October 28, 2025 • 39 mins
Mike and Wes review the road win over the Steelers, featuring QB Jordan Love’s commanding performance (2:03), TE Tucker Kraft’s outstanding game (7:20), WR Christian Watson’s return to action (12:01), RB Emanuel Wilson’s growing contributions (16:25), and the strong defensive effort (20:32). They also look at the records across the top of the NFC (35:24).
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from
Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spafford, joined as always
by my partner and everything Packers, Wes Hodko. It's coming
to you hear from our studios at lambeau Field, and
I should say welcome back. I apologize I was not
able to be in the office last Thursday to tape
our second show of the week, but we aren't going
(00:28):
to do that show, Wes, because that would be previewing
the Steelers game. Instead, we are going to review a
thirty five to twenty five Packers victory from Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
And I'm thankful that you are the upstanding gentleman that
you are, that you are the person that you are,
that you're willing to step out in front of this thing.
As I told people on Twitter, what actually happened last
Thursday was the money wasn't right and sometimes you have
to stand up for yourself. So I came down to
the studio on Thursday. You were all set, you were
ready to go. I told Hannah our I told the
(01:01):
construction crew, I told everybody that would listen. Wes has
certain demands to do this show. I've been doing it
for ten seasons now. If these demands are not met,
there is no show. Fortunately, the two sides came back
to the table on Friday, we got a deal worked
out and Packers unscripted as back today. But Mike, I
appreciate you trying to cover for me. That's the man
(01:23):
that you are.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Well, yeah, there is one of us covering for the
other here, but that aside. Yeah, the Packers one thirty
five to twenty five. My friend and I don't know
where you want to start with this one. Obviously we
weren't able to talk about all of the Jordan Love
Aaron Rodgers, you know, that main storyline. But as this
game unfolded, what it really became about was, quite frankly,
(01:49):
the Packers getting up off the mat in the second half,
down sixteen to seven at halftime on the road, and
Green Bay answered the bell and suddenly Jordan Love got hot,
the offense got hot, and twenty eight points in the
second half turned into quite the road victory for Green Bay.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I want you to talk about whatever you want to
talk about in the show. As our digital department reminds me,
this is your show, it's not my show. But I
want to say this, and this is where I want
to start, and then you can take it from there.
We can discuss anything you want to discuss after this.
There was one story in this game. To me, it
was your column, it was your top of the five
things takeaways. It was Jordan Love. Because I said it beforehand.
(02:40):
This kid is as cool and as calm and collected
as you will find as a professional athlete. I'm not
talking about quarterback. I'm not talking about NFL player. I'm
talking when you make up the prototype for an NFL
football player, a basketball player, a hitter at the bottom
of the ninth inning or the eighteenth inning, as you
(03:01):
were just telling me a couple of minutes ago, Yeah,
you want to have the type of disposition that Jordan
Love has. And the thing and if you you know,
if I would have been bouncing ideas off of you.
This meant nothing to Renee Gabriel, our social media manager
who was with me in Pittsburgh. But what kept going
through my mind as I watched that game, it wasn't
about Aaron Rodgers. It was about where Jordan went Love
(03:24):
was two years ago when we were in Pittsburgh, in
the way that he played in that setting, twenty nine
of thirty seven, three hundred and sixty yards, three touchdowns,
a one thirty four point two passer rating, which is
the highest of his in his regular season of his
NFL career. Jordan Love showed that when the pressure is there,
he is an absolute diamond. And to see the maturation
(03:47):
of a football player, a guy that the Packers committed
themselves two and a half years ago, that was beautiful
to watch. Oh and by the way, his mentor his
predecessor was on the other sid sideline. Yeah, that's that's
some big time stuff. It was.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
It was a it was a crucible, so to speak,
when it comes to everything that was on Jordan Love
in this game. And uh and yeah, to to walk
into the locker room at halftime, you've only got seven
points on the board. That wasn't all his fault. Brandon
McManus unfortunately missed a couple of field goals. One of
(04:25):
them was really long, just came up a little bit short.
Then when the Packers are looking for that momentum boost
right at the end of the first half like they
got in Arizona, but then it didn't happen, McManus unfortunately
missed again to walk into that locker room with only
seven points on the board at halftime and uh, and
then to come out and do what he did in
the second half, the twenty straight completions. It started on
(04:48):
that final possession, the last thirty four seconds of the
first half, completed four straight passes to get in position
for the field goal, which unfortunately was missed. But those
those four completions started the streak of twenty in a row,
and that tied Brett Fare's franchise record, which he set
on Thanksgiving Day in Detroit in two thousand and seven.
(05:12):
So that was, if my math is right, eighteen years ago.
And what was most impressive to me about Love's performance
was that in the first half, every time it got
to third down, the Steelers blitzed, and the Packers didn't
have a whole lot of answers for that. In the
(05:34):
second half, they found the answers. Jordan Love stood in
the pocket, he took the hits. He yes, he threw
up a couple of passes that looks sort of like
prayers in a sense. But when the defense is blitzing
and you know that they're compromised in coverage, you can
put it up there and give your guys a chance
to go make a play, and that's what he did,
(05:56):
and his teammates came through for him, Tucker Craft, Christian Watson.
They made those plays and suddenly twenty straight completions turns
into five consecutive scoring drives, three touchdowns, two field goals.
It was a tour to force performance by Jordan Love
if it had happened anywhere. The fact, as you said,
(06:18):
that it happened on the road in a stadium where
he had had kind of a rough game and had
lost a couple of years ago with a couple with
a couple of interceptions down the stretch, and the fact
that it was his mentor and predecessor's game against his
former team, and that that was the quarterback matchup. Just
(06:40):
I mean a performance for the Ages, quite frankly by
Jordan Love.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
And the way that he bounced back and led that
team in the second half, I think speaks to the
growth and maturation of a leader of a guy were
in that captain's patch. Now you're right, things were not
trending in the right direction. This wasn't like Arizona where
you salvage something at the end of the half. Felt
like he had some momentum. Packers had zero momentum. Oh
and by the way, Pittsburgh had a chance to double
(07:04):
up coming out of the second half. Credit to the
defense they got off the field. Some wild stuff happened
on the officiating front. There's so much to talk about
this matchup. I don't even really want to get into
any of that. But that being said, the Packers got
the ball back and when Jordan Love needed to make
a play, what did he do? He went back to
the guy that has been his most consistent, reliable target
(07:26):
this season, and that's Tucker Craft. For Tucker a week
after making an absolute game changing, game altering catch in
Arizona two in that instance, catch a fifty nine yard
pass in run up field and as next Gen stat said,
plus thirty six above expectation for the amount of yards
that he pulled out of that thing. And then he
(07:47):
was asked afterwards, well, did you feel like there might
have been somemo pi And he's like, yeah, there's also
some holding going on there too, So whatever it takes
to make the play happen. And I even tweeted during
the game, I had a hard time understanding the difference
between the cornerback on Craft or on Craft on that play,
and then what happened with with Keishawn Nixon on another
play where he was in trail coverage. But be that
(08:08):
as it may, one of the fun moments being in
the press box, there was some I don't know if
it was staffers from the Steelers or some people that
obviously had a vested interest in the success of the
Pittsburgh Steelers that were directly behind where we were sitting
in the press box. And after Kraft caught his second
touchdown later on in the game, the twenty four yard er,
someone even said is he is he a receiver? Is
(08:31):
that guy? What does he play for them? Like they didn't.
And I loved at that exact moment on the television camera,
Tucker Craft looking into the camera and saying, I do this.
It felt to me like last year was the breakout, right,
we all saw what he could be.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, it was the arrival, the arrival for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
It now the national public, the people that have fantasy
football teams, the people that are just casual viewers, they
know who Tucker Craft is and Mike. I could list
off all the superlatives for you, but the fact is
is that the Packers hit on a good one and
this guy, man, he is going to be something special. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
And when you you look at you mentioned the game
changing reception last week in Arizona, which was on the
fourth and two the guts he called to go for
it as opposed to kick the tying field goal, and
Tucker Craft was actually the third option on that play.
Jordan Love found him well when there was a crucial
fourth and one in this game, he wasn't the third option,
(09:32):
my friend. He was getting the this that play was
designed for Tucker Craft to get the first down. Just
another another example of the steps forward that that are
being taken. And then when he runs, you know, whether
you want to call it a slant or a Texas route,
you know, kind of out and in and uh. And
(09:53):
you watch Big number eighty five. I mean, what is
he about? Two hundred and fifty five, two hundred and
sixty pounds right in that range and he's running away
from the safety to the goal line. They couldn't catch him.
You know. It was like a five yard pass and
he turns it into a twenty four yard touchdown because
he turned on the Jets and beat everybody to the goal.
Line just tremendous, and one hundred and thirty one of
(10:15):
his one hundred and forty three receiving yards were after
the catch. Excuse me, just a He is becoming he's
becoming a big time weapon. And we knew this was
We knew this was happening, and it just happened to
come now in a nationally televised game. But oh, by
the way, along with all those receiving numbers and everything
(10:37):
that he's doing, he's also one of the best blocking
titans in the NFL. This guy is a complete player
at his position.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
He's insane. It is wild to watch. And somebody had
made a remark to well, how could he have one
hundred and thirty one yards after the catch? Dude, go
back and watch a film. See how close to the
line of scrimmage he was when he caught basically every
one of his passes. The fifty nine yard was probably
the most he was downfield. Yeah, a couple of those
he might have even been in the started right.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
And that's that's how we that's how the differential between
his yardage and his yards after catch was only twelve
Because if he catches a swing pass that you know
is four or five yards in the backfield. He's getting
the yards after catch from where he catches it, not
from the line of scrimmage, whereas the receiving yards are
from the line of scrimmage. So it's sort of like
(11:22):
on some of those plays, the gap between the yak
and the actual receiving yards starts to close because because
he's getting some of the yards after catch actually behind
the line of scrimmage. Be that as it may, just
just another incredible outing from a player who's uh, who's
just coming into his own I mean, what's Tucker. I mean,
we know year twenty four, I was I was about
(11:44):
to say twenty five, twenty twenty five, next month, Wow, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Are you doing when you were twenty four years old?
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I was almost on my way to cover my first
Super Bowl?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
But hey go.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
But yeah, on top of that, though, when it comes
to this Packers passing game, Christian Watson got back into action.
We had talked about this for a long time. Was
that we were sort of thinking whether whether it was
a long ways out or as things got closer, Hey,
think of Christian Watson maybe being back sometime in November.
(12:20):
And I think you were the one who said it first.
If he's able to come back and play in a
game in October and get into action, consider it a bonus.
Well this wasn't just a bonus. This was a This
was a big time impact. Yeah, four catches, eighty plus yards.
He uh, he delivered. And for all of the concern
(12:42):
about oh, the turf in Pittsburgh and all these issues
and is that really safe for him and whatnot, I
will confess he played a lot more snaps than I
thought he would and thought he was in his in
his first game back. I didn't expect to see him
on the field that much. But but boy, he looked
like he never left. I guess that's the best way
(13:04):
I can put it.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
So a couple things of this one. I want to
just give it. I did it inbox, I'm gonna do
it on our show now. Give a huge kudos to
Chris Keene Packers equipment staff. There was a little bit
of slipping going on. You probably saw it on TV
that the first few series, but man, the Packers figured
that turf out quick Pittsburgh played. They did do a
resotting of it, but then Pittsburgh played on it. The
(13:25):
College played on it Saturday.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, the day before and it looked rough.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
No disrespect to the fine folks at Akrascher Stadium and
in that field that is one of my favorite road
trips in terms of just the human beings that you're
dealing with. The field was in tough shape. It was
comparable to some of those those rough years in Chicago.
The Packers made it work. And yes, there was a
little bit of probably more external worry and concern about
Christian making his return on that field, but the Packers
(13:51):
from an equipment standpoint were good to go. From a
mental standpoint, Christian Watson was set. I was talking with
them afterwards. A bunch of the media were grabbing them
after the game, and you know, he said he really
tried to keep things as normal as possible going into
this one. He did his usual routine, which is funny
to think about it because it really had been nine
months and he's been in this thing again. Yeah, but
(14:11):
you know, all the way from what he's eating, you know, resting,
playing video games. And then he said it was really
when he was packing up his bag to go to
the stadium, it kind of hit him like I'm playing
football today. Yeah, And Mattelflour was asked about that, about
what his snapcount was. Rob Damofsky Robed Damofski's Stats and
Info was reporting that it was thirty six official snaps.
I never got a chance to look at the game book.
(14:32):
I could right now, but I'm too lazy. But the
fact is is that he started off two catches modest
twenty four yards, but kind of like Craft a week
earlier in Arizona when there was some gotta have them
type catches, gotta have them type plays. Watson was again
that primary target for Jordan Love. The thirty three yard
catch on third down probably was the most critical in
(14:54):
this comeback, being able to not only exact momentum, extract momentum,
but also just given the situation where Green Bay really
needed points at that moment and he came through. The
other thing I loved about it, He said that was
actually the second time or before that, Love had changed
the play twice already, and then they made another adjustment,
And I mean, my goodness, I knew it was a
(15:15):
cool throw and catch from the press box, but when
I finally got to see the video afterwards, you realized
how Love snuck that thing in there.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, that was a heck of a throw, yeah, and
he was his body was going one way. He kind
of had to throw it back across his body. And
when I saw it, and I mentioned this in Monday
Mornings inside our Inbox, I actually think Love wanted to
put more on it. I think if he's able to
get more on the throw, I think Watson is running
away from the defense, you know, and essentially is able
(15:44):
to make a much easier kind of clear catch, probably
for a touchdown there. But with Love having to throw
the ball back across his body, there's only so much
you can you can get on the ball. But again
it was against a blitz, you know, so he bought
some time. He knows the coverage is compromised in terms
of in terms of numbers, and he knows he's got
(16:06):
a six foot four wide receiver down there. Who's uh,
who's gonna try to make him right if he gives
him a chance to make a play, And and he
did that. Just a great a great return for Watson.
One more thought on the offense before we shift gears
to the defense, because there's plenty of talk about there too.
But Emmanuel Wilson provided a spark both in the running
(16:30):
game and with catching some passes. I believe he ended
up with over eighty total yards combined rushing and receiving
in this game. And what I like the best about
Wilson was he was just he was running hard, like
he was taking it to anybody who was trying to
tackle him. And that kind of that kind of sent
(16:53):
a message in a way that you know, Emmanuel, Emmanuel
Wilson doesn't take the field and look like a backup.
He takes the field. He takes the field ready to
deliver some punishment and be a big part of this thing.
And we've seen, I think really since the Dallas game
right before the bye week, we've seen Emmanuel Wilson's growth
(17:15):
in his role in this offense. And that's only going
to mean good things for the long haul here with
Josh Jacobs and what they want to do in the backfield.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
It is the ultimate example of undrafted in development. What's
happened with Wilson because the Packers saw a skill set
there when they claimed him. Because I've said it once,
I've said it before, but you know, the Packers claimed
him in May. He signed originally with Denver as an
undrafted free agent. He's only there for a couple of days,
I think, and then they let him go and he
(17:45):
ends up being in Green Bay and you always think
of those guys when they arrived sort of late. Okay,
is that a quote unquote camp body and Wilson quickly proved,
especially with that preseason performance against Cincinnati, that he was
more than that.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Right, this is a real player.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
But his maturation and growth, I mean, it's just it.
It's crazy, the type of not only the player he's become,
but the person that he's become. And as Matt Leffler said,
he was dealing with a little bit on his heart
in that game. I don't know all the details of it.
You could see some of it on social media, but
he played with the purpose and I actually short changed him.
I was talking to the locker room afterwards. I grabbed
(18:18):
him and I'm like, yeah, seventy seven total yards. It
was actually eighty seven. I'm bad at math, sorry, only
twenty six on the act and that one. But the
fact is is that as he said, when this offense
they came out of that second half, they need to
make a play. Seventy seven of his total yards did
come in the second half. Yeah, I only had ten.
He said it was a little bit of a slow
start for him in the offense, but he knows basically
(18:40):
three things. When ten's going, he's going, as he said,
and when they make plays, you know, this offense starts humming,
and in Wilson's case, when he starts getting downhill, he
builds steam quickly. And he has been a really nobody
anticipated Emmanuel Wilson being the number two back to Josh Jacobs.
(19:00):
We thought last year it was going to be aj Dillon.
This year, obviously, Marshawn Lloyd was back, Chris Brooks is
up there, and Wilson sort of faded in the background
for a little bit. Well, the last two three games
he's been back up into the forefront. Jacob's dealing with
the calf injury. I think he has played really, really
solid and showed that, Yes to your point, I think
that's a great point you made. This isn't just some
(19:21):
random undrafted guy. This isn't just a backup running back.
This is a guy that when he's on the field,
his mentality is that I am the dude.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We'll take a quick break and pay
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(20:30):
On the defensive side of this game in Pittsburgh again,
kind of much like the first half on offense, there
were there were rough moments on the defensive side. You know,
there were some penalties and Keishawn Nixon was you know,
was having some trouble and coverage and whatnot. But the
(20:53):
Packers defense three times in the first half, was able
to hold the Steelers to long field goal attempts. So
Pittsburgh had just sixteen points on the board at halftime,
and against a quarterback like Aaron Rodgers, and you could
almost see you could almost see Rogers, even though the
Steelers were winning, they were going into halftime, you know,
(21:15):
sixteen to seven. You could almost see the frustration on Rogers'
face that he knew that the Steelers weren't finishing these
drives right, that they were leaving points out on the
board because they kept sending Boswell out for these long kicks.
The Packers defense hung in there, only allowed the one
touchdown in the first half, forced a bunch of field goals,
and then in the second half, in the second half,
(21:37):
they really started to make things a lot more difficult
for Rogers.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Can you I gotta ask you, because you're watching the
game on TV.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I was in the press box y this particular game.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
This was going in my head as I'm watching this,
and it would have been the exact question. These are
all the things I wanted to ask you during the
game that I couldn't. So, yeah, why did Pittsburgh stop
running the ball?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
That is that is a huge question. Do you know
how many.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Times Pittsburgh ran the ball in the second half? Do
you know?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
I don't know. I don't know, but I know because
I looked it up for times. Yeah, I put it
an insider inbox. Eleven of their first twelve snaps in
the second half, Rogers was dropping back to pass. So yeah,
they they quit running the ball with Warren and it
played into the Packers' hands quite frankly.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
So here's the difference in the game. Yes, let's talk
about Rodgers here in a second. Here's the difference in the game.
Pittsburgh ran the ball really, really well in the first
half and the Packers did not the second half. The
Packers state committed to the run, found some explosive plays
there with Emmanuel Wilson with Josh Jacobs in space. Josh
Jacobs again is probably the best goal line.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, another rushing touchdown for number eight.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
What an insane guy. This guy is right inside the
five yard line. He finds a way. And Pittsburgh ran
the ball three times for twelve twelve yards twelve yearns.
I don't get it, like and maybe that's just the
old Aaron Rodgers. You know, I covered him, and I
just I they had a blueprint that was working for them.
They were not finishing drives. Chris Boswell is the most
underrated kicker in the National Football League. But they were
(23:05):
scoring points and they were being effective. Everything stopped because
they were It's not that they weren't running the ball
in the fourth quarter when the Packers pulled a head.
They weren't running the ball when they had the lead. Yeah,
I just I don't. It's mind boggling to me that said.
That approach allowed the Packers pass rush to get going.
It allowed the secondary to seemingly settle down. Ye Carrington Valentine,
(23:25):
who was making the start in the perimeter I thought
had a really strong game at Lafleuur backed it up
on Monday. Kuay Walker was making plays, Eddrin Cooper got
a major takeaway, Packers defense got its momentum built in
the second half, and I to this day, I still
don't understand what the Steelers were trying to do to
assist Aaron Rodgers, who wasn't perfect by a meanings the
(23:47):
first half, but was efficient and was taking advantage of opportunities.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Yeah, and and and Rodgers was certainly not putting the
ball in harm's way. He was definitely aware of Micah
Parsons at every you know, at every moment, and was
protecting himself a lot from Parsons. Rashan Gary got one
sack in the first half. Then in the second half
we saw both Gary and Parsons get sacks. At the
(24:11):
end of the day, the Steelers were just one out
of ten on third down, which you hold Aaron Rodgers
to one out of ten on third down, you're doing
You're doing something right. And yeah, and it was it
was a lot of It was a lot of third
and lungs. You mentioned the takeaway as well, that came
that came in a big moment where the Packers had
the lead, but the game was certainly, you know, was
(24:32):
certainly very much in the balance, and Rogers, looking to
put together a drive, takes the checkdown throw to Kenneth Gainwell,
uh Eddrian Cooper punches it out. Javon Bullet recovers. The
Packers turn that into a field goal add to their lead.
Just keeping keeping that second half momentum on Green Bay side.
With that takeaway, you mentioned two guys that Matt Lafleur
(24:54):
also talked about on Monday. I have a story on
Packers dot Com from late in the day on Monday
about it. Kway Walker Carrington Valentine I thought were two
of the defensive heroes in this game for the Packers.
Walker played, I thought his usual solid game in terms
of being a presence at the line of scrimmage, chasing
sideline to sideline. That's what That's what kuay Walker does.
(25:16):
He laid a couple of big hits in this game.
I mean he to put his shoulder pads down and
powered into a couple of guys. But that moment in
the fourth quarter where DK Metcalf, I don't know what
Metcalf was up to. He's clearly trying to provoke Quay
Walker provoked with a poke, you know, sticks his fingers
through his face mask as though to poke him in
(25:38):
the eye. And then when that doesn't get a reaction
from Walker, he grabs his face mask and kind of
yanks on it, tugs on it a little bit. That
doesn't get a reaction from Walker, and the flags fly
and the Steelers go from a third and two when
they're only down by ten points with ten minutes left,
the game is still very much at hand. Down by
ten ten minutes left, a third and two turns into
(25:59):
a third and sevent because kuay Walker keeps his composure.
He admitted, the rookie quay Walker of twenty twenty two,
who had gotten ejected from games a couple of times,
would not have would not have been able to contain
himself in that way. But kuay Walker has come a
long way. As Matt Lafleur said, he's wearing that sea
on his chest on the defense for a reason. He's
(26:21):
voted a team captain defensively for a reason. That was
a big moment in the game. And my hat is
off to number seven because I don't know if somebody
tried to stick their fingers through my face mask, if
I would have been able to just walk away.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Sorry, another couple of things to that. Yeah, what happened
the two plays before that incident? Do you remember? I
don't two Jalen Warren runs. Two of the three runs
in the second half came on that series.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
And it was third and two and last was going
to be his last.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
One was a five yard run.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, that was going to set up third and two.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
That instead ended up basically being a ten yard loss
for them. This shows you the discipline aspect of when
mattvil Flor's talking about playing smart football, right, that's the
type of thing you got accompt form because here's the thing.
There is gonna be enough bad calls against you. There's
gonna be enough things that tilt against you. You can't
make it obvious. You can't give officials a reason to
(27:18):
throw that flag. I'll be honest with you, with the
way that game was trending with Sean Hockeyley, no disrespect,
but I was actually a little nervous when I was like,
please tell me they're not gonna come up with some
ka kamene am allowed to say? Is that a good
Is that?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah? That's a good word, ka kameny excuse?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah? Or okay? Well, offsetting penalties, if Quay Walker grabs
the face mask of DK Metcalf, don't even care about
what happened with quay three years ago. If he does that,
it could have been the most stand up citizen A
lot of people would have had that reaction. Offsetting penalties, right, Yep,
no doubt he stands in there, the officials see it,
they throw the flag. You let the officials handle it.
(27:55):
Third and seventeen, Rogers drops back and what happens yet
again Rashan gary Sackson him two rashaun s Gary Sachs
in this game, three overall, including the one for minus
ten yards at the beginning of the fourth quarter. With
Micah Parsons. The Packers defense is a good defense and
when you give them opportunities, you're going to find success.
And Mike, I'll be honest with you again. Another thing
(28:16):
I was telling Renee during the game that she probably
was like, why does this guy keep talking to me?
But it was the idea that it's.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Because you didn't have me to talk to. I'll be there.
I'll be I'll be at the rest of the I'm
looking forward. So this was a this was a one off.
I don't I don't like to miss games. But I
had to skip this road trip.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Which is understandable. Who wants to go to who wants
to spend a day and a half in a hotel?
But no, But here's the thing. So Renee is working,
I think, and I said to her, I was like, listen,
no disrespect to Aaron Rodgers. But these were the situations
where when Rogers it would be a negative penalty like that.
Then Rogers goes back in the pocket, he holds onto
the ball too long, and it's a sack. The green
Bay Packers were the beneficiary of it in this one.
(28:54):
You could see it, and you could see that turn
in the fourth quarter when Rogers just waiting and waiting
and waiting for something to happened down field, and it doesn't.
The pressure gets home. It just it was the snowball
that kept moving. The way I looked at this game
as a whole mic was it was like a track
meet where it was it was two guys, two people
running a thirty two hundred meter relay. The Pittsburgh Steelers
(29:15):
got out to an early lead, they're up to that
mile mark, but green Bay out paced them, and once
they got to that, you know, the sixth lap, the seventh,
they just went. And I think that was probably the
biggest takeaway from this the game against Arizona, they showed
a lot of moxie finding a way to win that
late in this game. It showed them that Okay, we're
gonna get this lead and we're not going to give
it back, We're going to take it.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, they stayed, They stayed in command of this game.
I do want to mention Carrington Valentine as well. You
already brought them up once we learned from Matt Lafleur
that essentially what's been going on at cornerback for it
sounds like the last couple of weeks now has been
essentially an in practice competition for playing time primarily between
(29:57):
Nate Hobbs and Carrington Valentine. Lafleur suggest Keishawn Nixon would
be in that mix now as well. But in Arizona,
Nate Hobbs basically played the entire game and Valentine only
played a couple snaps on defense. It flipped in Pittsburgh.
Valentine basically played all the snaps on defense, all but
one maybe, and Nate Hobbs only played a few snaps defensively.
(30:20):
Valentine answered the call in this one that that pass
breakup on the seam route to the end zone to
DK Metcalf, that was pretty impressive and that was a
big that was that was a four point play. The
Steelers end up settling for a field goal, kept him
out of the end zone. They only get three instead
of seven there because of that breakup on Metcalf almost
(30:43):
had came close to a really good breakup actually on Washington,
the big tight end, but then he got called for
the pass interference. I mean that's a two hundred and
eighty pound tight end that he's you know that he's
trying to handle there. But then almost had the big
another big breakup of Roman Wilson in the end zone.
It actually was originally call an incomplete past the replay
(31:04):
assists change it to a touchdown. I think they got
that call right. But uh, Valentine what what Matt Lafuir
talked about, he was really he was impressed with Valentine's
just his competitiveness, how he challenged everything. There were the
phrase the best phrase from Matt Lafleur on Monday in
talking about Valentine's play, he said, there were no gimmes.
(31:26):
He just didn't give them anything. He made them, he
made them earn anything that uh that went his way,
and we'll see where things go from here. Now it's
we don't get to watch eleven on eleven. The team
snaps during practice like during the week, the media, you know,
we aren't there, so how things are gonna unfold every
week in practice in terms of who's leading the competition
(31:48):
and who's going to get the snaps. We're just going
to be finding out on Sunday for a while here
how this is going to go. But but hats off
to Carrington Valentine for for a really, really solid performance
after what I thought were you know, going back to
the Dallas game when Dak Prescott really got rolling in
the second half in Dallas. You know, Valentine had some
(32:10):
rough moments just like all the other cornerbacks did, so
I thought it was a big step forward for him.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
It's a tough deal, Michael, because we saw the rotation
go back into effect at right guard in this one.
Right Sean Ryan ended up playing more snaps than Jordan
Morgan in this one thirty five Do I think what
was it twenty nine Packers, including that Dallas game, were
trying to find ways to sort of rotate in Valentine.
It's not the easiest thing to do at cornerback. Yeah,
(32:38):
it does. And this goes back to twenty fourteen. I
can remember when the Packers had a surplus of cornerbacks
when Tremon Williams was healthy Casey Hayward was healthy, Devon
House was healthy, and Sam Shields was also there. They
didn't know who to play with how much nickel they do,
so they had to tremon moved inside. They started doing
different things when Casey was out. That's kind of where
(33:00):
they're at right now. But sometimes it is just better
to let a guy go out there, get into a rhythm,
establish it, not break it, as long as he's not healthy,
you know, as long as he's healthy not injured. And
I thought that's what we saw here. I thought Carrington
was given the full workload. He was allowed to be
himself out there. It's a tough spot to be in though,
because obviously Nate just got a pretty big contract. I
think everybody believes he can do a lot of good things.
(33:22):
Matt Lafleur said, you know, they have a lot of
confidence in him. He's had some of these knee issues,
but overall he's healthy and available.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Hey, and if this is a reset for Hobbs, you know,
I mean, after you mentioned the injuries, he had a
rough game in Arizona. Everybody knows that. But if this
allows him to reset, the Packers defense will be better
off for it. In the long run.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah, and you kind of wonder too, you know when
a guy goes down, because it's not like he dealt
with that kneel. I mean, he had it during training camp,
but then he was added the injury report on Friday
and then he ends up playing on it. Be that
as it may, everyone's injured. I get that. I just
think that when you have somebody like Carrington in the
fold too, that you and I for a number of
years now, going back to really his rookie year, we've
talked about this guy having starting caliber attributes. Yeah, finding
(34:03):
ways to get him going and finding ways to keep
all these guys involved, because Mike, here is the thing.
It's week nine now, There's gonna be more injuries through
the course of the season. There's gonna be things that
are gonna pop up, and you're gonna need Nate Hobbs.
You're gonna need Sean Ryan, You're gonna need Jordan Morgan,
You're gonna need Carington Valentine. You're gonna need those guys
to get through the season. Even to bring it back
to our intro with Christian Watson, right, Christian, there's all
(34:26):
these people that always say, well, if you add Christian Watson.
You got you got Dobbs, and you got Golden, and
you got Tucker, and you got this. You can't look
at it like that. You have to be looking at
it from the standpoint of a recurring calf injury for
Dantavian Wicks rears its ugly head again and now he's
unavailable for this game, and you don't have Jayden Reid
because he broke his collar bone last month. Christian Watson
comes back into the fold at exactly the right time
(34:48):
the Packers need him where they could use a healthy receiver.
That's how this game is played a lot of times.
So yes, what happened on Sunday does not dictate the future.
Things can change quickly. Sometimes destiny has a role in that.
But the nice about it is the Packers have some
depth there, and they have a lot of guys that
have played a lot of football now that they can
rely on.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, well, we've more than filled the show here. I
do want to say, with regard to officiating issues from
this game and from Arizona, I want to revisit some
of this stuff on our next show. I want to
take I want to take some time on Thursday show
to talk about some of this stuff. The last thing
before we go, I just want to give everybody the
rundown on where things are. The Packers in the NFC
(35:28):
North on top at five to one and one, the
Detroit Lions who were on the by at five and two.
The Bears and the Vikings both lost on the road
to AFC teams this past week, So the Bears are
four and three, the Vikings are three and four. As
far as the rest of the NFC is concerned, the
Packers statistically at five to one and one are still
(35:49):
in the top spot. Philadelphia and Tampa Bay right behind
at six and two. Then you have the Rams and
the Seahawks, who were both on their by this past week.
They are both five and two, and then the forty
nine Ers who lost to an AFC team. The Packers
got some good results they did this week. As far
as these AFC NFC matchups, San Francisco lost to the
a FCS Houston Texans. They are now five and three.
(36:13):
Not a lot has been sorted out yet, certainly, and
we're technically not even at the at the halfway point
of the season here. But but when you look at
you look at where the Packers. Are you look at
what else is going on in the NFC. This This
was the type of road win that that is going
(36:34):
to carry you a little ways, right, I mean, because
this was this was one of those that's a that's
a coin flip going in and uh and the Packers
were able to come away with it impressively and hopefully
now three of the next four games at home. Hopefully
this is where the Packers can start building on something.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
You had to move on from that Cleveland loss, and
the best way to do it is to pick up
two wins of the NF or excuse me, the AFC
North right away. Green Bay did that. And if I may,
just a couple other things just I want to touch
on very quickly. You see Carson wentz go down with
the Vikings. Now it looks like JJ McCarthy will be back.
We'll talk about that probably on Thursday as well. But
(37:12):
they get absolutely routed by the Chargers in that game,
the Baltimore Ravens, who are at one in five. But
I think we're actually still the favorite going into that
against the four and two Bears, despite the fact that
Lamar Jackson wasn't playing.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah, that surprised me. But the odds makers, they know,
they know things sometimes.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah, And I'll be honest with you. I'm talking above
both from the Ravens point of view and Scoot Huntley's
point of view. Tyler Huntley should be on the Ravens forever.
Like as long as Lamar Jackson's the quarterback there, Huntley
should be his backup. It's gotten really cute the last
few years. Huntley, you know, moved around a couple spots.
The Ravens were trying different quarterbacks behind. Huntley's the one
(37:51):
that can keep you on your program. And he played
an exceptional game against the Bears. Did Calebs did not?
As he continues to kind of ride those waves here
and you too. There were so many things and we
were running out of time here. But Houston beating as
you mentioned, beating San Francisco, Denver beating Dallas, Kansas City
beating Max or excuse me, Marcus Mariota and the Commanders
(38:13):
just win games, man. And when the AFC NFC matchups
kind of fall that way, it allows nature to sort
of take its course. Because here's the thing. Every playoff
team right now, in the standings you want to call them,
are at five wins through eight weeks or six, I
mean they have at least five. Yeah, and you need
to pick up as many of these things as possible
because there's going to be teams that just get knocked
(38:34):
off along the way. There's going to be teams that
are right there with the Packers that will lose to
a Cleveland Browns. But the Packers are they already use
that get out of jail free card. Now you need
to play clean football and that continues this Sunday against
the Carolina Panthers.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, and we will talk about the Carolina Panthers as
well as some of those other issues on our next
show because we've gone way overtime, but we only had
one show last week, so we're allowed to go overtime
on our first show this week. But please do continue
to follow all of our coverage of the team on
Packers dot com for Wesim Mike. Thank you for tuning
in everybody. We will see you next time.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
M
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Packers Unscripted from
Packers dot Com. I am Mike Spafford, joined as always
by my partner and everything Packers, Wes Hodko. It's coming
to you hear from our studios at lambeau Field, and
I should say welcome back. I apologize I was not
able to be in the office last Thursday to tape
our second show of the week, but we aren't going
(00:28):
to do that show, Wes, because that would be previewing
the Steelers game. Instead, we are going to review a
thirty five to twenty five Packers victory from Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
And I'm thankful that you are the upstanding gentleman that
you are, that you are the person that you are,
that you're willing to step out in front of this thing.
As I told people on Twitter, what actually happened last
Thursday was the money wasn't right and sometimes you have
to stand up for yourself. So I came down to
the studio on Thursday. You were all set, you were
ready to go. I told Hannah our I told the
(01:01):
construction crew, I told everybody that would listen. Wes has
certain demands to do this show. I've been doing it
for ten seasons now. If these demands are not met,
there is no show. Fortunately, the two sides came back
to the table on Friday, we got a deal worked
out and Packers unscripted as back today. But Mike, I
appreciate you trying to cover for me. That's the man
(01:23):
that you are.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Well, yeah, there is one of us covering for the
other here, but that aside. Yeah, the Packers one thirty
five to twenty five. My friend and I don't know
where you want to start with this one. Obviously we
weren't able to talk about all of the Jordan Love
Aaron Rodgers, you know, that main storyline. But as this
game unfolded, what it really became about was, quite frankly,
(01:49):
the Packers getting up off the mat in the second half,
down sixteen to seven at halftime on the road, and
Green Bay answered the bell and suddenly Jordan Love got hot,
the offense got hot, and twenty eight points in the
second half turned into quite the road victory for Green Bay.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I want you to talk about whatever you want to
talk about in the show. As our digital department reminds me,
this is your show, it's not my show. But I
want to say this, and this is where I want
to start, and then you can take it from there.
We can discuss anything you want to discuss after this.
There was one story in this game. To me, it
was your column, it was your top of the five
things takeaways. It was Jordan Love. Because I said it beforehand.
(02:40):
This kid is as cool and as calm and collected
as you will find as a professional athlete. I'm not
talking about quarterback. I'm not talking about NFL player. I'm
talking when you make up the prototype for an NFL
football player, a basketball player, a hitter at the bottom
of the ninth inning or the eighteenth inning, as you
(03:01):
were just telling me a couple of minutes ago, Yeah,
you want to have the type of disposition that Jordan
Love has. And the thing and if you you know,
if I would have been bouncing ideas off of you.
This meant nothing to Renee Gabriel, our social media manager
who was with me in Pittsburgh. But what kept going
through my mind as I watched that game, it wasn't
about Aaron Rodgers. It was about where Jordan went Love
(03:24):
was two years ago when we were in Pittsburgh, in
the way that he played in that setting, twenty nine
of thirty seven, three hundred and sixty yards, three touchdowns,
a one thirty four point two passer rating, which is
the highest of his in his regular season of his
NFL career. Jordan Love showed that when the pressure is there,
he is an absolute diamond. And to see the maturation
(03:47):
of a football player, a guy that the Packers committed
themselves two and a half years ago, that was beautiful
to watch. Oh and by the way, his mentor his
predecessor was on the other sid sideline. Yeah, that's that's
some big time stuff. It was.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
It was a it was a crucible, so to speak,
when it comes to everything that was on Jordan Love
in this game. And uh and yeah, to to walk
into the locker room at halftime, you've only got seven
points on the board. That wasn't all his fault. Brandon
McManus unfortunately missed a couple of field goals. One of
(04:25):
them was really long, just came up a little bit short.
Then when the Packers are looking for that momentum boost
right at the end of the first half like they
got in Arizona, but then it didn't happen, McManus unfortunately
missed again to walk into that locker room with only
seven points on the board at halftime and uh, and
then to come out and do what he did in
the second half, the twenty straight completions. It started on
(04:48):
that final possession, the last thirty four seconds of the
first half, completed four straight passes to get in position
for the field goal, which unfortunately was missed. But those
those four completions started the streak of twenty in a row,
and that tied Brett Fare's franchise record, which he set
on Thanksgiving Day in Detroit in two thousand and seven.
(05:12):
So that was, if my math is right, eighteen years ago.
And what was most impressive to me about Love's performance
was that in the first half, every time it got
to third down, the Steelers blitzed, and the Packers didn't
have a whole lot of answers for that. In the
(05:34):
second half, they found the answers. Jordan Love stood in
the pocket, he took the hits. He yes, he threw
up a couple of passes that looks sort of like
prayers in a sense. But when the defense is blitzing
and you know that they're compromised in coverage, you can
put it up there and give your guys a chance
to go make a play, and that's what he did,
(05:56):
and his teammates came through for him, Tucker Craft, Christian Watson.
They made those plays and suddenly twenty straight completions turns
into five consecutive scoring drives, three touchdowns, two field goals.
It was a tour to force performance by Jordan Love
if it had happened anywhere. The fact, as you said,
(06:18):
that it happened on the road in a stadium where
he had had kind of a rough game and had
lost a couple of years ago with a couple with
a couple of interceptions down the stretch, and the fact
that it was his mentor and predecessor's game against his
former team, and that that was the quarterback matchup. Just
(06:40):
I mean a performance for the Ages, quite frankly by
Jordan Love.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
And the way that he bounced back and led that
team in the second half, I think speaks to the
growth and maturation of a leader of a guy were
in that captain's patch. Now you're right, things were not
trending in the right direction. This wasn't like Arizona where
you salvage something at the end of the half. Felt
like he had some momentum. Packers had zero momentum. Oh
and by the way, Pittsburgh had a chance to double
(07:04):
up coming out of the second half. Credit to the
defense they got off the field. Some wild stuff happened
on the officiating front. There's so much to talk about
this matchup. I don't even really want to get into
any of that. But that being said, the Packers got
the ball back and when Jordan Love needed to make
a play, what did he do? He went back to
the guy that has been his most consistent, reliable target
(07:26):
this season, and that's Tucker Craft. For Tucker a week
after making an absolute game changing, game altering catch in
Arizona two in that instance, catch a fifty nine yard
pass in run up field and as next Gen stat said,
plus thirty six above expectation for the amount of yards
that he pulled out of that thing. And then he
(07:47):
was asked afterwards, well, did you feel like there might
have been somemo pi And he's like, yeah, there's also
some holding going on there too, So whatever it takes
to make the play happen. And I even tweeted during
the game, I had a hard time understanding the difference
between the cornerback on Craft or on Craft on that play,
and then what happened with with Keishawn Nixon on another
play where he was in trail coverage. But be that
(08:08):
as it may, one of the fun moments being in
the press box, there was some I don't know if
it was staffers from the Steelers or some people that
obviously had a vested interest in the success of the
Pittsburgh Steelers that were directly behind where we were sitting
in the press box. And after Kraft caught his second
touchdown later on in the game, the twenty four yard er,
someone even said is he is he a receiver? Is
(08:31):
that guy? What does he play for them? Like they didn't.
And I loved at that exact moment on the television camera,
Tucker Craft looking into the camera and saying, I do this.
It felt to me like last year was the breakout, right,
we all saw what he could be.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, it was the arrival, the arrival for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
It now the national public, the people that have fantasy
football teams, the people that are just casual viewers, they
know who Tucker Craft is and Mike. I could list
off all the superlatives for you, but the fact is
is that the Packers hit on a good one and
this guy, man, he is going to be something special. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
And when you you look at you mentioned the game
changing reception last week in Arizona, which was on the
fourth and two the guts he called to go for
it as opposed to kick the tying field goal, and
Tucker Craft was actually the third option on that play.
Jordan Love found him well when there was a crucial
fourth and one in this game, he wasn't the third option,
(09:32):
my friend. He was getting the this that play was
designed for Tucker Craft to get the first down. Just
another another example of the steps forward that that are
being taken. And then when he runs, you know, whether
you want to call it a slant or a Texas route,
you know, kind of out and in and uh. And
(09:53):
you watch Big number eighty five. I mean, what is
he about? Two hundred and fifty five, two hundred and
sixty pounds right in that range and he's running away
from the safety to the goal line. They couldn't catch him.
You know. It was like a five yard pass and
he turns it into a twenty four yard touchdown because
he turned on the Jets and beat everybody to the goal.
Line just tremendous, and one hundred and thirty one of
(10:15):
his one hundred and forty three receiving yards were after
the catch. Excuse me, just a He is becoming he's
becoming a big time weapon. And we knew this was
We knew this was happening, and it just happened to
come now in a nationally televised game. But oh, by
the way, along with all those receiving numbers and everything
(10:37):
that he's doing, he's also one of the best blocking
titans in the NFL. This guy is a complete player
at his position.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
He's insane. It is wild to watch. And somebody had
made a remark to well, how could he have one
hundred and thirty one yards after the catch? Dude, go
back and watch a film. See how close to the
line of scrimmage he was when he caught basically every
one of his passes. The fifty nine yard was probably
the most he was downfield. Yeah, a couple of those
he might have even been in the started right.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
And that's that's how we that's how the differential between
his yardage and his yards after catch was only twelve
Because if he catches a swing pass that you know
is four or five yards in the backfield. He's getting
the yards after catch from where he catches it, not
from the line of scrimmage, whereas the receiving yards are
from the line of scrimmage. So it's sort of like
(11:22):
on some of those plays, the gap between the yak
and the actual receiving yards starts to close because because
he's getting some of the yards after catch actually behind
the line of scrimmage. Be that as it may, just
just another incredible outing from a player who's uh, who's
just coming into his own I mean, what's Tucker. I mean,
we know year twenty four, I was I was about
(11:44):
to say twenty five, twenty twenty five, next month, Wow, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Are you doing when you were twenty four years old?
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I was almost on my way to cover my first
Super Bowl?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
But hey go.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
But yeah, on top of that, though, when it comes
to this Packers passing game, Christian Watson got back into action.
We had talked about this for a long time. Was
that we were sort of thinking whether whether it was
a long ways out or as things got closer, Hey,
think of Christian Watson maybe being back sometime in November.
(12:20):
And I think you were the one who said it first.
If he's able to come back and play in a
game in October and get into action, consider it a bonus.
Well this wasn't just a bonus. This was a This
was a big time impact. Yeah, four catches, eighty plus yards.
He uh, he delivered. And for all of the concern
(12:42):
about oh, the turf in Pittsburgh and all these issues
and is that really safe for him and whatnot, I
will confess he played a lot more snaps than I
thought he would and thought he was in his in
his first game back. I didn't expect to see him
on the field that much. But but boy, he looked
like he never left. I guess that's the best way
(13:04):
I can put it.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
So a couple things of this one. I want to
just give it. I did it inbox, I'm gonna do
it on our show now. Give a huge kudos to
Chris Keene Packers equipment staff. There was a little bit
of slipping going on. You probably saw it on TV
that the first few series, but man, the Packers figured
that turf out quick Pittsburgh played. They did do a
resotting of it, but then Pittsburgh played on it. The
(13:25):
College played on it Saturday.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, the day before and it looked rough.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
No disrespect to the fine folks at Akrascher Stadium and
in that field that is one of my favorite road
trips in terms of just the human beings that you're
dealing with. The field was in tough shape. It was
comparable to some of those those rough years in Chicago.
The Packers made it work. And yes, there was a
little bit of probably more external worry and concern about
Christian making his return on that field, but the Packers
(13:51):
from an equipment standpoint were good to go. From a
mental standpoint, Christian Watson was set. I was talking with
them afterwards. A bunch of the media were grabbing them
after the game, and you know, he said he really
tried to keep things as normal as possible going into
this one. He did his usual routine, which is funny
to think about it because it really had been nine
months and he's been in this thing again. Yeah, but
(14:11):
you know, all the way from what he's eating, you know, resting,
playing video games. And then he said it was really
when he was packing up his bag to go to
the stadium, it kind of hit him like I'm playing
football today. Yeah, And Mattelflour was asked about that, about
what his snapcount was. Rob Damofsky Robed Damofski's Stats and
Info was reporting that it was thirty six official snaps.
I never got a chance to look at the game book.
(14:32):
I could right now, but I'm too lazy. But the
fact is is that he started off two catches modest
twenty four yards, but kind of like Craft a week
earlier in Arizona when there was some gotta have them
type catches, gotta have them type plays. Watson was again
that primary target for Jordan Love. The thirty three yard
catch on third down probably was the most critical in
(14:54):
this comeback, being able to not only exact momentum, extract momentum,
but also just given the situation where Green Bay really
needed points at that moment and he came through. The
other thing I loved about it, He said that was
actually the second time or before that, Love had changed
the play twice already, and then they made another adjustment,
And I mean, my goodness, I knew it was a
(15:15):
cool throw and catch from the press box, but when
I finally got to see the video afterwards, you realized
how Love snuck that thing in there.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, that was a heck of a throw, yeah, and
he was his body was going one way. He kind
of had to throw it back across his body. And
when I saw it, and I mentioned this in Monday
Mornings inside our Inbox, I actually think Love wanted to
put more on it. I think if he's able to
get more on the throw, I think Watson is running
away from the defense, you know, and essentially is able
(15:44):
to make a much easier kind of clear catch, probably
for a touchdown there. But with Love having to throw
the ball back across his body, there's only so much
you can you can get on the ball. But again
it was against a blitz, you know, so he bought
some time. He knows the coverage is compromised in terms
of in terms of numbers, and he knows he's got
(16:06):
a six foot four wide receiver down there. Who's uh,
who's gonna try to make him right if he gives
him a chance to make a play, And and he
did that. Just a great a great return for Watson.
One more thought on the offense before we shift gears
to the defense, because there's plenty of talk about there too.
But Emmanuel Wilson provided a spark both in the running
(16:30):
game and with catching some passes. I believe he ended
up with over eighty total yards combined rushing and receiving
in this game. And what I like the best about
Wilson was he was just he was running hard, like
he was taking it to anybody who was trying to
tackle him. And that kind of that kind of sent
(16:53):
a message in a way that you know, Emmanuel, Emmanuel
Wilson doesn't take the field and look like a backup.
He takes the field. He takes the field ready to
deliver some punishment and be a big part of this thing.
And we've seen, I think really since the Dallas game
right before the bye week, we've seen Emmanuel Wilson's growth
(17:15):
in his role in this offense. And that's only going
to mean good things for the long haul here with
Josh Jacobs and what they want to do in the backfield.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
It is the ultimate example of undrafted in development. What's
happened with Wilson because the Packers saw a skill set
there when they claimed him. Because I've said it once,
I've said it before, but you know, the Packers claimed
him in May. He signed originally with Denver as an
undrafted free agent. He's only there for a couple of days,
I think, and then they let him go and he
(17:45):
ends up being in Green Bay and you always think
of those guys when they arrived sort of late. Okay,
is that a quote unquote camp body and Wilson quickly proved,
especially with that preseason performance against Cincinnati, that he was
more than that.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Right, this is a real player.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
But his maturation and growth, I mean, it's just it.
It's crazy, the type of not only the player he's become,
but the person that he's become. And as Matt Leffler said,
he was dealing with a little bit on his heart
in that game. I don't know all the details of it.
You could see some of it on social media, but
he played with the purpose and I actually short changed him.
I was talking to the locker room afterwards. I grabbed
(18:18):
him and I'm like, yeah, seventy seven total yards. It
was actually eighty seven. I'm bad at math, sorry, only
twenty six on the act and that one. But the
fact is is that as he said, when this offense
they came out of that second half, they need to
make a play. Seventy seven of his total yards did
come in the second half. Yeah, I only had ten.
He said it was a little bit of a slow
start for him in the offense, but he knows basically
(18:40):
three things. When ten's going, he's going, as he said,
and when they make plays, you know, this offense starts humming,
and in Wilson's case, when he starts getting downhill, he
builds steam quickly. And he has been a really nobody
anticipated Emmanuel Wilson being the number two back to Josh Jacobs.
(19:00):
We thought last year it was going to be aj Dillon.
This year, obviously, Marshawn Lloyd was back, Chris Brooks is
up there, and Wilson sort of faded in the background
for a little bit. Well, the last two three games
he's been back up into the forefront. Jacob's dealing with
the calf injury. I think he has played really, really
solid and showed that, Yes to your point, I think
that's a great point you made. This isn't just some
(19:21):
random undrafted guy. This isn't just a backup running back.
This is a guy that when he's on the field,
his mentality is that I am the dude.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We'll take a quick break and pay
some bills and hear from our sponsors. Then we'll come
back and talk about the Packers' defensive performance in this game.
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(19:47):
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(20:09):
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Wisconsin dot com slash Wonders. Welcome back to Packers Unscripted West.
(20:30):
On the defensive side of this game in Pittsburgh again,
kind of much like the first half on offense, there
were there were rough moments on the defensive side. You know,
there were some penalties and Keishawn Nixon was you know,
was having some trouble and coverage and whatnot. But the
(20:53):
Packers defense three times in the first half, was able
to hold the Steelers to long field goal attempts. So
Pittsburgh had just sixteen points on the board at halftime,
and against a quarterback like Aaron Rodgers, and you could
almost see you could almost see Rogers, even though the
Steelers were winning, they were going into halftime, you know,
(21:15):
sixteen to seven. You could almost see the frustration on Rogers'
face that he knew that the Steelers weren't finishing these
drives right, that they were leaving points out on the
board because they kept sending Boswell out for these long kicks.
The Packers defense hung in there, only allowed the one
touchdown in the first half, forced a bunch of field goals,
and then in the second half, in the second half,
(21:37):
they really started to make things a lot more difficult
for Rogers.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Can you I gotta ask you, because you're watching the
game on TV.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I was in the press box y this particular game.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
This was going in my head as I'm watching this,
and it would have been the exact question. These are
all the things I wanted to ask you during the
game that I couldn't. So, yeah, why did Pittsburgh stop
running the ball?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
That is that is a huge question. Do you know
how many.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Times Pittsburgh ran the ball in the second half? Do
you know?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
I don't know. I don't know, but I know because
I looked it up for times. Yeah, I put it
an insider inbox. Eleven of their first twelve snaps in
the second half, Rogers was dropping back to pass. So yeah,
they they quit running the ball with Warren and it
played into the Packers' hands quite frankly.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
So here's the difference in the game. Yes, let's talk
about Rodgers here in a second. Here's the difference in the game.
Pittsburgh ran the ball really, really well in the first
half and the Packers did not the second half. The
Packers state committed to the run, found some explosive plays
there with Emmanuel Wilson with Josh Jacobs in space. Josh
Jacobs again is probably the best goal line.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, another rushing touchdown for number eight.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
What an insane guy. This guy is right inside the
five yard line. He finds a way. And Pittsburgh ran
the ball three times for twelve twelve yards twelve yearns.
I don't get it, like and maybe that's just the
old Aaron Rodgers. You know, I covered him, and I
just I they had a blueprint that was working for them.
They were not finishing drives. Chris Boswell is the most
underrated kicker in the National Football League. But they were
(23:05):
scoring points and they were being effective. Everything stopped because
they were It's not that they weren't running the ball
in the fourth quarter when the Packers pulled a head.
They weren't running the ball when they had the lead. Yeah,
I just I don't. It's mind boggling to me that said.
That approach allowed the Packers pass rush to get going.
It allowed the secondary to seemingly settle down. Ye Carrington Valentine,
(23:25):
who was making the start in the perimeter I thought
had a really strong game at Lafleuur backed it up
on Monday. Kuay Walker was making plays, Eddrin Cooper got
a major takeaway, Packers defense got its momentum built in
the second half, and I to this day, I still
don't understand what the Steelers were trying to do to
assist Aaron Rodgers, who wasn't perfect by a meanings the
(23:47):
first half, but was efficient and was taking advantage of opportunities.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Yeah, and and and Rodgers was certainly not putting the
ball in harm's way. He was definitely aware of Micah
Parsons at every you know, at every moment, and was
protecting himself a lot from Parsons. Rashan Gary got one
sack in the first half. Then in the second half
we saw both Gary and Parsons get sacks. At the
(24:11):
end of the day, the Steelers were just one out
of ten on third down, which you hold Aaron Rodgers
to one out of ten on third down, you're doing
You're doing something right. And yeah, and it was it
was a lot of It was a lot of third
and lungs. You mentioned the takeaway as well, that came
that came in a big moment where the Packers had
the lead, but the game was certainly, you know, was
(24:32):
certainly very much in the balance, and Rogers, looking to
put together a drive, takes the checkdown throw to Kenneth Gainwell,
uh Eddrian Cooper punches it out. Javon Bullet recovers. The
Packers turn that into a field goal add to their lead.
Just keeping keeping that second half momentum on Green Bay side.
With that takeaway, you mentioned two guys that Matt Lafleur
(24:54):
also talked about on Monday. I have a story on
Packers dot Com from late in the day on Monday
about it. Kway Walker Carrington Valentine I thought were two
of the defensive heroes in this game for the Packers.
Walker played, I thought his usual solid game in terms
of being a presence at the line of scrimmage, chasing
sideline to sideline. That's what That's what kuay Walker does.
(25:16):
He laid a couple of big hits in this game.
I mean he to put his shoulder pads down and
powered into a couple of guys. But that moment in
the fourth quarter where DK Metcalf, I don't know what
Metcalf was up to. He's clearly trying to provoke Quay
Walker provoked with a poke, you know, sticks his fingers
through his face mask as though to poke him in
(25:38):
the eye. And then when that doesn't get a reaction
from Walker, he grabs his face mask and kind of
yanks on it, tugs on it a little bit. That
doesn't get a reaction from Walker, and the flags fly
and the Steelers go from a third and two when
they're only down by ten points with ten minutes left,
the game is still very much at hand. Down by
ten ten minutes left, a third and two turns into
(25:59):
a third and sevent because kuay Walker keeps his composure.
He admitted, the rookie quay Walker of twenty twenty two,
who had gotten ejected from games a couple of times,
would not have would not have been able to contain
himself in that way. But kuay Walker has come a
long way. As Matt Lafleur said, he's wearing that sea
on his chest on the defense for a reason. He's
(26:21):
voted a team captain defensively for a reason. That was
a big moment in the game. And my hat is
off to number seven because I don't know if somebody
tried to stick their fingers through my face mask, if
I would have been able to just walk away.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Sorry, another couple of things to that. Yeah, what happened
the two plays before that incident? Do you remember? I
don't two Jalen Warren runs. Two of the three runs
in the second half came on that series.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
And it was third and two and last was going
to be his last.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
One was a five yard run.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, that was going to set up third and two.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
That instead ended up basically being a ten yard loss
for them. This shows you the discipline aspect of when
mattvil Flor's talking about playing smart football, right, that's the
type of thing you got accompt form because here's the thing.
There is gonna be enough bad calls against you. There's
gonna be enough things that tilt against you. You can't
make it obvious. You can't give officials a reason to
(27:18):
throw that flag. I'll be honest with you, with the
way that game was trending with Sean Hockeyley, no disrespect,
but I was actually a little nervous when I was like,
please tell me they're not gonna come up with some
ka kamene am allowed to say? Is that a good
Is that?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah? That's a good word, ka kameny excuse?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah? Or okay? Well, offsetting penalties, if Quay Walker grabs
the face mask of DK Metcalf, don't even care about
what happened with quay three years ago. If he does that,
it could have been the most stand up citizen A
lot of people would have had that reaction. Offsetting penalties, right, Yep,
no doubt he stands in there, the officials see it,
they throw the flag. You let the officials handle it.
(27:55):
Third and seventeen, Rogers drops back and what happens yet
again Rashan gary Sackson him two rashaun s Gary Sachs
in this game, three overall, including the one for minus
ten yards at the beginning of the fourth quarter. With
Micah Parsons. The Packers defense is a good defense and
when you give them opportunities, you're going to find success.
And Mike, I'll be honest with you again. Another thing
(28:16):
I was telling Renee during the game that she probably
was like, why does this guy keep talking to me?
But it was the idea that it's.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Because you didn't have me to talk to. I'll be there.
I'll be I'll be at the rest of the I'm
looking forward. So this was a this was a one off.
I don't I don't like to miss games. But I
had to skip this road trip.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Which is understandable. Who wants to go to who wants
to spend a day and a half in a hotel?
But no, But here's the thing. So Renee is working,
I think, and I said to her, I was like, listen,
no disrespect to Aaron Rodgers. But these were the situations
where when Rogers it would be a negative penalty like that.
Then Rogers goes back in the pocket, he holds onto
the ball too long, and it's a sack. The green
Bay Packers were the beneficiary of it in this one.
(28:54):
You could see it, and you could see that turn
in the fourth quarter when Rogers just waiting and waiting
and waiting for something to happened down field, and it doesn't.
The pressure gets home. It just it was the snowball
that kept moving. The way I looked at this game
as a whole mic was it was like a track
meet where it was it was two guys, two people
running a thirty two hundred meter relay. The Pittsburgh Steelers
(29:15):
got out to an early lead, they're up to that
mile mark, but green Bay out paced them, and once
they got to that, you know, the sixth lap, the seventh,
they just went. And I think that was probably the
biggest takeaway from this the game against Arizona, they showed
a lot of moxie finding a way to win that
late in this game. It showed them that Okay, we're
gonna get this lead and we're not going to give
it back, We're going to take it.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, they stayed, They stayed in command of this game.
I do want to mention Carrington Valentine as well. You
already brought them up once we learned from Matt Lafleur
that essentially what's been going on at cornerback for it
sounds like the last couple of weeks now has been
essentially an in practice competition for playing time primarily between
(29:57):
Nate Hobbs and Carrington Valentine. Lafleur suggest Keishawn Nixon would
be in that mix now as well. But in Arizona,
Nate Hobbs basically played the entire game and Valentine only
played a couple snaps on defense. It flipped in Pittsburgh.
Valentine basically played all the snaps on defense, all but
one maybe, and Nate Hobbs only played a few snaps defensively.
(30:20):
Valentine answered the call in this one that that pass
breakup on the seam route to the end zone to
DK Metcalf, that was pretty impressive and that was a
big that was that was a four point play. The
Steelers end up settling for a field goal, kept him
out of the end zone. They only get three instead
of seven there because of that breakup on Metcalf almost
(30:43):
had came close to a really good breakup actually on Washington,
the big tight end, but then he got called for
the pass interference. I mean that's a two hundred and
eighty pound tight end that he's you know that he's
trying to handle there. But then almost had the big
another big breakup of Roman Wilson in the end zone.
It actually was originally call an incomplete past the replay
(31:04):
assists change it to a touchdown. I think they got
that call right. But uh, Valentine what what Matt Lafuir
talked about, he was really he was impressed with Valentine's
just his competitiveness, how he challenged everything. There were the
phrase the best phrase from Matt Lafleur on Monday in
talking about Valentine's play, he said, there were no gimmes.
(31:26):
He just didn't give them anything. He made them, he
made them earn anything that uh that went his way,
and we'll see where things go from here. Now it's
we don't get to watch eleven on eleven. The team
snaps during practice like during the week, the media, you know,
we aren't there, so how things are gonna unfold every
week in practice in terms of who's leading the competition
(31:48):
and who's going to get the snaps. We're just going
to be finding out on Sunday for a while here
how this is going to go. But but hats off
to Carrington Valentine for for a really, really solid performance
after what I thought were you know, going back to
the Dallas game when Dak Prescott really got rolling in
the second half in Dallas. You know, Valentine had some
(32:10):
rough moments just like all the other cornerbacks did, so
I thought it was a big step forward for him.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
It's a tough deal, Michael, because we saw the rotation
go back into effect at right guard in this one.
Right Sean Ryan ended up playing more snaps than Jordan
Morgan in this one thirty five Do I think what
was it twenty nine Packers, including that Dallas game, were
trying to find ways to sort of rotate in Valentine.
It's not the easiest thing to do at cornerback. Yeah,
(32:38):
it does. And this goes back to twenty fourteen. I
can remember when the Packers had a surplus of cornerbacks
when Tremon Williams was healthy Casey Hayward was healthy, Devon
House was healthy, and Sam Shields was also there. They
didn't know who to play with how much nickel they do,
so they had to tremon moved inside. They started doing
different things when Casey was out. That's kind of where
(33:00):
they're at right now. But sometimes it is just better
to let a guy go out there, get into a rhythm,
establish it, not break it, as long as he's not healthy,
you know, as long as he's healthy not injured. And
I thought that's what we saw here. I thought Carrington
was given the full workload. He was allowed to be
himself out there. It's a tough spot to be in though,
because obviously Nate just got a pretty big contract. I
think everybody believes he can do a lot of good things.
(33:22):
Matt Lafleur said, you know, they have a lot of
confidence in him. He's had some of these knee issues,
but overall he's healthy and available.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Hey, and if this is a reset for Hobbs, you know,
I mean, after you mentioned the injuries, he had a
rough game in Arizona. Everybody knows that. But if this
allows him to reset, the Packers defense will be better
off for it. In the long run.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah, and you kind of wonder too, you know when
a guy goes down, because it's not like he dealt
with that kneel. I mean, he had it during training camp,
but then he was added the injury report on Friday
and then he ends up playing on it. Be that
as it may, everyone's injured. I get that. I just
think that when you have somebody like Carrington in the
fold too, that you and I for a number of
years now, going back to really his rookie year, we've
talked about this guy having starting caliber attributes. Yeah, finding
(34:03):
ways to get him going and finding ways to keep
all these guys involved, because Mike, here is the thing.
It's week nine now, There's gonna be more injuries through
the course of the season. There's gonna be things that
are gonna pop up, and you're gonna need Nate Hobbs.
You're gonna need Sean Ryan, You're gonna need Jordan Morgan,
You're gonna need Carington Valentine. You're gonna need those guys
to get through the season. Even to bring it back
to our intro with Christian Watson, right, Christian, there's all
(34:26):
these people that always say, well, if you add Christian Watson.
You got you got Dobbs, and you got Golden, and
you got Tucker, and you got this. You can't look
at it like that. You have to be looking at
it from the standpoint of a recurring calf injury for
Dantavian Wicks rears its ugly head again and now he's
unavailable for this game, and you don't have Jayden Reid
because he broke his collar bone last month. Christian Watson
comes back into the fold at exactly the right time
(34:48):
the Packers need him where they could use a healthy receiver.
That's how this game is played a lot of times.
So yes, what happened on Sunday does not dictate the future.
Things can change quickly. Sometimes destiny has a role in that.
But the nice about it is the Packers have some
depth there, and they have a lot of guys that
have played a lot of football now that they can
rely on.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, well, we've more than filled the show here. I
do want to say, with regard to officiating issues from
this game and from Arizona, I want to revisit some
of this stuff on our next show. I want to
take I want to take some time on Thursday show
to talk about some of this stuff. The last thing
before we go, I just want to give everybody the
rundown on where things are. The Packers in the NFC
(35:28):
North on top at five to one and one, the
Detroit Lions who were on the by at five and two.
The Bears and the Vikings both lost on the road
to AFC teams this past week, So the Bears are
four and three, the Vikings are three and four. As
far as the rest of the NFC is concerned, the
Packers statistically at five to one and one are still
(35:49):
in the top spot. Philadelphia and Tampa Bay right behind
at six and two. Then you have the Rams and
the Seahawks, who were both on their by this past week.
They are both five and two, and then the forty
nine Ers who lost to an AFC team. The Packers
got some good results they did this week. As far
as these AFC NFC matchups, San Francisco lost to the
a FCS Houston Texans. They are now five and three.
(36:13):
Not a lot has been sorted out yet, certainly, and
we're technically not even at the at the halfway point
of the season here. But but when you look at
you look at where the Packers. Are you look at
what else is going on in the NFC. This This
was the type of road win that that is going
(36:34):
to carry you a little ways, right, I mean, because
this was this was one of those that's a that's
a coin flip going in and uh and the Packers
were able to come away with it impressively and hopefully
now three of the next four games at home. Hopefully
this is where the Packers can start building on something.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
You had to move on from that Cleveland loss, and
the best way to do it is to pick up
two wins of the NF or excuse me, the AFC
North right away. Green Bay did that. And if I may,
just a couple other things just I want to touch
on very quickly. You see Carson wentz go down with
the Vikings. Now it looks like JJ McCarthy will be back.
We'll talk about that probably on Thursday as well. But
(37:12):
they get absolutely routed by the Chargers in that game,
the Baltimore Ravens, who are at one in five. But
I think we're actually still the favorite going into that
against the four and two Bears, despite the fact that
Lamar Jackson wasn't playing.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah, that surprised me. But the odds makers, they know,
they know things sometimes.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah, And I'll be honest with you. I'm talking above
both from the Ravens point of view and Scoot Huntley's
point of view. Tyler Huntley should be on the Ravens forever.
Like as long as Lamar Jackson's the quarterback there, Huntley
should be his backup. It's gotten really cute the last
few years. Huntley, you know, moved around a couple spots.
The Ravens were trying different quarterbacks behind. Huntley's the one
(37:51):
that can keep you on your program. And he played
an exceptional game against the Bears. Did Calebs did not?
As he continues to kind of ride those waves here
and you too. There were so many things and we
were running out of time here. But Houston beating as
you mentioned, beating San Francisco, Denver beating Dallas, Kansas City
beating Max or excuse me, Marcus Mariota and the Commanders
(38:13):
just win games, man. And when the AFC NFC matchups
kind of fall that way, it allows nature to sort
of take its course. Because here's the thing. Every playoff
team right now, in the standings you want to call them,
are at five wins through eight weeks or six, I
mean they have at least five. Yeah, and you need
to pick up as many of these things as possible
because there's going to be teams that just get knocked
(38:34):
off along the way. There's going to be teams that
are right there with the Packers that will lose to
a Cleveland Browns. But the Packers are they already use
that get out of jail free card. Now you need
to play clean football and that continues this Sunday against
the Carolina Panthers.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, and we will talk about the Carolina Panthers as
well as some of those other issues on our next
show because we've gone way overtime, but we only had
one show last week, so we're allowed to go overtime
on our first show this week. But please do continue
to follow all of our coverage of the team on
Packers dot com for Wesim Mike. Thank you for tuning
in everybody. We will see you next time.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.