saying, okay, we're not getting
any pressure. We got to keep dialing up blitz is
that wasn't going to be the answer because because Trevor
(28:41):
Lawrence had made the Packers pay a couple of times,
so they got into a tough spot defensively there where
the foreman rush wasn't getting home, but but Lawrence was
taking care of him against the blitz and it just
it just becomes a matter of survival at that point,
and and it's tough. Fortunately, when the Jaguars did get
things going there in the fourth quarter, then ultimately they
(29:02):
didn't get the ball back. The game didn't go to overtime.
The Packers were able to kill the entire clock and
getting those last points, they didn't get the ball back,
and sometimes that's sometimes that's what it takes to win
in this league.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
And why did it happen because of the way green
Bay started the game, and it's why it's a four quarter,
sixty minute football game. And the hole that the Jacksonville
Jaguars found themselves in. Even though it wasn't huge by
any means, it's what enabled Green Bay to make a
few plays there in the second half that ultimately tipped
the scales in their favor.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah, all right, a little bit of sponsor business here.
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(29:55):
the league weeks week eight. Excuse me, I was about
to say week six for some reason. I don't know why.
This is why I was going to say six, because
including the Packers game, there were six games wes in
which there was a score in the final minute the
final sixty seconds of regulation where the lead changed hands.
(30:18):
Six games in the league in one week, which is
actually tied for the most in the league in one
week of games since the league Mercher in nineteen seventy
was that the Ackers loll in that the Packers game
was involved in that. And then, of course, as you
had alluded to earlier, Washington defeating the Chicago Bears on
the hail Mary in the Nation's Capital, and we were
(30:43):
all we were all watching that on our little TV
screens on the flight, on the flight coming back, and
that was quite the Uh, it was quite the reaction
from everyone on the plane. It was probably about fifteen
to twenty seconds later than everybody else's re action around
the country because of the delay of the satellite fever. Yeah,
(31:04):
for the live of the quote unquote live TV broadcast.
But but man, Jade and Daniels. Strange game in Washington,
with the Commanders kicking a bunch of field goals, they
couldn't punch in any touchdowns. They kick a whole bunch
of field goals. The Bears can't do anything until late
in the third quarter. Then the Bears finally get on
the board, they blow another chance to score. Then they
(31:26):
do get the go ahead points in the final in
the final minute, but they left just enough time for
Jade and Daniels to try a hail Mary. And we
you know, we don't need to get into everything with
Tyreek Stevenson. But the bottom line is the Bears botched it.
The Bears botched it on the hail mary. They didn't
knock the ball down, they tipped it. And not only
(31:48):
did they tip it, they had nobody guarding the tip man.
Noah Brown is standing all alone in the back of
the end zund and a successful hail mary. That'll go
down as as one of the plays of the year
and felt.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, and if you if you're your defensive coach at
any level of football, that that goes down as teaching
tape for how not to defend a hail mary. I mean,
it's just it's true. I mean under fash. The other
thing about that was you weren't even in the end zone,
like I could see it, like the like the uh
Randall Cobb went against the Giants many years ago in
the playoff game. Randall was at the back of the end.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, it was the very ball came out.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
So yeah, Noah Brown was one of the only people
actually standing in the end zone when he caught that passage.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Which is all the more reason why you can't have
somebody standing there all by himself and from what I've
heard and what I've read, it sounded like Tyreek Stevenson
who was kind of off in his own little world
for a while there. He's the guy who's supposed to
be boxing out the tip man, or at least to
be there in case the ball is tips so that
there isn't an uncontested catch of the tip. That's exactly
(32:47):
what happened, and uh and Washington wins a game.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Instead, he ended up being the stocked into to his malone.
I mean, it just it's terrible the way that worked out.
I feel terrible for the young man because from all
accounts it sounds like it's a good dude, but it
just made a huge mental air on that game. Without
perseverating on everything that Bears did wrong, though, I do
want to say something about Jayden Daniels because I said
this to a good friend of mine, Scott Vencey, on
the way home that night after I was driving home
(33:09):
from the airport. I am already ready to put Jade
and Daniels in the elite category for quarterbacks. I don't
want to talk about rookies. I don't want to talk
about young player. I'm talking about legitimate, elite quarterbacks. And
this is why I'm willing to say this. He proved
in this game, and he's done at intervals of the season,
but he definitely proved in this game. I can put
this entire team on my back and win a football game.
(33:31):
And Mike, there are so few guys in this league,
regardless of position, but definitely quarterbacks that can do that
where it's like I am going to will you to
a win, a w a little tally in that win margin.
And Daniels is that guy. So even when things aren't
going right, he has so much arm talent and the
fact that he was able to pull that off after
(33:53):
basically trying to execute the Aaron Rodgers scramble drill and
then having to roll it back. Yeah, it's just can't
say enough about him in Washington. For as much as
we talked about the Green Bay Packers being the outpost
of the NFL in the early nineties, late eighties, early nineties,
that's what the Washington Commanders have been here for the
last six seven eight years. Really.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah, and yeah, they've been out in the wilderness.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
There's a lot of hype on them right now and rightfully.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
So yeah, absolutely, Well, quickly the NFC North as things
stand right now, the Detroit Lions coming off a blowout
win over the Titans. We can talk about that more
on our next show. They are six and one on
top of the division, the Packers right behind at six
and two. The Minnesota Vikings lost two games in a
span of five days. They are five and two, yep.
(34:37):
And the Chicago Bears, with the Hail Mary defeat in DC,
they are four and three. So lambeau Field this Sunday
and we'll get into it all in our next show.
But the top two teams in the NFC North going
ahead to head for the first of two times this season.
Six and one versus six and two. This is what
you put yourself in these positions for, is to have
(35:00):
these opportunities. And the Packers are a team kind of
piecing it together, and there's all these questions about the
injury report and everything else. And the Lions are a
team that is just rolling right now. They are a
freight train coming down the tracks. I'm going to be
a heck of a week and a heck of a
matchup on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I'll save all my comments on the Lions for Thursday's
show because we'll need something to talk about. Yeah, but
their win was incredibly impressive. Certainly the Los Angeles Rams
doing the Packers a favor, some controversy a little bit
at the end of the game, but the Rams still
did have control that thing late to be able to
now send the Vikings to a second straight loss. But
(35:38):
why is this so important? Because the Green Bit Packers
are six and two, but they're two and two in
conference right now. Tampa Bay Buccaneers are on the outside
looking into the playoff picture. They're four and four. They're
four and two in the NFC. Those are the type
of things you got to keep an eye on as
you look towards tiebreakers and other things here down the stretch.
But the Green Bit Packers did exactly what you and
I have been saying for the last month. Mike. You
have to take care of business. You couldn't work try
(36:00):
about any more of these NFC North opponents until they're
finally here. Well, guess what, man, This Sunday, Lambeufield, the
Detroit Lions are coming to town. Yeah, and we'll see
who's all out there, and it'll probably be a take
the entire week to see who's available. But a massive,
massive opportunity the green Bait Packers have ever earned by
being able to reel off these four straight victories.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yep. And we will get into it on our next
show in a couple of days, but for now, we'll
call it a rap on this edition of Packers n Scripting.
Be sure to follow all of our coverage of the
team on Packers dot com for Wesiam Mike. Oh wait,
hold on, oh, we got to talk about the draft.
Hold on, mark your calendars, folks. Yep, I almost forgot
you'd lose your job. I would mark your calendars. The
(36:41):
twenty twenty five NFL Draft is coming to Green Bay.
Be among the thousands of football fans cheering on their
team's picks by joining us April twenty four through April
twenty six, twenty twenty five. Visit green Bay dot com
slash Draft twenty five for more information.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
We should just start doing that. During the intro, I'm
Mike alongside my partner in crime, Wes Hodkowitz. We are
here from our Packers studios to let you know that
the twenty twenty five NFL Draft is coming to Green Bay,
and then we can start the show.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Thank you for tuning. In everybody. We will see you
next time.
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